How can you tell when you are addicted to self-harm?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “am i addicted to coffee quiz“
How can you tell when you are addicted to self-harm?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “am i addicted to coffee quiz“
You are addicted if you cannot go at least a week without it but its not really a good thing if you’re doing it at all. There is help available in case you feel like this may turn into anything worse like suicidal thoughts. Please talk to someone you trust if you consistently have the need to harm yourself in this manner. There are tons of people who care about you including myself, take care and I hope this helps <3
I’m pretty sure I’m addicted myself. Every time I’m upset, the only thing that crosses my mind is feeling the razor cut through my skin whilst blood drips down my body. I immediately think about hurting myself in any type of way. I usually carry a razor with me just in case I can’t take it anymore and need a break from everyone around. This is how I feel, I don’t know about other people. I guess it’s different for everyone? Anyways, take care of yourself & stay safe, don’t forget to drink some water:)
I love u
How do you feel when you go without doing it for a long time? (For some this can be a day, or it could be a few months)
When you have a lot of distress, is it the first thing you go to/think about?
Do you want to stop but just can’t seem to do it?
Do you end up self harming more than you anticipated/wanted to at the beginning of acting?
do you feel like you’re addicted?
these are just a few things to think about. Not any one of them means you’re addicted but how you think about self harm could give you some insight. Also, “addiction” is a scary word no matter what kind it is. Self harm is a coping skill and you do it for a reason. Try to be kind to yourself when evaluating where you’re at:)
(I’m not a doctor and I’m not trying to diagnose)
Here are signs of addiction:
Physical cravings (tingling, itching, or discomfort in the area you want to harm)
Mental cravings (obsessing over it all the time, having intrusive thoughts all the time, picturing past times and imagining future times)
Emotional cravings (urgency, anger, anxiety, apprehension or more negative emotions revolving around self-harm that are only appeased when you self harm)
Getting high or crashing after you cut (either becoming silly and euphoric or exhausted and numb directly afterwards)
Withdrawals (similar to physical cravings but involving symptoms of physical illness, such as headaches or nausea, that are only appeased by more self harm)
Asking or wondering if you are addicted to self harm
Hope this helps.
When u cut yourself more and more often, or when u cut yourself deeper and deeper, feeling like u need cutting to relief your pain, to make u feel, to unload your guilt, thats the time when u know that u are addicted to cutting yourself.
I am going through the addiction, I dont seem to see the end of it. I started self harming since I was in grade 7. I started to bite my arms and leave bruises. It was so relieved after biting my arms. And soon it elevated to hurting myself with needles, scissors and finally cutters. I have bought so many cutters and my mum has thrown away so many cutters, so many that i couldn’t even count. I love the feeling of cutting, it helps me to stay calm when i was crying hysterically, when the pain was eating me. It helps me to put down the guilt, to punish myself for hurting people, making people sad, and other sorts of mistakes.
I started from 2–3 scars, and slowing increasing to 10–20 scars. Deeper and deeper scars. I enjoy seeing the blood coming down of my legs, feeling the pain, thinking that i deserve all of it. It clears my guilt, and distracts me from the heartache. The scars are part of me, which remind me of what i have gone through.
But if you are considering to start cutting. I strong recommend you to choose an alternative way. Cutting is a pathetic path which will always end up getting addicted. Not that you want it to be addicted, but it will eventually. Trust me. I want to stop cutting myself desperately, but every time i face the guilt and pain, i end up cutting again, not that i can control. It is so pathetic, such a shame. I want to hide the scars from everyone, dont want anyone to be worry, feel frustrated, or feel disturbed of me cutting.
If you are finding a way to punish yourself or make yourself feel, try some better ways, for example workout until u feel exhausted as fuck. Anything will do, just not self harming. Harming yourself is not a problem, but getting addicted is definitely a serious problem. If you are just curious about cutting, please please please dont do it. It is absolutely fucking stupid. It is not an honourable thing. Cutting is such a shame.
Please do not think that cutting is attention seeking. It is absolutely totally not. Don’t blame yourself for being addicted to it, i know it’s hard coz i cant do it too. But yes, don’t blame yourself, it’s not your fault.
Hope we can all find our ways to deal with this addiction.
I scoured the web for any information I could get about it. I wanted to talk to other people who did it. I read every book on it that I could get my hands on. I read all the psychological papers I could find. For me, it seemed like everyone got it wrong.
I loved just about every aspect of it. I loved those simple, straight lines. I loved ripping my skin open almost every night. There’s no better word for it. Rip. I loved knowing that I could bleed, I bled red, bled just like everybody else. When I didn’t do it I missed it. I didn’t see it as self-harm. I saw it as self-love.
I use the past tense because I don’t do it anymore, but that sure as hell doesn’t mean that I don’t love it anymore. Like my scars, it is always going to be a part of me. I’m always going to miss it. I’m always going to keep razor blades around, just to look at, just to admire, just to think about when I’m sitting at home all alone and I’m missing it. I’m always going to think of starting all over again every time I run my fingers over the raised scars across my thighs. It’s never going to go away. It’s always going to be the errant thought, the craving for something that no odd combination of food will satisfy, the bastard child tugging on the hem of my dress, begging and pleading for my attention, just a moment of my time, just a little drop of my blood. Please.
I was always fascinated by the people who could harm themselves. I couldn’t understand how or why anyone would do it. It didn’t make sense to me. And then I did it myself and holy shit the rush, and holy shit you feel so much better, and you’re sure that nothing will ever be wrong again because now you are in control.
I started carrying razors with me everywhere I went. I would cut myself in the bathroom between classes. At the first sign of anxiety or a depressed mood, I would reach into my purse and run my finger along the blade. I found myself craving it throughout the day.
I never called it an addiction. I never thought of myself as being addicted. It certainly wasn’t something that clicked with me the very first time I did it. It took practice. I slowly got into a mindset and then one day I woke up and it was the best thing about my life. It was what I looked forward to every day, what I lived for. And that’s when I realized I was in over my head.
Dealing with this into my adulthood became a struggle in and of itself. How do you wear shorts in the summer? How do you go to the beach with your family? How do you deal with the looks, and the comments, and everyone knowing that something is wrong with you because adults don’t do that . How do you tell the partner that you’re intimate with? How do you hide it from coworkers so that you don’t lose your job? What if you have children?
I quit because I wanted to quit but if I really wanted to quit then why do I always think about it and want it so badly? Doesn’t that mean that there’s a part of me that just doesn’t want to stop? But I had to stop. Because adults don’t do that .
Right? They don’t keep a fresh pack of razor blades hidden in their desk drawer. They aren’t obsessed with sharp objects and the cold kiss of metal or seeing their skin split open. They don’t suffer from the scent of infection constantly in their nostrils, wondering if everyone else can smell it. They don’t obsess over the way their fresh cuts rub against their jeans when they walk, an extension of the punishment. Adults don’t cut themselves.
I have been told that it’s gross. It’s disgusting. Repulsive. I’m too old, I should’ve grown out of it by now. I’ve been told that my scars are ugly.
They’re supposed to be ugly. They are a tangible, physical symbol of everything that I’ve been through. What I’ve experienced and dealt with has been equally ugly.
I can truly say that I will never attempt suicide again. I can make that promise and I can keep it, because I mean it. I know I won’t ever go down that road again. There is no desire to go there.
But I cannot promise that I won’t ever cut myself again. I can’t promise that ten years from now I won’t occasionally and “accidentally” cut myself while cooking or washing dishes. I can’t promise that the cat won’t scratch me. I can’t promise I won’t trip.
And the thing is, if you’re an adult and you do it, you have to lie about it. Tell someone at your own risk. There is no room for error– there is more to lose. Your family, your job, your life depends on your functionality. You can’t go missing days of work to do therapy because you cut yourself.
I don’t think it’s something that I will ever get over. More than just a part of my BPD, or whatever is wrong with me, it’s hardwired into my brain now. Even when I’m not doing it, for months and years at a time, I’m thinking about it. I’m reading up on it to see if anyone has gotten it right yet. I’m missing it. I will keep going through this cycle, of wanting to quit, throwing my razors away, then quitting, then buying new ones, then watching them glint in the darkness and knowing that it’s only a matter of time before I do it again, because I will do it again.
And when I do…I’ll lie about it.
Are you self harming? If so, it is a serious problem that should be addressed whether or not it has reached the point of “addiction”. Self harm rarely. if ever, resolves on its own without intervention. Untreated, this sort of behavior will escalate, not abate. Find a therapist.
Victor Allen’s
You ask a good question let me ask you a question are you harming yourself if the answer is yes then you may have a problem. I would suggest that you talk to therapist or counselor or your doctor about it
I began cutting at 14_15, think it was in 93 . Yeah that’s been awhile, in my day it was unheard of I just freaked one day and did it. The last thing I remember I was shaving then suddenly I was either thinking of saying ( not sure which) they can’t fn hurt me now. I emaciated my chest. I then calmly finished shaving and put on a tee shirt. I told no one,.until I got lockjaw or tetnaus and had to go to the emergency room. They were kind of freaked and gave me a tetnaus shot two 10mg Valiums on the spot and a script. Stitches weren’t an option cause it had been a week at this point. Anyway my newfound coping method was great for awhile,it was only needed sporadically until my late twenties and early thirties. However as my qaulity of life decreased due to my increased depression and physically debilitating opiates abuse my cutting got much worse. I couldn’t do enough painkillers to make the pain stop I couldn’t cut deep enough or long enough or even make enough cuts to get the same effect. I have many scars where I have cut to the bone, chest plate ,ribs and back . It was when I was getting my chest stapled back together I realized this isn’t working anymore. It was by grace I happened upon a scripture in the Bible, though I was never religious and still aren’t, I do believe in things Divine and Providence. So should you find yourself needing some other way to understand your pain or even control it..( because for myself that pain was tangible , I could look see and feel it and control it it made sense) the pain inside did not. Today I struggle , though there have been many years since finding that verse I did not. Good luck my friend mark 5:5 kjv Bible it’s worth reading
Eight O’Clock
When you can’t stop yourself from doing it and if you try to stop it, you feel a strong anguish* (due to the inner conflict it generates: a part of you tells you that it is not normal to do it, while the other part pushes you to do it).
If you think you’re in this situation, so you need to see a psychotherapist.
*Stronger than anxiety.
When you do things that you say to yourself that your never going to do again, but you do it anyways, sometimes an hour later once the pain stops. For example I have a friend who is into IV drug use and he has had seizures from overdosing and that person is still addicted to self harm, even though that person knows it is dangerous.
Basically, self-harm isn’t an addictive behavior.
It is a way to cope with (the pain in) your life. That is more clearly visible if you see that just telling someone to stop cutting/scratching/otherwise hurting themselves, makes suicide more likely. So if you pose this question I would be interested in the reasons behind your self-harm… Why does it appeal to you in these moments? What does it bring you?
Of course, anything that brings relief has a certain capacity to bring on ‘addictive’ tendencies in a human life. But I’d rather refrain from the -often humiliating- words in the addiction lingo.
Mostly “pain” does not bring on the fun-feelings that are a fertile soil for both the start of an addiction and the punitive social stance on addiction. For there, it often starts with fun… ( certainly not always ) the first “fun use”-phase.
Now, this could be kinda different for someone with masochistic tendencies in a sexual BDSM-setting, but mostly self-harm starts as a way to cope with other difficult feelings. I call that the second “targeted use”-phase where you ‘use’ your “thing” to cope with situations. Like “I’d rather feel pain than hopelessness or powerlessness.” or “I’d rather feel the physical pain I can control myself than the emotional pain I can’t control.” For in our information processing brain, if the signal intensity of a lower level gets big enough it starts to override the higher levels.
That is why a coping strategy that lacks alternative strategies can become so compelling, even compulsory that one starts to feel “addiction”.
The keyword here being “alternative strategies” for the difficult feelings (or real solutions to prevent the onset of those difficult feelings).
But as with addiction, often the social surroundings -that don’t know the half of it- are finger pointing in protective disbelief to the self-harm (or the use) and urging to “just stop it” without much inclination to look underneath the behavior… not an advisable audience to listen to… In Holland, we have a saying that goes something like “the best captains can be found ashore”. People have opinions… not necessarily the knowledge to back that up.
Learning to take back the control over your life in different ways, sometimes learning that it will get better when you are old enough to take things in your own hands, learning to say “no” to overburdening situations, learning to have the other social skills at hand one needs to cope, learning that “strange situations sometimes need strange coping skills”, even more: learning that “weird coping skills can be normal in weird situations” , those may all be necessary steps before trying to stop the self-harm.
In case of slashing (violent self-harm), this may take too much time (too much tissue would have been destroyed without changing much in the actual situation) and one has to channel the self-harm into less violent ways of self-harm. As well as the aggression itself that may have to be channeled into other forms of aggressive behavior (varying from punk-grunge to the art of defense and attack).
So here’s another big similarity with addiction: just saying “stop it!” or saying to yourself “I should not ” is as useful as chewing bubblegum.
Hope to have given some hope and/or direction?
If you can read Dutch you might be interested in the texts at PraatmetHans.nl
Otherwise, people can ask questions or we could talk by Skype.
Hans
West-coaching.nl
For myself it’s when I started cutting every day,even when I had drugs to abuse I still struggled with not cutting@