Assignment 13: Imagining/missing/ and knowing yourself

Assignment 13: Answers in treatment

What would your life look like if you were to stop with the self-harm?

I really don’t know if I can imagine my life without self-injury. I have made it 24 days without engaging in “traditional” self-harm, but I still have impulses every day, and I’m scared that at home one of the impulses is just going to be super strong and hard to deal with and I’m going to give in. I wish I had never made the choice to self-harm in the first place. But I did. And I can’t change that. I also wouldn’t change that because I’ve learned so much on my road to recovery and met great people. Imagining my life without self-injury I would be able to take the classes I want and to succeed in them because my full concentration would be on my school work. I would be able to engage in conversation with my friends family instead of isolating. I wouldn’t be hiding anything or sneaking around. I would be able to talk to my parents without scaring them. To talk to my brothers and sisters without scaring them too. I wouldn’t be a problem to anyone anymore.

What will you miss?

I will miss the release I get every time I do it. I will miss always being able to rely on self-injury whenever I needed it. I will miss seeing all my bodily fluids, (we weren’t able to say blood). I will miss being secretive about doing it. I’ll miss not being able to do it when I need to “feel” again. I’ll have to find new ways to deal with problems, people, situations, feelings, and anxiety. I will miss relying on it to make me “happy” again. I will miss the scabs that I get and not being able to pick them and make them scars.

Who do you want people to know you as?

I want to be known as the girl who followed her dreams. I am a daughter, sister, cousin, friend, niece and grandchild. I am a girl and a student, an athlete, a musician. I am smart, caring, kind, loving, compassionate, humble, loving, respect responsible, trustworthy, honest, loyal and faithful.  I am beautiful on other inside and on the outside.

Assignment 13: Now

Honestly, I think self-harm is going to be a disorder that I will struggle with my whole life. I really would like to say that I can imagine my life without it, but honestly I can’t. It’s something that some people will think is “crazy,” but to me its so real. Lately, I have NOT been doing very well with the controlling/managing my impulses. I know that I have had all of this practice with coping skills and alternatives, but you will never believe how hard it is to stop once you struggle going through a relapse.

Since I can’t imagine my life without self-harm, I can’t really answer the second question fully. If I had to answer it though, I would answer it for one of my friends struggling as well…. here is how I would answer it:

Yes, I’m sure you feel numb right now. I know you are, emotionally and physically, exhausted and as if you literally can NOT make it any longer… but I’m here to tell you that you can. You will. You’re alive and you’re surviving.

You’re surviving, that means you have lived every day of your life, even if you didn’t want to. You’re alive and you’re surviving. You need to remember that. You have made it through 100% of your bad days.

As for the self-harm, you honestly are so beautiful and you don’t need to mark your body with cuts and cover them with scars.. You don’t need to add that struggle to your life. You’re amazing and you are so much better than that. If you think you are at a point where you just cannot move forward, reach out to someone… Reach out to me.

One day, you’re going to wake up and not have the first thought of the day be self-harm impulses or suicidal ideations. One day you will learn to love yourself and you won’t want to hurt yourself anymore.

That day has come and gone for me ... many times.... But, it will come again, I know it will. I have reached out to all of the right people and I have all of the resources I need.

The hard part is actually WANTING to use them. 

Self-harm plays tricks on my mind. When I think I am  having the best day ever, I take one look down at my arms, or legs, or hips, or any other body part is used, and immediately want to go straight to my blade. It calls out to you, just when you think you can kick it to the curb.. it comes back... and THAT is when you have to decided whether it's worth it or not.