Hi there I'm looking for advice on a pretty sensitive and kind of embarrassing topic so i thought i'd ask here because... well its the internet and no one really knows me! i don't really know how it started, but i started... cutting into my skin about two months ago, and its become part of my daily routine. Most information i have about cutting says people do it out of extreme emotion, but i'm not sure that's how all of how i feel - i mean, sure, when i'm in stressful situations thinking about cutting makes me feel a lot better, but when i'm actually doing it there's not a lot of emotion involved. Is this normal? If i don't cut for a day, i feel like i've missed a HUGE checkmark on my to do list. Like i feel like i haven't accomplished something important. Like i need to take time to cut to... complete the day's requirement. And the more blood, the better i feel. (Not to sound creepy, because ordinarily seeing blood makes me want to pass out and vomit. and i have a giant fear of needles and injuries in general, so it doesn't make any sense at all. Like i cant even watch someone get hurt on tv without feeling woozy) No self harm info sites say anything about this... where is this coming from? The problem is my sister used to cut (for different reasons i think) and my parents are super sensitive and sad about it. So i'm really worried about them finding out. Plus all my siblings are coming home for christmas, and at one point one of them may see the marks on my torso or legs (and theres a lot of them). Obvious answer would be to just stop cutting, but the thought of living without it terrifies me. What should i do? I also have depression and anxiety, a lot of it originating from being Bi in a mormon family. (if that helps make sense of any of this). And sorry if this sounds super dark, i didn't mean it to Just looking for some more information on why i need to do this
A psychologist would call it a compulsion: you don't necessarily want to do it or know why you do it, but you feel like you have to or get a general bad feeling. Compulsive behavior - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Hopefully that points you in the right direction.
May I ask a question? Do you like pain? If so, may I suggest trying something like working out? Or at least getting a tattoo or something that may serve a purpose? If not I'd talk to someone like RSwordsman said about OCD especially if you have no rational reason to.
Talk to your sister, she would probably understand and whether this is based off of emotional needs or compulsive ones, because it is self-harm, you should talk to somebody. I hope you find somebody who understands you and can help you whatever that looks like to stop hurting yourself.
Wow yea OCD would actually make a ton of sense, especially since i have a lot of other tendencies that would be explained by that disorder... (Pushing buttons in a certain way, getting weird mental images repeatedly, seeing projected lines everywhere that i don't want to step on, etc) And no its not like i like pain, not at all Its just incredibly relieving. Like i don't know if you've seen the TV show Lost, but there's a button they have to push every eight hours or so, or the island explodes, and that's pretty much how it feels. Like whenever the cuts start to fade i feel like i need to replace them with new ones or its like im falling behind.. idk Thanks for the help guys. I'd like to talk to my sister but i'm unsure of how it will go, so we'll see. For now i'm just going to do my best to hide the marks until i meet with a psychiatrist in January... Hope u guys don't think i'm cray cray haha i've just got a couple embarrassing habits and... emotional problems
Everyone I've met who's a little bit interesting has been at least mildly cray cray. You'll be able to make sense of things eventually.
Speaking from someone who cut for five years: For me, it was a release. It was to feel something... different. After stopping for some time and getting other things for "releases", I just stopped doing it. I went to hypnotherapy to help me learn to relax, and to help me learn alternative things. Cutting gave me that release I wanted, and it made me feel something, "something else"... I did it daily. It was a routine. I did it every night. It gave me the release I needed to make it through my day. I stopped doing it, I found alternatives, and I just stopped. I found other things to do, such as intense and deep journaling, and seeing my therapist once a week if not more.
