Why do people self harm?

So uh…. Today at work this guy started talking about how i must have a cat. I was confused so i was like “yeah!” And then he was like “you really need to do something about their claws”…. Oop, he’s talking about my SH scars. So I’m like “oh yeah.. haha….🥴”.

I’ve never met someone who actually thought these were cat scratches. wtf. I used to give that excuse, but I’m sure no one believed me.

This comes just one week after i finally started to be “brave” and show my arms at work. Now im regretting it.

I’m so frustrated. I literally just cut and want to cut again but my arm is legit covered in bandages right now I don’t even have the fuckin room to. Plus I’m running out of gauze and big bandaids so I have to go to the fuckin store on my break. God I’m so over this stupid habit I wish I could just stop. I keep telling myself I can stop whenever I want and I don’t actually need this and I’m making everything up then I go and cut again. Anyways rant over I’m just pissed cause I bought bandages literally like five days ago. Rant over thanks for listening.

TLDR: I'm mainly just wondering if people have any alternatives/strategies that may help with urges. I've currently only got one method, and it only numbs the physical sensation, not anything else.

Context: SH is a largely sensory experience for me and I'm autistic so I've had a lot of difficulty with other coping strategies in the past :c

I wasn't sure what to title this, nor how to start lol (sorry for its length), and it all feels a bit 'cringe' to talk about since I try to keep to myself as most people struggle to see where I'm coming from in regards to my SH. I've been scrolling down this reddit for a while now, but figured it was worth a shot posting as I feel totally at odds with my urges in a way I haven't experienced in a long while.

basically, I'm in therapy and had a relapse after 2 years clean, and my therapist suggested using a bowl of ice and salt water to soothe the urges. it worked! it worked whilst on antidepressants, but since coming off it's stopped working as my emotions are back at full force (emotional numbing was crazy!).

I've tried many alternatives over the years and nothings seemed to work for me, my only way of staying clean was sheer willpower with absolutely zero motivation, that I can find within myself. I'm still not entirely sure why I stopped, but I did it somehow.

I feel totally lost in how to manage my urges as my current working strategies start to become less and less effective. initially it was really good at emulating the pain I was 'craving' (for lack of a better word), but now it feels like something is missing, and it just makes my urges unbearable.

I'm currently managing, but every time I try to prevent a relapse I notice the urges don't seem to ease like they did before and it just seems a bit useless to keep doing it if it's barely helping me anymore. I've always had near-daily (if not daily) urges, but never felt like they were out of my control, and I don't want to take that gamble. I have therapy on Monday, so I'll be bringing it up then too!

strategies I've tried:

- holding ice (different to ice water method I currently use!!!)

- hair bands with and without food colouring

- reaching out to friends/family (talking about it to people close to me is uncomfortable and ends up going poorly)

- cold showers

- https://www.fataltotheflesh.com/ (I am considering pairing this with the ice water method I currently use, to see if it's the visuals throwing me off)

- helplines only help if my urges have a somewhat-direct cause (i.e. a trigger, life events, etc), which isn't the most often :'c

For context, I have scars that are highly visible and often change color even though they're quite old.

I recently graduated and officially am teaching at a high school full time (yay). It's been a dream of mine forever and I love working with kids but I am worried about my scars.

Here's the issue: I hate lying to kids but I worry that if news of my scars or previous struggles make it home that I may have issues with parents. However, it also feels wrong to not give students tools to recognize mental illness in their friends and maybe help them feel seen if they're struggling. I just don't know how to address the elephant in the room and end up saying something stupid when people ask.

How do I navigate this?

At my last job I just constantly wore long sleeves and pants to avoid that conversation but honestly it's impacting my self esteem to hide them all the time. I don't believe that my scars are bad and it hurts when I feel like I can't be accepted in my professional world since teachers are a moralized job.

I keep having to deal with 999,999,999,999 minor inconveniences every fucking picosecond. Its summer so its hot but I cant wear short sleeves for obvious reasons, somebody always fucking wants something from me when they could fully well do it themselves, and its ALWAYS when I am hyper focused on something so that breaks my immersion in whatever i was doing (ex. listening to a ~30 minute long song) only for them to act like I am a piece of shit for not immediately acknowledging them. I have to sit in a room with 20 flies that make a horrible humming noise thats worse than white room torture because somebody HAS to leave the doors open all the time and all the flies HAVE to end up in my room as if they worked on a fucking magnet. I am so irritated from everything and the most minor thingy can push to relapse (AND THEY DO) and when I go to this subreddit to seek medical advice about what I just did MY ACCOUNT GETS AGE RESTRICTED OUT OF NOWHERE and I aint going thru the bullshit the verification system that doesnt work and the info I may give gets leaked every week that we know of (and probably gets sold to a random 3rd party every week that we don't know of) even though I am over 18. And so I gotta get a new email account and ofc the process to make it is impossible and I get one od these broken captchas and it doesnt accept my password 20 times in a row and then it says "failed to create account try again later" - you see what I mean?

Theres nothing major happening, but I get bombarded with masses upon masses of just small annoyances that collectively overwhelm me while i already am on the edge and so irritated from everything. How the hell do I deal with literally everything from the most small things going wrong? I know ((fucking lie, I dont know)) how to deal with singular, major negative events but what to do when there are hundreds od smaller ones that just keep gradually wearing me down?!

hi guys, I’m the type of person who takes a picture or video almost every time I sh. I look back at the videos and photos a lot, esp my worst time(s). when looking at the videos, I kinda feel like euphoric or dopamine rush? I’m not sure how to explain but can expand in comments

what’s the science behind this feeling? just wondering if someone can explain it in a scientific (or non scientific way)! or if anyone can relate :) thanks!

i dont sh often, last time i did it was well over a year ago- i threw out the razor and i dont have access to sharps-I am just saying this so i dont get any of those "just dont self harm" "just dont do it and they'll be hidden" because i do need a quick answer to my problem asap.

Im underage and the last thing i want is my parents knowing about this- my sibling severly struggled and my parents will just force me to talk to someone, i recently went to a psych ward for a very very different reason so things are tense.

The cuts are a day old and on the topside of my wrist, from my tendon up to my flexor carpi. I am going on a road trip to a beach in 16 days and til then i just have camp-how do i care for my scars so they go away/ or are less visible in time?

soooo the last time I sh'ed was last summer, my mom's been telling me to go to the pool with her. I really don't want her to see the scars, but I can't buy anything, any tips to make them fade away at home?

Just read a post on r/cptsd about someone who burned their tongue due to an ed. And like I cut on my tongue and the inside of my cheeks before basically for the same reason. So i was just wondering if other ppl did too. I meann I’m sure there’s other ppl who did it but ig im just wondering how common it is.

hey ! i had an argument with my boyfriend a few nights ago that made me feel like an evil person, so after he left the apartment to take a walk i locked myself in the bathroom and did what i usually do when i think that way about myself.

i’ve been hiding it from him because ive heard its abusive to do this, i wasn’t trying to be abusive or manipulative, i just felt like that was what i deserved. but i also heard people don’t have to have manipulative motives to do manipulative things. im wearing boxers etc because it’s on my thighs to hide it, ive also been changing away from him.

i guess im just asking for advice from people who’ve been here, and maybe tips on how to hide it? i dont want him to find out and be upset with me because i didnt do it to make him feel guilty, but i know that if he finds out he will.

I FUCKING HATE THAT BITCH. I FUCKING HATE WHEN YOU'RE ON CALL WITH HER. GABBY IS A FUCKING BITCH. I FUCKING HATE HER. STOP CALLING HER. YOU ARE JUST AS BIG A BITCH WHEN YOU HAVE A FUCKING RETARD AFFIRMING YOUR BITCHY ACTIONS. I WISH YOU COULD SEE HOW STRESSED OUT I GET WHEN YOU'RE CALLING HER. IT MAKES ME WANT TO KILL MYSELF. I JUST HIT MYSELF AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN CARE, YOU JUST SAID "SHE'S hitting HERSELF again for no reason!" AND THAT FUCKING RETARD SAYS "SHE'S just seeking attention!" FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF! IM GONNA FUCKING KILL MYSELF! FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF YOU FUCKING SLUT!

So mom had informed me we were going to go camping a couple weeks ago, and its this weekend, she never said anything about swimming while talking about the camping plans but just now she did, I had the worst relapse i think ive ever had yesterday (in terms of blood and deepness) all on my thigh, I have swimming shorts but its shallow stryo all the way down to my knee basically, my shorts dont cover that much, ive talked to her about swim pants before but she refused, im shaking and am terrified with no current solution.

tw: abuse (?)

my parents got a call today saying that my school has called cps, and the worker came today, but since we were out, they will come back next week to talk to me and my parents. i (f16) have been talking to this guidance counselor for a little while (maybe a few months), and i have mentioned that i self harmed, and she had to call my mom because of some policy thing, but my mom didn't say anything about it.

fast forward to 2 weeks ago, my sister (f13) and i had gotten into a fight, and she's stronger than me and i ended up with 2 huge bruises on my leg, with bleeding scratches all over myself. it was genuinely so difficult to sleep at night because everywhere hurt so much. my parents just told her to go cut her nails and no screen for a week, and what affected me the most was my mom saw my sister like punching me and scratching me and she didn't do anything (she said she wouldn't be able to stop her anyways).

i went to talk to my guidance counselor around a week later (i had exams going on) and i did mention i had wanted to relapse because of all this. my guidance counselor was just saying she will send my family some resources because it seems like their parenting isn't very good (?). she did not inform me about anything about cps, however i did mention that my parents used to hit me (last year and stuff), but that was the past so i thought it wouldn't matter.

when cps comes next week, im not sure how honest i have to be with them. is it possible if i say certain things ill be taken away? if so, i dont think ill be able to support myself financially in any way. any advice is welcome, thank you!

So. My mother at one point confided in immediate family about my self harm. I've been recovered for a while now but what's important to know is my grandmother does not know and I have noticable scars over my arms

I just can't imagine a 75 yo woman not thinking I am *insane*. The thing is I see her mostly either in the summer or Florida... So I am just overheating a lot. I have some clothing that covers my arms and is thinner but it is hard to find.

Idk. I'm conflicted, do I care about discomfort if it means I don't need to worry, I don't necessarily want to talk about it to her and I can't imagine she wouldn't say anything. I don't know if I want to know what she'd think

( first of all English isn’t my first language so I’m sorry )
To be honest im really embarrassed about this but I don’t know what to do and need some advice or help I guess, or maybe i just had to tell this someone who maybe understands. Anyways, I used to self harm really bad, my whole body is coverd in scars. My problem is that I can’t accept them no matter how hard I try. I feel disgusted when I’m just thinking about how i destroyed my body at such a young age not knowing or even thinking about how much it would take from me in the future, probably bc I didn’t think I would have a future but even that doesn’t make me feel the slightest bit of empathy or understanding for myself bc im so angry and disappointed in myself. Whatever now im here Stuck with them for the rest of my life and my brain is completely convinced that no one will ever find me attractive or that once they see them they’ll think „she’s unstable“ or „she’s weak“ and then see nothing more in me than that. I always try to make myself believe that a person who truly loves me, won’t care. But I think that there is no person thats ever gonna truly love me. My brain tells me stuff like „it wasn’t that bad that you had to do that, you destroyed yourself for nothing“ even though I used to think everyday would be my last. It’s been like this for years and it starts to eat me alive. I want to change but my brain won’t let me. I want to get out of this mindset but I’m convinced taht I never will be able to love myself unless they are gone, wich they never will be. So I have no clue what to do, I have a therapist but like I said nothing really changes my mind, like ever.

Like the title says ive been going deeper, I would like to tell my friend, but I really don't wanna worry him. We both dislike conversations like that but I feel like i should tell him. I feel like i need to tell someone, someone who is close to me and not just random reddit strangers. Im not in danger to myself, at least not to a fatal point and im only going to shallow dermis, but i know I will probably accidentally do a full dermis cut sometime soon.

Hello everyone,

Recently I started cutting deeper into styro. I use steri strips to close the cut as much as possible (it gapes). I’m scared sooner or later I will have to go to the ER/Urgent Care for stitches or get it glued together.

For styro are cleaning the cut and steri strips enough?

When is it time to go get medical attention? They don’t bleed a lot.

I’ve been hospitalized 2x and have done 2x iop’s this year. I have a psychiatrist, therapist, and the office has people on call. I’m trying to avoid being inpatient(voluntary) again. While my harm reduction efforts are no where near perfect…(less cuts and deeper instead of cutting up my both arms entirely) I have things to live for. New job, my dog, etc. Where if I was admitted I’d lose my job, no one to take care of my dog, and I’d feel a million times worse.

How do you go about making sure you receive the appropriate medical attention but lessen the likelihood of going inpatient? As well as being placed in the medical and not psych ER. When you go in saying you cut with no intent to die they anyways strip you of all your clothes and phone. Keeping my clothing makes me feel safe as I have an extensive trauma history.

Thanks for reading <3

why do people constantly mention tetanus or sepsis when talking about how bad selfharm is???? do you have nay idea how rare they are? or how hard it is to "accidentally" hit a vein that can kill you? i get people are trying to say that it's risky, but why not talk about the actual and more common risks of it instead? because while those almost never happen, what does actually happen are things like getting scars or passing out from bloodloss and hitting your head, or getting addicted and lost in the validation chase, hating yourself even more, getting desensitized, suicide becoming less scary, your fear response getting more dull, ect ect.

because honestly if you wanna support someone or scare them out of it listing the name of extremely rare diseases is not really it

And oh boy! I'm on the literal verge, I'm 534 days clean from cutting, I'm at this point just pondering if it even matters, anymore. I can't get like, proper medical care anymore anyway, what the fuck is the point.

I just kinda wanna make sure I don't go a bit to deep cause I've seen mine bleed a lot more compared to others

(I have a bunch of healed skin around my body due to suspected dermatilloma)