I'll Be Okay: Depression, Self Harm etc. Recovery Book

Self-harm

People think self-harm is just cutting. It's not. Self-harm is cutting, burning, punching yourself, pulling at your hair, scratching your skin, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, talking yourself into a depression, deliberately looking up triggering material. Self-harm stretches as far as you can stretch your arms and then further. You need to be able to identify if you're harming yourself. Like I said last chapter; you can't face your demons if you can't even see that they're there.

If you've never hurt yourself, never laid a blade to your skin, or a match, or brought down your own fist onto your flesh, or drank or done drugs to forget or went to efforts to send yourself down a spiralling pit of emotions too strong for you to handle, then I'm proud of you. Well done. Keep it up. Because if you don't then you'll never be able to return to this state. This state of body free of scars, brain free from harmful substances, skin untainted by your own hurtful words.

Once a cutter, always cutter. That's what they say. And they, whoever 'they' are, are correct. You may be clean for a year, two years, five, ten. Whatever. It'll always be there though. The scars will always be on your skin, tiny silver lines dancing up your wrists, your thighs, over your hips and your shoulders, across your stomach. Covering your body like some ghastly tattoo. Permanent. Those scars will haunt your nightmares, I know they haunt mine. Just thinking of the future, always having to wear long sleeves around new people, terrified of them finding out my deepest darkest secret, of them seeing the hundred white lines branded on each wrist, of them making out the words I carved into my skin in a moment of weakness - "fat" "ugly" "stupid" "I can't win". Never going swimming because they'll see the two horrible centimetre thick gashes on my left thigh. Having to be cautious at job interviews because if they see my past, the only place I'll be going is home penniless, or into the nuthouse.

This is the reality of a cutter. This isn't a dream, or a fantasy. This is real. This is my life.

Don't start cutting.

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But I'm not just here to tell you why you shouldn't cut. This book isn't about my grim little life. I'm here to help you get better, and therefore stop cutting. Or stop hurting yourself in whatever way it is. Burning, hitting yourself, alcohol, drugs. We've been through the list already.

There are some 'projects' that people speak of to help people stop hurting themselves, so I guess I'll share a couple.

1. The Butterfly Project
Draw a butterfly on the place where you hurt yourself in permanent marker. Name it after someone you love, someone you care about. Make the power of the butterfly stronger by having someone else draw it. If you hurt yourself before the butterfly fades then you've effectively killed the person you named it after. You're not allowed to try and wash off the butterfly.

My personal experience: I tried this one early last year. It didn't work for me. Firstly, this works for going without self-harm for a few days, so I believe would work great for people who self-harm daily and are beginners at trying to stop. This is due to the fact that the ink washes off after a few days, week tops. I tried to extend the time it took for the ink to wash off by using an old butterfly temporary tattoo I had lying around, thinking it would last around a week or perhaps a little longer. Why it didn't work point no. 1: it just made me compelled to cut in different places. I put the butterfly on my left wrist, so I just cut on my right wrist or my hip. Point no. 2: I became anxious that someone would see the butterfly and ask why I had it or that I would get caught with it at school as temporary tattoos weren't allowed as part of the uniform. This meant that the project became more of an endurance test.
I can see why this project would work for some people but at the same time, I feel like it's not helping anyone quit long term because as soon as the butterfly washes off the person is almost 'allowed' to hurt themselves again. Also to me, the butterfly seems pointless. Why can you not just say "I swear on this person that I'm not going to cut for a week?" It's the same thing except without a daft drawing on your arm or leg or wherever.

However, this is just my opinion. I've spoken to people who have found positive results with the butterfly project so don't give up hope just because it didn't work for me. I encourage you to at least try it because you could find it a successful means to stop self-harming, even just for a short while. Because it's so important to take baby steps when quitting something like self-harm. The same as if you were quitting smoking. You may cut the number of fags you have in a day in half to start off with. And then keep decreasing your daily allowance and try to transition over to e-cigarettes or something. It's the same for this. Just try to go for a week, then try two. Then maybe a month. Build it up, baby steps.

My Personal Tips
• Rubber-band technique - wear a rubber band or a hair band (the ones with the metal part work well for this) on your wrist and whenever you want to self-harm you snap the band. This technique almost trains you to stop wanting to hurt yourself. This works well if you self-harm for the pain or punishment. Obviously, this doesn't work as well if you like the feeling of relief that comes with self-harm or for cutters, the want to see your own blood. A friend of mine was recommended this technique by his therapist and it helped him to stop cutting completely. I haven't spoken to him in quite some time so I don't know if he managed to stay clean. I tried this one as well and it worked quite well at first but after some time, like I already mentioned, I started craving the sight of my blood again, the feeling of relief that came when I cut.
• Distraction - find something you enjoy, something that calms you down and makes you feel content. You may enjoy drawing or sewing or swimming. Make sure you do this activity frequently. Whenever you want to hurt yourself do this activity to distract you and calm you down so that you can think rationally. Alternatively, you can phone a friend. I find just the presence of a friendly voice helps me calm down. Phone someone rather than texting as in the time it takes for them to type replies you're not being distracted. Try and do something with your hands, drawing works for some people, but you could do anything: write, draw, sew, knit, tear a piece of fabric... Anything.
• Find other methods of releasing your emotions. I don't know about you guys but when I want to self-harm it's because I'm very emotional. If this is the case find something to do, like punching a pillow, that doesn't hurt you but still releases all the pent-up feelings. Crying helps, but this isn't always possible. Make it work for you. Write down all your feelings and then destroy the paper, rip it up or set it on fire. Again this keeps your hands busy. I have a friend who has a foam pool noodle thing that she bites and rips at and hits things with when she's feeling emotional. Just a tip.

Quitting self-harm is difficult, of course it is. You're trying to cull an addiction. That is fucking hard. You're not going to get it right first time. It takes time, effort. You're going to relapse. And that's okay. Sometimes it's difficult to control yourself. Sometimes we get weak. And that's okay. But it is possible to quit self-harm. If you put the work in. Try the above tips and give it a go. Think how much happier you'll be living a life where you don't rely on self-inflicted pain. If you need any more help please don't hesitate to message me. You can message me on here, my inbox is always open.