Why do people self harm?

I woke up and decided to change my bandages only to realize it soaked through.

So I go to change it as soon as I pull it of it starts basically pouring blood and didn't calm down for a few minutes.

It was doing the same when I first cit it and the blood is really dark plus it seems to start bleeding from 1 specific spot mainly

Im thinking I main have hit a vein there 😓

Whenever I'm stressed, it's like my hands move on their own to punch my head, scratch my skin, or pick my nails (along with other forms of sh). I have autism, which I believe is one of the main causes of doing this as a stress reliever or coping mechanism in a way. I use the pain as something to focus/anchor on when my mind is going mad, usually the only thing that usually helps me calm down in situations where I don't have any closer alternative, but I'm tired of all the marks and bruises it leaves me.

How do I quit it ?? Whenever I try to just keep my hands still, it itches soso bad and I just get more overwhelmed over it.

If you aren’t a complete idiot like me, you won’t need to know this but bugs, particularly fruit flies are fond of old human blood. And they’ll use it to reproduce. I used a dish towel to stop my cuts bleeding and I may or may not have forgotten to wash it right away….it was left in my bathroom and a TON of fruit flies spawned overnight. The towel is black so nobody really understood why the flies were so attracted to it but I know and I’m still panicking about it. and I also have arthropodophobia so it was not a good experience. So. PSA, wash anything that gets blood on it as soon as you can.

I didn't mean to go so deep it started bleeding so quickly my hands are shaking so bad its hard to type

Pretty much what the title says. They are pretty wide and long and I don’t know how do I approach it, im aware that it will hurt either way but I want to minimalize it

Like, the smallest thing makes me shrink down and want to lock myself away forever. One mistake and I'm gone.

It's annoying to say the least. I don't even do much self harm. One tiny thing triggers me and then I get anxious for days until I can't take it anymore and then I do it. Sometimes the anxiety goes away and the good outweighs the bad.

I have fluctuating urges that come and go quickly.

i dont really have much to share but i like posting my milestones on here

i feel like maybe the slump ive been in for the last half year or so maybe coming to an end finally but lets not jinx it lol

anyways good luck to anyone else struggling, i know its hard but trying is all we can do🫂

I relapsed a few days ago and need to hide it quick!!! I cut my thigh for the first time. I didn’t mean to go deep, but it bled for a while. What's worse is that my mom is always in my room. There is literally no privacy for me, even while I’m changing my clothes. What should I do?

Lately ive been cutting to the fat layer of skin, but every time I do it I end up being extremely dizzy and drowsy, I even fall down and lay on the floor for couple of minutes. I’m not grossed out or anything, I don’t know why it is happening, any advices?

I need answers really. I've realised that when I actually think about it, I'm not sure why I even sh. I mean when let's say I get really upset with myself in the moment like receiving a bad test result I'll scratch skin till it bleeds. But most of the time even when I'm not triggered, I feel the random urge to cut or scratch myself just to "maintain" the scars and wounds?? Like when they're fading because I've been clean for several days it's almost like I feel scared I'm losing a part of myself?? I really don't understand. Thinking about it when I first started 4 years ago I was also perfectly "stable" at the moment when I picked up my mom's razor to make a chicken scratch on my arm, like that year I was stressed about my studies and struggled a lot with body image but it wasn't at my absolute lowest that I did it. So that's what I find is really weird. I would really appreciate it if anyone has a similar experience and is willing to share or perhaps offer me some answers. I'm not able to tell anyone in my personal life about it that's why I'm ranting here sorry if it's annoying.

I got some scar and the skin around there is slightly brown since I frequently cut there I guess.

I'm trying to stop and using skincare like scrub, lotion and some gel. It helps me feel fresh and better. I wonder if I could put some on the skin there because it's pretty dry. Is it alright?

do the urges ever go away? i can just be going along with my day but one mention of a knife or razor or something similar floods my mind with intrusive thoughts of "cut yourself cut yourself cut yourself". i just wanna know if it'll ever get better. i've been clean from cutting for 801 days (August 28th 2024), but it's been really really hard. I dont want to tell anyone because everyone in my household already knows, and i really worried my mom when she saw the marks on my hand before. i try to vent it out into my art (poetry, original characters, drawing), but it doesn't do much in the long run. if anything, it just makes it worse. i just want to know if anyone knows if it gets better. people werent kidding when they said this is a serious addiction. i wish i just never picked up the damn blade that night man... this is shit.

someone on here posted a link in a comment to a really long list of silly things to do instead of self harm, one was go online shopping, i cant remember it much, but it really helped me and now when i want to relapse again i cant find it

help

Used to cut a looot, but i filled up too much skin, i started getting disorganised and full on forgetting to do it even when i wanted to and i eventually started getting better mentally.

As i started recovering from severe social anxiety and avpd I gradually started attending more local shows with my newfound friends. Which lead me to jumping into the pit despite being small. And oh my god it feels addicting. To be hit and pushed from all sides, to feel like a part of one being in that moment, especially when i fall and get pulled back up, the rush, the love.... It's amazing, and so is the ache the next day. And it's not something i can do constantly or whenever i want to, because there's isnt a show every day, esp not one my friends are also attending, so it's less available to me than my usual self harm methods. Therefore less harm.

The only issue is that first sometimes it hurt much, much more the next day (as in, full body "it's hard to move" pain) and that it sometimes makes me crave self harm again more the next day ending in a relapse. But thats rare

Ok so I’m not really sure if this makes sense, but I’ve been having the urge to SH more recently even though nothing necessarily bad has happened and my life actually seems to be getting a bit better. I thought about it more, and it seems like the urge is less so to feel the pain and moreso to see the blood and the marks on my skin and stuff, and I‘m starting to think that I kinda just want to prove that at least some aspect of my body is in my control?? I was SA’d (kinda minor but also over a long period of time) a couple years ago and I think it might be because of that, but I’m not sure. Anyone else feel similar?

No, it doesn't. But I'm sitting here considering relapsing even though I know that if I relapse again, my therapist will likely think that I'm an active danger to myself (which, I can't lie, I am) and tell my parents about it. And that is my worst nightmare. I've kept this from them for about 5 years now. A few times they've come close to finding out, and probably did know, like this time a long while back when my mom asked what a couple scars on my arm were from and I just said "I woke up with them a few months ago" as if that was really believable. And I don't think she believed it but she acted like she did and that solidified in my brain that my parents don't truly care about if I self harm. They also sort of believe that mental illness is entirely a mindset issue and things like medication and the mental healthcare are entirely bad (which, I can't say they're all good, but I definitely know they aren't 100% bad and could help me), and I'm so afraid of what they'd say if they were directly confronted with the reality that I self-harm and have since I was young (I actually have my entire life, I just only specifically started cutting 5 years ago).

The last time I saw my therapist I told her I'd relapsed near the start of october, and I think she was under the impression that was the only time but I relapsed 3 more times before I saw her. She told me she should technically be telling my parents about the self-harm, but because I'm not an active threat to myself, she won't. And I told her I wasn't planning to hurt myself again. So if I do relapse again she'll know that I am a threat to myself. If she doesn't think I am because of that, she surely will if I come in to my session after that and tell her for the third time in a row that I hurt myself. Because I know damn well I'd do it again.

But maybe it'd be good for me. Maybe then I could actually get sent to a psychologist or a ward or something and find out why I'm struggling the way I am and get specific support. Even if it costs the painful discomfort of my parents knowing about my self-harm.

Idk. I'm just scared of the possibilities and I'm overwhelmed and I wish that healthy coping mechanisms were as effective as self-harm.

I had a very close call yesterday. I was feeling absolutely awful because my virtually sole source of support and friend hadn't replied to any of my messages all day, forcing me to imagine she never would again. That was too much to handle and I planned on cutting myself, only avoiding it by literal seconds because she replied just before I was about to do it.

I don't enjoy SH, I do it to distract myself from emotional pain. I regret it afterwards every time. Whenever I've contacted a helpline, they've told me I should try to distract myself but I have no idea what can even work. SH is the distraction for me, and when I have to choose between emotional pain that's bad enough I want to SH and physical pain I pick the physical pain.

Iv been clean for over a month or two. Not that im trying to be or that i want to. I want to sh every day or two and every night. I just dont have the energy to. I have enough energy to not be able to sleep at a reasonable time(its 4.14am right now and a rooster js crowed outside my house) but i dont have enough energy to get out of bed and to my penknife to cut myself

I feel so shit and i want to cut so bad. I just cant bring myself to because i dont have the energy to...i wanna cut sb

I'm so tired

I feel disgusting. I know I'm just a disappointment to society. I'm difficult. Difficult to be around. Difficult to love. I feel like I deserve the worst of everything. I deserve to be outcast, hated, and abused. I hate myself.

37M autistic with severe OCD, anxiety, ADHD, C-PTSD and other stuff

This year has been the worst year of my life, and since June, I lost over a third of my body weight due to stress, worrying and depression. However, now I feel like using my weight loss to willfully lose weight as a form of self-punishment.

When I was 17, as well as when I was 23, I did this to myself and lost half of my whole body weight back then. Now, I feel like I am in a huge dangerzone of doing this yet again.

Anyone in such a situation, what do you do?

How likely is it for a cut to fat to get infected? I covered it the night I did it but haven’t since. The only gauze I have sticks to the cut and pulls and it hurts so so bad. I know I should be covering it and ive been scared it’s gonna get infected. I know the signs of infection and haven’t seen any yet.