3 YEARS RECOVERY: SELF-INJURY

This is a post I'm totally preparing way in advance, it's hugely important to me to get this right. As it's coming up to my third year in recovery from self-injury I wish to shed light upon my journey and provide a story of hope to anyone who is reading this blog right now, who may be going through the same thing or, is thinking about self-injury. Firstly, I want to say that this post is not at all a preach to do this, and that, and so on. Secondly, this is not a sympathy story, I'm perfectly fine now, I don't want sympathy. Thirdly, if you're going to judge anything from here on out click the X in the corner.

Some people may wonder why I'm writing this if it scares me to even write the words self-injury. Also if I'm going to be scared of the perception towards this post. What about the reaction? Who knows how this post will go down. Here's my reasoning why this is going to go out there to you guys, my question here is why should I have to worry about the reaction? This is my problem with self-harm and self-injury there is so much stigma attached to both, that people are so scared to admit anything is wrong with them. I'm scared to write this post because I'm scared of being judged. I believe the more people that talk about this topic though and open up with their experience the stigma becomes smaller and smaller. The close minded people who judge those who have suffered become more frowned upon than those who suffer. The day that comes around, the better. So, with all that said this is why I'm writing this post.

I've said from day one I want this whole blog to be honest. My ambition in life is to help people, there you can see why I'm writing this. Imagine if this helps one person, I'd be incredibly happy. I'm going to be honest as much as I can throughout this and the bits I don't find comfortable writing about I shall leave out. For those who are reading this that may be suffering, I want to warn you that this could be triggering for you. For those of you who are not knowledgeable on what self-injury exactly is, it is where someone deliberately carves, cuts or scratches their skin, burns themselves, banging/punching/hitting objects with the intention of hurting themselves and embedding things under the skin. Self-harm however is where behaviour can have a short or long-term effect such as, drug abuse. SOURCE FOR THESE DEFINITIONS.

I started self-injuring I'd say around June 2011. It stopped by the end of August 2011. It was very short lived as you can tell by the dates. I've had relapses after August but nothing major where I'd actually bleed. I was not happy unless my cuts bled during June, July and August. I felt a buzz when they did. I had things going on in my life that caused me to self-injure it was family related stuff, a lot was going on at the time. I'd also lost my Granddad in January 2011. My cuts weren't deep enough to leave noticeable scars. I only have three scars that are visible right now, I say visible but you can only see them if you're up close and looking for them on my wrist. I got out of this vicious addiction very quickly compared to some sufferers, thank goodness. I was lucky and some people aren't, I am so thankful for what happened to make me realise how dangerous and serious what I was doing was.

As mentioned previously, I stopped in August. I was out with my friend, she saw the cuts on my wrist and I could've died then and there. I wanted the ground to swallow me. You know, when I was happy I totally forgot what I'd been doing to myself in the comfort of my bedroom. She was showing off her tan, as I'm the palest person to walk the earth she wanted to compare her tan to mine... She pulled my sleeves up and I completely forgot about what I'd been doing. I know that sounds ridiculously stupid but it's true. When I was out with friends I could forget about what was happening at home. Anyway, she saw my cuts scabbed over, she just looked at me and then acted normal with me the rest of the day. I got home and just broke down, I couldn't believe I'd been so stupid.

At the beginning of August that's when I started trying to stop, I used the method of 'Butterfly Project'. There's a link here to see what it's about, it may sound trivial at first but it helped me. Each time I 'killed' one I'd write down the trigger to see if there was a pattern. That was it, one day I just stopped and fought the urge. Trust me there have been times I relapsed and still I sometimes think of self-injury but I don't think I'd do it now. I'm so thankful I told my boyfriend about it so if I ever do feel like it I can talk to him. Whatever you believe, you are never alone. Even if you think you are there will always be someone online who is willing to chat with you. Finally, I am perfectly always happy to talk via any social media.

That's my experience of self-injury, I just wanted to share it as I believe it's important to open up and talk. I always want my readers to get to know me better. I believe sharing stories of hope, rather than moaning about what I'm going through at the minute like in my 'HONESTY HOURS', that this is much more positive for me and more importantly, you, as the readers.

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