Self-harmers "doing it for attention"

@CurWilliam

I'm caught up in a horrible situation and after weeks of not being able to sleep found scratching my arm at night the painful burning sensations helped me sleep. Now I do it every night and can't stop.

When I told my therapist she said I was too old to be doing that and I've had that response from a listener as well.

Nobody else knows I do it. It's certainly not for attention 😕

@CurWilliam many times people care for you only if you do something drastic like that... Or else they don't care

I did not do it for attention per se, but because I was totally desperate for someone to love and care about me, and bleeding all over the porch seemed at the time like a good idea. I have keloid scars on my arms and hand from this behavior of 3 decades + ago.

@CurWilliam

Well, ignorance...just ignorance....

I have self-harmed for many years, and it was more good than bad, it helped me cope with my feelings.

If I did it for attention I wouldn't be searching all the time for hidden skin where the woulds will not be seen. I hate being asked "if I have a cat"...if you know what I mean... I just do it for myself.

Thinking again about how people look at it, I frankly don't feel like I am hurting myself more than anyone smoking a cigarette or getting drunk...those are just different forms of self harm...but well, they are socially ok as they generate money for some big industries....

@CurWilliam I agree with the commemt about ignorance. There are so many people, not necessarily ignorant themselves, but ignorant or unaware of what self-harm actually is and how it is used as a coping method. It is sad that struggling people would be cast aside due to this ignorance, but unfortunately it does happen. It would be nice to see the public be made aware of this topic just like we are made aware of the numerous beer companies that there are or who is having the best happy hour in town!

I used to self-harm out of frustration--I made a mistake and felt like I wasn't perfect. The few times I did do it for attention, it was more of a cry for help than anything. I'm sure that a lot of the people that are branded "attention-seekers" are crying for help or trying to prove the idea that "nobody cares about me" wrong.

@CurWilliam

I absolutely agree. "Attention seeking behaviour" does not invalidate the need for help. In fact, it's a cry for help. Then there are those who self harm in secret, as ways of coping. So I wouldn't necessarily call self harm attention seeking and even if it was, why does it matter?

well i am being honest here, i started self-harming to punish myself, i often set goals for me that weren't really achievable because my mental state during that period was pretty bad, if i had made some few different choices, things might very different now, but what has happened has happened, nobody can change past. i have accepted the fact that i lost and i don't think there is anything wrong with it, what matters is we get up and start again.

oops, getting away from topic, sorry!

so yeah i started it as a way to punish myself, then i started using it cope with mental abuse that i faced at college and home. then a point came that i used to do it for every little thing that happened to me, totally lost my self-confidence and self-esteem.

and yes, i did get thoughts to show my scars and wounds to others to tell them that this what they are making me do to myself. but i never did.

eventually my family found out about it. i got treatment , i was clean for like a year i guess but i recently started it again because of recent events, its not like i am trying to put the blame on others for what i am going through but hey they played their part and i played mine and the scene got completed, analogy to a drama scene. ( i don't have any knowledge about how dramas go, sorry if i am being wrong ). they are responsible for it as much as i am i believe.

sorry it is long , really sorry. but if you have read till this point, i appreciate that a lot.

thank you for giving your time in reading this, i hope that you recover soon and if you are clean, then cheers, keep going, don't stop!

Hi... Some people say it's self harm what I do, but I don't see it that way and I don't advertise it, because I personally see it as disgusting but it makes me feel better some how.

I used to bite my nails...only do that alittle bit now. Then I went to biting the inside of my cheek i hardly do that now also. But I have some places that I continually pick at, it sounds disgusting, I'm actually embarrassed about it. But something about doing it just I don't know how to explain it, maybe soothes, although it does hurt obviously as you never letting things heal and they bleed. I get so agitated if I need to and I can't.

It sounds disgusting and as I say it is embarrassing, but it's something I need to do and in some weird way it's a comfort or a distraction. But I don't tell everyone about it and it's mainly in places where u can't really see and if it gets bad and I'm going somewhere and it could be visible I sometimes put a plaster over it.

But if I was doing it for attention, wouldn't I like advertise it. It's like a soothing process.

Sorry if it sounds basically what it is ..disgusting.. But it helps me.

Is picking at your scabs self harm? Someone said it was, but surely it's different in someway its not like I'm cutting?