On Self-Harm

Hey there and welcome once again to Growing Pains.

First, I want to note that this post will contain mentions of self-harm and suicidal thoughts. If either of these subjects may be triggering to you, please feel free to skip this post and visit my blog page for my other content. And if one or both of these topics is a current struggle for you, I deeply encourage you to seek help. You are not alone <3

As I’ve stated in related posts: Blogs and similar content are not meant to replace professional diagnosis and treatment. I’m simply documenting my mental health experiences to shed light on these issues.

Now, I hate talking about this, and I don’t want to write a post about self-harm but here I am.

I’m writing this on Friday, September 12th and as of today I am 603 days clean from self-harm.

My life has been a mess and my mental health has been the lowest it’s been since I was fifteen. And I really want to start cutting again.

I look at that number, 603, and it doesn’t feel like much to me. I find it difficult to find the meaning in 603 days. All I know for reference is that I haven’t self-harmed since I got my tattoo at eighteen.

My only motivation to not cut is the fact that I want more tattoos because let me tell you, getting inked over scars SUCKS. 

I don’t really know why I’m writing this post other than to convince myself not to break my 603 day streak. It’s the longest streak I’ve held since I began self-harming at nine years old.

I used to hide blades all throughout the house because I couldn’t go an HOUR without self-harm. And showers were just the worst. They stung so bad as the water seeped into my wounds. I’d wake up every morning to new red stains on my bedsheets, and spend the morning scrubbing those stains off, erasing any evidence of my mistakes.

I lied to my loved ones. A lot. They thought I was fine for a long time, when really I was lying right to their faces with blood-soaked bandages hidden under my jeans.

It’s really hard to think straight when my emotions are so high. For several days, I’ve felt this way and I’ve been fighting to convince myself not to break my 603 day streak. Somehow my brain reframes several back-to-back bad days as a bad life, and it’s really hard to pull myself away from that mindset once that seed is planted in my mind. 

I know I’ve been struggling with my mental health for ten years now. It sucks to realize that. I look back and I still hate my nine-year-old self for picking up on self-harm. I hate her for ruining me.

It takes so much inner strength and compassion to realize that she was just doing her best to survive the cards she was dealt. She was living in a violent home. She was surrounded by constant yelling and anger. She saw holes punched into walls and coffee mugs shattered. She felt the sting of a slap over innocent mistakes. She was a child. And she was scared.

Now at nineteen, I try to be the woman that nine-year-old me never thought could exist within us. I try to have the strength and love for myself that she needed at that time.

I used to scoff at my therapist whenever she told me to “hug my inner child” or “speak kindly to my inner child”, and sometimes I still think it’s a ridiculous sentiment. But over these past few years, I’ve realized that I still hold a lot of pent-up resentment towards my nine-year-old self for cutting and sending us down that ruinous path. And I think I’m realizing that now, I need to forgive her and let her heal as well.

So today, Friday, September 12th, I will not break my 603 day self-harm clean streak. I will begin learning how to forgive that scared little girl inside me. And I’ll continue becoming the woman she never thought she could be. The one who doesn’t hurt herself. The one who is slow to anger. The one who doesn’t hold resentment. The one is kind and soft. The one who knows how to be gentle.

Welcoming day 604,

Alexandra