Mental Health Any men with experience of self harm? Thread is now open to people of any gender who experience self harm and need somewhere to discuss this.

[THECATINTHEHAT]

Yes I’m male and I self harmed through my early teens. I stopped around 15 when drug taking took over.

I had a small relapse in 2021 and 2022 (I’m 35 now) but that behaviour feels a long way off now thankfully, but I have made some gigantic changes in my life.

I guess there are many reasons but I feel like a frustration with not being heard is fairy central.

 

[deficiT]

I got into drugs early, cut myself a bit, punched walls, broke phones, and eventually had a pretty bad suicide attempt in which I severed an artery on my wrist. All of this i consider self harm and have had multiple attempts. This was in August of last year that bad one happened. I've pretty much been chill since then aside from the mental languishing and ideation. As long as I find something to distract myself with I'm fine, but am still grieving pretty heavily over my ex passing and trying, and am desperately trying to pull my life together.

Luckily I've started working, I'm hoping it works out this time and it's a fit for long enough for me to get my license reinstated.

 

[RUC4]

Buddhism is too nihilistic for me. There is a real self, but it is at perfect peace and equanimity. It is always accessible even if the person is tormented somehow.

I have to jump in here. I disagree. Where do you find anything nihilistic about Buddhism?
They are completely different, they are two distinct philosophical and spiritual perspectives with fundamental differences. Nihilism does not propose a positive belief system or a specific path to follow; rather, it questions and denies the existence of overarching meaning or purpose. Buddhism encompasses various traditions, but the core teachings revolve around the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and the concept of enlightenment (Nirvana).

Please explain to me how these are similar. Biddhism isn't saying there's no mean. There is, in fact, meaning in the truth and taking a path to enlightenment, thus adding more meaning. I wanna hear your side. Prove me wrong.

 

[Foreigner]

I have to jump in here. I disagree. Where do you find anything nihilistic about Buddhism?
They are completely different, they are two distinct philosophical and spiritual perspectives with fundamental differences. Nihilism does not propose a positive belief system or a specific path to follow; rather, it questions and denies the existence of overarching meaning or purpose. Buddhism encompasses various traditions, but the core teachings revolve around the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and the concept of enlightenment (Nirvana).

Please explain to me how these are similar. Biddhism isn't saying there's no mean. There is, in fact, meaning in the truth and taking a path to enlightenment, thus adding more meaning. I wanna hear your side. Prove me wrong.

I don't want to prove anything. At least not here in this thread about self-harm.

 

[deficiT]

I'd be interested to hear how Buddhism is nihilistic too, but yeah foreigner is right it's way off topic for this. Make a thread in p&s if you really wanted to have that debate.

 

[underairpressure]

Hey, I'm a guy who has been self-harming for almost as long as I remember. For perspective, I'm autistic, and I was being abused from basically birth. I was never taught any coping skills or regulation whatsoever growing up, just shamed mocked punished or ignored. In elementary school I mostly would hit, bite, or scratch myself (as either punishment or to try and 'train' myself) and then when I became a teenager and learned about cutting I began to do that.

It is very rare that I SH anymore, but not because I chose to stop. I just unfortunately am a working adult who can't 'get away with it' anymore.

 

[Eligiu]

Hey, I'm a guy who has been self-harming for almost as long as I remember. For perspective, I'm autistic, and I was being abused from basically birth. I was never taught any coping skills or regulation whatsoever growing up, just shamed mocked punished or ignored. In elementary school I mostly would hit, bite, or scratch myself (as either punishment or to try and 'train' myself) and then when I became a teenager and learned about cutting I began to do that.

It is very rare that I SH anymore, but not because I chose to stop. I just unfortunately am a working adult who can't 'get away with it' anymore.

There are several autistic people in this thread who self harm. I am, I'm on disability but I work a couple hours a week as social support to two other young autistic guys playing magic cards, card games, videogames ans doing art (coincidentally my favourite things to do too lol), but I'm able to hide it at work. I couldn't work the job I went to uni for (law) and do it, but I am unable to finish what I started with that. I also experienced abuse from a very young age. I think a big part of autism and self harm is (for me at least) extreme difficulty in identifying the specific emotions that I feel (alexythemia or however it's spelt) plus, because of a trauma background being basically unable to tell people how I feel if I do feel something. So historically I resorted to self harming so that people would notice the bandage, ask about it, and I could explain that my dad did something shitty to me and I got upset. My friends unfortunately didn't discourage this, but thankfully I have a system in place for it now which has reduced that type of self harm to being practically non-existent.

I would be interested in hearing about your experiences with self harm and being autistic with the reasons behind it, and other people's (@RUC4 as well) because most literature around autism and self harm focusses on people who have a a comorbid intellectual disability, rather than co occurring mood disorders/trauma backgrounds/adhd etc and it would be interesting to have some kind of discussion from the community on here who fits into both these categories about what reasons people did or do it for, I think.

 

[dextromethorphian]

I don't really struggle with self harm but I've picked at my skin / nails / scabs as a form of self harm. Personally, I think it never became a habit because substances replaced that need for an escape. Though when I do occasionally 'relapse' on it, I barely have any kind of urge to stop doing it. When I'm having a depression crash, I debate picking on my left arm again or picking away at my nails. I'm lowkey afraid it might develop into a full habit if I fully become sober.

 

[t_xeplionhell]

Hi, I have posted a bit about this before.

I have a long term issue with self harm which started in my late teens.

Technically I would also categorise my drug use as self harm as it is done for self punishment but in this case I'm talking solely about physical self harm.

I have punched walls and broken fingers several times.

I cut myself, although this is fairly superficial and has never resulted in needing any urgent medical attention. When I am drunk I am liable to cut deeper, out of carelessness.

I have a significant issue with burning. I have given myself a decent amount of severe full thickness burns requiring my attendance at the local hospital burns unit for treatment. They usually take 2-3 months to heal and require weekly dressing changes. This happens 2-3 times per year and can be triggered by something relatively minor. The problem with the extent to which I burn is that it doesn't actually hurt much - once you have reached the point of a full thickness burn, the nerve endings are all completely gone so you can't actually feel any pain.

Last weekend I burnt myself again. I made it almost a year this time without doing it. I'm really disappointed because this is the worst burn I've ever given myself. It's significantly larger than my previous ones, completely third degree (not second/third like some previous ones) and definitely worse. The burns unit gave me 5 free Acticoat (medical grade silver nitrate dressings you can wear for a week at a time and get wet) which cost $50 each. They said I can have the burn dressed at my GP clinic unless something goes wrong in which case I'll have to return to the burns unit.

What frustrates me is the reason I did it this time. I had to see my dad on the weekend (who I'm not on speaking terms with for a multitude of reasons) and was really triggered by that. Consequently, I wanted to talk to my GP about it when I saw him, but as is typical for me I don't feel able to bring up the conversation myself, for fear of being dismissed. Instead I fell into an old habit which developed with my friends over the past 5 years whereby I self harm in order to prompt someone to notice the injury, then ask about why I did it which then allows me to freely discuss it as needed. I'm finding this a very tough habit to break. My friends accidentally impliedly encouraged this behaviour because I was so unable to open up emotionally that it was somewhat permitted and even encouraged as a way of allowing me to communicate.

I understand deeply that it is maladaptive and it doesn't serve any positive purpose in my life, yet still I find myself falling back into old habits when under the pressure of wanting to talk about something important with someone close to me.

It isn't for attention, I hide it from people on a day to day basis (although I no longer hide my scars as I just cannot be bothered anymore and I've stopped caring about what people think). I don't want their sympathy or anything. It's specifically done so they'll ask about what happened to cause it.

Are there any other men in here who have struggled with self harm? What reasons did you engage in it for? How were you able to stop?

I have no experience with self-harm but I can suggest you to try find another not harmful ways to "punish" yourself.
Here are some examples that will likely work for you:
- going to the gym 6 times in a week for 4h every time.
= hard work, you work on something for 12h a day for a whole month.
- you cut off doing "fun stuff" like partying or alcohol for a whole month.
- you start training certain martial arts that are painful
- you run 6 miles with no breaks in-between (everyone who has no heart issues and is not overweight can do it)

 

[Eligiu]

I have no experience with self-harm but I can suggest you to try find another not harmful ways to "punish" yourself.
Here are some examples that will likely work for you:
- going to the gym 6 times in a week for 4h every time.
= hard work, you work on something for 12h a day for a whole month.
- you cut off doing "fun stuff" like partying or alcohol for a whole month.
- you start training certain martial arts that are painful
- you run 6 miles with no breaks in-between (everyone who has no heart issues and is not overweight can do it)

I actually prefer to not punish myself at all, by doing things I enjoy. Those things are all essentially impossible for me to do (and drugs and alcohol aren't 'fun stuff' for me anyway, I rarely actually use them it's just when I do, I do it to self harm. I don't party, I sit alone in my room after isolating myself) anyway. I'm on disability because of my MH and autism, and chronic pain, and because of those things I spend most of my time in therapy appointments, or doing things with support workers. I'm not inclined to turn my PT sessions (which involve kickboxing and phillipino stick fighting and boxing and weightlifting) into 'self punishment' when I prefer them to be actually good for me and something I look forward to doing, same as my Pokemon Go walks that I do every day, my art, my music etc. I prefer filling my day with fun things that I enjoy doing that bring me happiness rather than to just switch to 'healthy' ways of self harming which will continue my misery.

I appreciate the though, but I would need to suggest that your inexperience with self harm leading you to suggest someone who does it to continue to self punish in other ways is probably not the most constructive solution to their problem, and it would be better to encourage them (this post was made I think almost a year ago and I have made a lot of progress since then, and have my behaviour support stuff all sorted out basically so I'm more or less fine with the support irl that I have, I bumped this in case anyone else needed a place to talk about the issue) to do things that are meaningful to their life, constructive, and not destructive.

Plus, even if one is to suggest alternative forms of self injury, they are restricted to things like holding ice cubes or snapping a rubber band against ones wrist, both of which show good success with people, and allow them time during the day to still do things. The schedule you set out it's basically impossible for someone to do if they have serious disability, or chronic pain. Not impossible, but it would be extremely hard.

I'm more of a proponent of things like positive behaviour support for this issue as i think it's far more successful to give people replacement behaviours, but they need to be things they can and want to do, which are appealing to them. That's different for everyone and could be anything from picking up music for the first time, or again, art, cooking, exercise etc but *all in moderation*