Hi my name is Burkley and i am 21 years old. My addiction has been self harm. I have self harmed since i was about 12 years old. I struggle with manic depressive bipolar disorder and also anxiety. I went years with out being diagnosed, although i always knew something was wrong with me. It took my mom finding me in the bath tub passed out from loss of blood to get me the help i needed. I have been on medication since i was about 15 years old. This has helped me ALOT. I still struggle with the constant thought and urge to self harm everytime something happens in my life. I was recently free (clean) for about 6 years untill march of this year. My grandmal, my entire world passed away February 28th, 2017 and my world came crashing down. I even had my boyfriend hide all the objects i used to cut with to keep my sobriety but i still relapsed…so now i am 3 months free again. I have had a very very rough last 2 years and its been very hard to stay stable. Alot of times i find myself doing surface scraps just to quite that urge. Hoping that even with self harm addiction this app will help me! Thanks!
Welcome! Thank you for sharing your story. You are not alone! I’m primarily on this app for alcohol but I have a long history of self harm as well. I have not self harmed in 5 years. Your relapse doesn’t take away the 6 years that you abstained. We are all works in progress and sometimes we fall. What’s important is we get back up and keep fighting. This app can definitely be a big help! Congratulations on 3 months. You can do this! 
Welcome:hugs: to talking sober this is a great 
website. You’ll enjoy it here. There’s lots of great friendly people 
here with lots of good insight, 
and experiences,
that are more than willing to help, 
tell 
and listen:ear:. All you have to do is ask:lips: and/or read:newspaper:
. The best advice 
I can give you, after 11 mths. 
Clean:bath: is to keep your hands:clap: busy then your mind:face_with_head_bandage: will follow. An idle mind 
is the devil’s:japanese_ogre: workshop. Stay away from people, places, 
and things:clinking_glasses:
, that you’re used to hanging out with. And go to an meeting AS, EA, HA, SMART, SA or NA:computer:
where other X 
addicts are. You will find they’re very friendly:raising_hand_woman:
and very welcoming:wave:🖑, and that’s where you need to be believe me I know. Good luck 
and I’ll pray:pray:
for you. And you need to look 
to your higher 
power for strength:weight_lifting_man: and remember to thank him for the days 
that you’ve already accomplished of not harming yourself, being clean, not starving yourself and he’ll give you another day.
Thank you! I have alot to stay free for now. Even though those things are sometines what push me to relapse. If i did 6 years once i can do it again. I strugfle with doing surface cuts when i get stressed most
Thank you for your story and your honesty. That’s the beauty of this app, we can relate. Congrats on 6 years and now on 3 months!
Do you see a therapist? I think the key is to develop other coping mechanism to work towards getting out of the habit of cutting. For me, whenever I get the urge I stop whatever I’m doing, breathe, and go through my mental list (I have a written list also) of things to do instead. The skills that I have developed over the years have actually helped me stay sober also. I always used alcohol as a replacement for cutting. There are some good suggestions for alternative coping strategies about halfway down on this page:
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/anxiety/cutting-and-self-harm.htm
It can be really helpful to actually write down a list of alternative coping mechanisms - ways to calm yourself down when you feel the urge. Also, two pro/con lists - one for continuing to self harm and one for abstaining. That way you will have a reminder of why you stopped but you can also take a look at the “pros” of cutting and figure out ways to get those benefits in some other way. For instance: if you have “release anger” as a pro then you could make a list of other ways to do that (screaming, punching a pillow, etc).
I have seen a therapist since i was 6 years old…i have been through anger management 3 times, family counseling, mental health counseling and just regular counseling. What my old therapist suggested was to have a hair tie or rubber band on my wrist at all times and when i feel the anxiety building to snap it on my wrist. All my therapists in the last 6 years have either got another job or rerired so i currently dont have one because i get tired of telling my story over and over and lver again
Gotcha. Yea the rubber band trick does help. I’ve used that as well. So it sounds like you’ve got an idea of what you need to do to break this habit. Just keep taking it one day, hour, minute, second at a time. You’ll get there. The forum is a great place to turn to. Glad you are here with us.
I used to work with a lot of teenagers who self harmed…and you probably know all the distractors when you feel like self harming…but since you’re doing surface cuts, have you tried drawing on your arm instead with red marker? Or putting glue (obvs not super glue…but like glue you’d craft with) on your arm, letting it dry and then peeling it off? Or one of those face masks that go all plastic like when they dry on your face…putting one of them on your arm, letting it dry and then peeling it off may help your drive to self harm?