All I hear…

More than once I have been told:

You are not badly ill, overall you are a healthy young woman.

I know it means, that I can become fine, without loosing myself in the process. It is supposed to mean that I can and will get better. But that is not what I hear. All I hear is:

I am not sick.

And there are a number of consequences to that. If they do not think I am sick, well can I stop trying to get better? Because if I am not sick there is no need for me trying. There is no need for me working. Do I have to stop being proud of myself if I resist the urge? Can I stop trying to distract myself. Stop trying to find alternatives? Can I stop keeping in mind that I cannot drink too much, because I might slip? Because substance abuse is just another symptom for an illness, that I do not have?

Or does it mean I am imposing? Do they really think I would be faking the pain? As a matter of fact I have acted hurt before, which hurt me in return. But really… no human happily physically hurts him-/herself. I do not know if it is even possible to fake being in pain to this point.

Am I creating it all myself. Am I suffering from nothing but an idea, that I created myself? Is it all the exaggeration of a drama queen. A normal reaction of a young woman to extreme fields of tension?

That is not what they are saying? Well… If I am not that sick, then what is that pain I am feeling? Why am I cutting? Why do I hurt myself? Why do passions fade away. Slip away under my hand? Why do I feel like crying might help, but all it does is leaving me more empty and more fatalistic than before.

I know. no one is trying to invalidate my emotions. No one is trying to say the way I perceive the world is untrue. But that is all I hear. If I am not terribly sick, then why did I even put up with therapy? And why am I tossed around on emotions? Why do I feel fine one moment and the next I just… wish for it all to end?

And if this is normal… please tell me how everyone puts up with it. How can one live without breaking if this is the norm? How? How is not everybody addicted to alcohol and other drugs? I am supposed to shut up and deal with it? I will gladly. If I am told how the fork this is possible.

I know it is never meant to mean any of this. I know it with my head. But it is not how it feels. Because, frankly I wish I was not sick. And when I am not spiraling down, I appreciate the efforts to cheer me up. And I am even sure, that when someone says something like that they are telling the truth. And I know that there are a great many times, where I can see that truth myself. Moments where I feel fine. Moments of happiness. But there very same statement can be so devastating when I am at my worst, because it questions my perception of things. And the issue with that is, that there is none better at doubting me than myself and that is not something that should be enhanced in any way.

I am not saying I cannot handle the truth. I am not saying that no one should ever tell me that I am mostly healthy. Because it is the truth. But sometimes what I have described is all I hear. Maybe… because it is all I want to hear.

The Spiral. My Prison

I have become toxic. Not that is a surprise to me. But I just realized it. And… I do not hate myself for it. I just hate the fact that it happened. I hate to put the people close to me through this pain. And the more I say this, the more I wonder if this is even true. I keep saying it. And yet I am toxic. Spiraling down in that panic. I cannot stop it. I can’t. I do not have the strength to do that. Maybe I should prove that I mean, what I say. Should leave. Point being: I do not want to be alone, but I isolate myself (why does it feel like I have written these exact words down before?!).

I am locked up, am I not? In Fear. And Pain. And this self-imposed loneliness. I can try to get out. And sometimes it will feel like I was successful. But I cannot actually be free. I am at that point where I have stopped thinking about whether or not I created this situation for myself. Because now… it is here. It is real. It hurts and I just want it to stop. But I do not have the strength to do that. So I am just letting it happen. Hoping that one day it may end. The definition of giving in.

Down once more

I’m listening to my breathing as the urge takes a hold of me. The two days old red lines on my thighs hurt. I used a blunt blade. Stupid craft knife. I want -I need- an actual razor blade. The alcohol is coursing through my veins. I used to think I was incapable of cutting when I’m drunk. Not true.

There is not even a trigger for this urge. Just me fighting. Cutting is an addiction. If I slide down that path more than once in a few days… I am back in that world of pain. And there I do not need any triggers whatsoever.

Sometimes I manage to distract myself until the urge has gone away. That is actually the case fairly often. Thank God. But with every time I cannot. With every bloody letter on my skin I spiral down a bit deeper. And the further I fall the greater the chance of me cutting again.

I know the mechanisms. It is not like I am blind. And I say I want to stop. But I am doubting my own words. I am questioning my own motivation. Do I really really want to stop? Have I become so addicted? Do I want to fight? Do I really want to find the energy to fight the urge? Would it not be so much easier to just give in and decide to not care about what cutting means to anyone else? Because it is release for me. Or is it?

All that is Hell ends.

The sun is rising again. I am waking up from a nightmare. I’m getting out of the darkness. Leaving that hell behind me.

I am not going to lie. I cried. So much. Actually crying and the support of someone close to me was what helped me. And yes, the person who helped me… was not someone who actually understands what it means to self-harm. But she was able to take away my fear. Make me believe for the first time in days that everything is going to be alright. And I know this sounds so old. Sounds like a comforting lie. But now I am able to believe it again. My life does not magically become easy now. But I am not terrified of what will happen anymore.

And now… as I have left hell behind I realize that I wished for one special person to be there with me. I trusted that person. And that person was who made me feel so left alone. I am mad. My pain has turned into anger. Not just raging anger. But sad anger. Because it is not that I don’t understand. It is not that I accuse that person of what happened. I am just disappointed. So my understanding is not what I deny him now. But my trust. I do not hate. But I wish to protect myself.

I am strong. I can live through a great many things without needing a particular person. Because I have my family. And I have those friends who are doing everything in their power to help me. No matter how badly I need them. Those people will always be there. and that is why I trust them.

I once said, that trust violations are the only real way to hurt me. And I have been hurt. Deeply. But this is not the end. I can go on. I woke up from my nightmare. And I am stronger than I was before. Because I know my value. I know that I can do this. Without destroying myself. Without getting lost in a world of darkness.

The lesson is simple: Trust is important. It can lift you up. Or tear you down. There are people who deserve being trusted. Those are the people who will help you when you cannot see where to go. And then there those who you wish to trust, but if you do they will disappoint and hurt you. And for me… when I have been hurt enough, I stop trusting those people. Not because I hate them. Because the first person I have to protect is myself.

Hating ourselves

Self-hate is a problem. For some it is a reason to self-harm. For some it is a contributor. And for some it is just something they bury deep inside them. It devours them. And comes to the surface every time they feel that they failed.

Let’s take a step back. Where does self-hate come from? Why do we hate ourselves? Why? I think there are a variety of reasons. But a prerequisite to hate ourselves is that we believe that we are in control. Because if we have no control, we do not get to hate ourselves. Because if we cannot do anything, we cannot be guilty. And if we aren’t guilty, why hate ourselves?

That’s good news, isn’t it? We are in control. Which means that there is something about us, that we do not like. And we can change that. But what if we make the same mistake over and over and over again? What if we fall day after day? And we reach that point where we feel like it has no point. We do not want to get back up. We want to give in. We just want to hate ourselves for falling.

Again. Why? Why do we keep failing? We do we seem to be resistant to learning? There is no simple answer here. There are a few points that can be intertwined with each other. There are however a two major ones:

We do say it is a mistake, but we do not actually believe so.
We have not found the right way to avoid the mistake.

The first one is pretty much equal to lying to ourselves. It means that we are doing something that we like, but for some reason we think that it is wrong. Our believes collide with what we want. Well… sadly this has happened to me before. Several times. This can happen and sometimes we do not even know it is happening. We are not trying to lie to ourselves. But I think there is one crucial step we have to take, once we notice what is going on: Either we need to adjust our believes, to match our actions. Or we have to adjust our actions to match our believes.

And this is the second point: We might just have not found the right way to make sure we do not fall back into the same old traps. We need to develop strategies and techniques to trick ourselves into not making the same mistakes over and over. And it is fine to not find the right way immediatly. We all have to go our own ways. We are indviduals. We need to figure out what works for us. And often times that is a trial and error process. And that’s alright, as long as we keep going.

Now coming from someone who did self-harm and who has slipped down into the addiction of self-harm before that might sound very hypocritical. And yes. I have struggled with self-hate. Of course. I hate myself for cutting. And I hate myself, if I don’t. So yes. I might always be disgusted with myself, no matter what I do. But I also know that I do not have to hate. No one does.

Again: Failing is part of living. Falling is part of living. But Life is not about our failures. It is about how we got back up again. It is about how we grew from our failures. How we managed to go another day without cutting. How we lived our lives smiling a little bit more every day.

We do not have a reason to hate ourselves, for our mistakes. Not as long as we honestly fight them. Not as long as we try to become better. To not make them. Make plans to avoid them. Take action. Know that we are the ones forging our future. Or choose to make those mistakes. And then deal with the consequences. The choice really is ours.

But no matter what we do: There is no reason to hate ourselves. Because hate is only destructive.

Fighting with Kindness

When someone calls us “sweety” over and over again, we want to rise to that expectation. We want to become sweeter, kinder and nicer. At least that is what I experienced. And I think that with us trying to be kind in general, we will also be more likely to be kind to ourselves. And this is where we win. Because this can protect us from hurting ourselves. This ties into the overall mindset of positivity. Which I find is so crucial to recovering from all this hate towards ourselves that we fuel.

Let’s take a step back. What the heck is female energy? To me it is the desire to take care and protect those who need protection. Those who are close to our hearts. It is the wish for peace. The wish for a safe home. The need for beauty around us. The will to be sweet and cute. It is not unique to women at all. It is that it is women who we are seeing protraying that engery, most times.

Female energy is in strong contrast to us trying to be strong. Pushing on. Forcing everything beyond the limits. Female energy aims to preserve the beauty. It is not weak. It is just less aggressive, less outgoing. It aims at the peace and protection rather than trying to conquer the world.

And this is exactly, why it is so good at helping us to fight self-harm: it is an energy that will drive us to preserve ourselves.

Now, how can we connect to that drive? In the rush of our world we always try to be tougher. We are constantly competing never calming down. Never appreciating the beauty around us. And that is exactly where we need to start: In seeing the flower on our way to work. On seeing the colors of a sunset. And realizing how beautiful it is. Because we cannot try to protect the beauty if we do not see it.

But we do not only need to see the beauty around us. While that is all well and good and important to lift our spirits, even more important is to see the beauty within ourselves. Now that is the hard part. Because we all have flaws and we tend to see them waaaaay more than we see how awesome we really are. And I’ll not ask anyone to lie to oneself, because that will not help either and might even be a source for self-hatred. So no lying. But then how are we supposed to see the good in us?

For me there are many things. I have found that clothes can help a lot. Simple things like putting on a cute piece of clothing like a lace-top, or painting my nails. Putting on a smile. Telling someone close to me I love them, or patting my pet. All those things can work wonders. Because we can look in the mirror and see a nice person. Someone who is worth protecting.

Honestly, I think telling ourselves, that we are wonderful, is something we forget is legit. Because it has nothing to do with obsessing about one’s looks. But with accepting who we are. And creating that person, we want to be. And there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with slowing down our lives, to appreciate what is around us. To appreciate what and who we love. And to appreciate who we are.

And this appreciation. That awareness. That wish to be kind will connect us to our female energy. It will make us happier people. And as we are happier and smile more, we will become more beautiful, more amazing and will notice that change. We will notice the positive mindset we have towards ourselves. And along with this we will be empowered. We will start being at peace with ourselves, instead of being at war. And hand in hand with that, our desire to harm ourselves will begin to fade.

The very first step

The first step in recovering from anything is probably the hardest, but it is also very simple: it is admitting to ourselves, that we are not as fine, as we like to make everyone (including ourselves) believe. With a mental disorder it is just so easy to deny that we are sick and push through everyday life.

The problem is that we cannot fight something, that we do not even admit is there. And fight we must, because those things, they don’t just disappear. Who are we kidding, when we say: “It’s just a rough patch, it’s gonna get better.” No, it’s not. But that is not a problem. Because we can and we will get better, once we stop living in ignorance.

But, why do we choose to live in ignorance? Why do we lie to everybody? Why do we prevent ourselves from actually getting better? There are many reasons. (In fact I believe nothing in context with self-harm is simple.) One of them is being afraid of being judged. The little sister of that one is being ashamed. Then there is the hate we feel for ourselves and the idea that we deserve to suffer, because we are a failure. The idea that we cannot be helped. Or the thought that it is not a problem. That it will resolve itself. That we are just making it up.

All of those are reasons keeping us from seeing the truth. For me personally it was the thinking that I was just being a drama queen in search for attention. And I did not want to reward that by giving my problem any attention. I was ashamed of myself, because I did not understand one thing: Even if we are doing it for attention, there is everything wrong with thinking that is a reason for not being worth to treat our self-harm. There are so many other ways to gain attention, hurting ourselves is not something that we are naturally drawn to. In fact it is what we are trying to avoid at all cost. So, there is no way that we “just want to get attention”. There is definitely something else going on. There is a good reason, we are yearning to be seen. And we need to deal with that. Not hide it.

No matter what we feel, self-harm is a problem. And we are allowed to view it as such. We do not need to be ashamed of it. We did not ask for it. And no matter, what it is that makes us think, we are a failure. We are not. And we do not deserve to suffer. We deserve to be helped, to overcome this. We deserve to be loved. We are loved. In our darkest hours we tend to forget this. But we are loved. So we deserve to love ourselves. With all that we are. Including our self-harm. The goal is not to hate ourselves for it. The goal is to help us get better.

And in order to get better. In order to believe ourselves, when we say, that we suffer from self-harm, I find it helpful to talk to someone about it. Because most of our reasons for not admitting what is going on, is a hate for ourselves, and a fear of being judged. So the experience, that other people do not hate and judge us for our self-harm is so helpful in actually seeing how it is may be a problem but it is nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing to hide. Trusting someone with our issue shows nothing but great strength. And honors the person we trust. I have made the exprience that those people highly appreciate our trust and faith in them and will try everything they can to help us get better.

But before we can get better, we need to view self-harm as a disorder that we have. A disorder that is not our fault. That does not lessen, the wonderful person we are. So please, if you are affected, allow yourself to have those issues, without hating yourself for them. Because you are an inspeakablely precious person, no matter what you run into!