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Lettinginthebeauty
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Default Dec 20, 2017 at 10:29 PM
  #1
My therapist was surprised today to hear that neither my husband nor my parents ever knew I was self harming when I did.
I had told a couple friends and my therapist at the time. But no one else.
I Can’t imagine ever telling either my parents or my husband, feel like it would just hurt them and make them worry.
When I was self harming it was to a degree which was easy to hide... no one would look at my wrists and automatically assume that.
Has anyone else here not told people very close to them about this part of their past (or current) situation?
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KattChaos
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Default Dec 20, 2017 at 10:33 PM
  #2
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lettinginthebeauty View Post
My therapist was surprised today to hear that neither my husband nor my parents ever knew I was self harming when I did.
I had told a couple friends and my therapist at the time. But no one else.
I Can’t imagine ever telling either my parents or my husband, feel like it would just hurt them and make them worry.
When I was self harming it was to a degree which was easy to hide... no one would look at my wrists and automatically assume that.
Has anyone else here not told people very close to them about this part of their past (or current) situation?
I've been self harming since the 2nd grade. My parents new about it then cause at that age I wasn't very good at hiding it. But most of the time after I got smarter about it no one ever saw it until it was already a scar.
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Stronger
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Default Dec 22, 2017 at 09:54 PM
  #3
Yes and no.

There is definitely a lot of shame around self harm and a WHOLE lot of misunderstanding and judgement from people who think they know how to help.
When this behavior first started for me, I didn't tell my parents, someone else did.

I've had good years and bad years. Currently I'm in my 20s and just finished an extraordinarily difficult semester at school after returning from a year off on medical leave (for psych reasons). I am so ashamed that this behavior is still a part of my life, even though it's extremely rare for me now, only my therapist knows.

I don't know if self harm is a behavior that will ever be understood by someone who doesn't struggle with it, or is trained to help people with it.

But I do hope that the shame surrounding it will not last for ever. For you or for me.
Some battle we choose, and some battles are chosen for us.
Shame, in my opinion, is a battle worth fighting.
It is the enemy that keeps us isolated and alone.
We're not alone.

Keep fighting, my friend.

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Yes. Jesus is the reason I am still alive today.


Diagnoses:
MDD, BPD, PTSD, OCD, AN-BP

(I don't define myself by my personal alphabet up there, but I put it there so that maybe somebody won't feel so alone )
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Anonymous40413
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Default Dec 23, 2017 at 08:43 PM
  #4
I'm embarassed to say.. when I started I was depressed and suicidal. My parents didn't take the depression and being suicidal seriously when I finally had the courage to tell them. As a result (first because they didn't know, then because they didn't take it seriously) I told a couple of friends/friendish classmates and a teacher about it. Eventually I SIed.. not because I had real urges but I'd just thought I'd try. People do it, so it must help, right? Then I told a couple of those friends about it but that was mostly a cry of "See me help me take me seriously see how messed up I am". They already saw me, took me seriously, helped me to the best of their ability. So it embarrasses me when I think back on it.

This was in early 2011, maybe late 2010.

I'd hurt myself before when I was about 5 - I regularly spanked myself with the flyswatter. (Now that I think about it, it's kind of sad. Was only 5 and felt I deserved that.) Might have told a T or my pdoc about it - asides from that I only ever mention it on the internet.

In 2015 I told my mom.. didn't have much choice. Half my wardrobe was filled with old pyjamas that I never wore, so I had put one of them on after SI intending to throw it away after. Next day my sister comes to me asking if I've seen her favourite pyjama shirt. Oops. Had to tell my mom - there was blood in it and so I couldn't really throw it in the laundry basket for her to find.

T.. also 2015 I think.
Pdoc.. don't remember exactly. He does know and we talk about the urges sometimes, and if I've done it I usually send him an email. It's like this: sometimes he asks whether I have SIed, and that first time I was both afraid he wouldn't ask and thus would give me an excuse not to tell (he asked about it most appts at the time, I think he just forgot the other appts). And I was afraid he would ask, and my mother would hear (she usually joins me for appts). (It's one thing for a parent to know a daughter sometimes hurts herself - another thing entirely to hear she's hurt herself that exact week) So I send him an email basically stating: "Hurt myself on Thu, was because of x and y and I burnt z into my skin because of alpha" (alpha = a few words of explanation as to why I'd chosen that phrase) "Already talked with beta (T) about it. Just emailing you so you know and won't ask about it in the presence of my parents. If you want to talk about it it's fine, but either send my mother from the room or next week during our phone appt."

(Two weeks later I OD'd and my parents were told about, or saw, the burns in the hospital. Oops.)

I've send him another few emails like that. Last time I don't think I immediately told him - just mentioned it later on.

And I mentioned the 6-month-mark and the year-mark.
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Default Dec 24, 2017 at 03:01 PM
  #5
with me, I think it was more a case of making up excuses

people could see the scars and I think they knew, and sometimes they would ask me, but i'd say og i fell over, or.. I don't know how they got their, or something like that

and even then people would believe it, or act like they did
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Default Dec 24, 2017 at 03:03 PM
  #6
now I don't live with my family, so those days of people noticing are over.

I still do it (it's a huge part of my life), but I'm the only one who knows
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ForestWasp
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Default Feb 22, 2018 at 02:32 PM
  #7
I have been able to hide my addiction for 10 years from doctors, parents and even girlfriends. Most that have known me were shocked to hear that I was self harming and they didn't even know
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AnnaBegins
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Default Feb 26, 2018 at 02:24 PM
  #8
My T knows because I've told him but I haven't been telling him how much I am doing it lately.

My husband has no idea, even though I've accidentally forgotten to clean everything up once or twice. Kinda bugs me that he doesn't know...feels like he chooses not to.

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Stargazergirl94
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Default Aug 04, 2019 at 10:21 AM
  #9
Quote:
Originally Posted by Breadfish View Post
I'm embarassed to say.. when I started I was depressed and suicidal. My parents didn't take the depression and being suicidal seriously when I finally had the courage to tell them. As a result (first because they didn't know, then because they didn't take it seriously) I told a couple of friends/friendish classmates and a teacher about it. Eventually I SIed.. not because I had real urges but I'd just thought I'd try. People do it, so it must help, right? Then I told a couple of those friends about it but that was mostly a cry of "See me help me take me seriously see how messed up I am". They already saw me, took me seriously, helped me to the best of their ability. So it embarrasses me when I think back on it.

This was in early 2011, maybe late 2010.

I'd hurt myself before when I was about 5 - I regularly spanked myself with the flyswatter. (Now that I think about it, it's kind of sad. Was only 5 and felt I deserved that.) Might have told a T or my pdoc about it - asides from that I only ever mention it on the internet.

In 2015 I told my mom.. didn't have much choice. Half my wardrobe was filled with old pyjamas that I never wore, so I had put one of them on after SI intending to throw it away after. Next day my sister comes to me asking if I've seen her favourite pyjama shirt. Oops. Had to tell my mom - there was blood in it and so I couldn't really throw it in the laundry basket for her to find.

T.. also 2015 I think.
Pdoc.. don't remember exactly. He does know and we talk about the urges sometimes, and if I've done it I usually send him an email. It's like this: sometimes he asks whether I have SIed, and that first time I was both afraid he wouldn't ask and thus would give me an excuse not to tell (he asked about it most appts at the time, I think he just forgot the other appts). And I was afraid he would ask, and my mother would hear (she usually joins me for appts). (It's one thing for a parent to know a daughter sometimes hurts herself - another thing entirely to hear she's hurt herself that exact week) So I send him an email basically stating: "Hurt myself on Thu, was because of x and y and I burnt z into my skin because of alpha" (alpha = a few words of explanation as to why I'd chosen that phrase) "Already talked with beta (T) about it. Just emailing you so you know and won't ask about it in the presence of my parents. If you want to talk about it it's fine, but either send my mother from the room or next week during our phone appt."

(Two weeks later I OD'd and my parents were told about, or saw, the burns in the hospital. Oops.)

I've send him another few emails like that. Last time I don't think I immediately told him - just mentioned it later on.

And I mentioned the 6-month-mark and the year-mark.
When I was about 6 years old I remember standing in front of a mirror holding a belt and saying to myself in the mirror, “You’re a bad girl Raye! You need a spanking.” I didn’t actually hit myself. But I wanted to. I wanted to lash out at myself because I was so sad and I felt like it was because I was so bad. I cried the first time I told that story to my therapist.
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