Self Harm: Our Stories, and How We Recovered

For Self-Injury Awareness Day, I asked people to share their experience with self-harm, and what has helped them cope.

TW: This post contains information about self-harm. be mindful of reading this if it will affect you negatively.

I first self-harmed at the age of 14. I have no idea where the thought came from, but I drowning in a sea of suffocating thoughts and reached for something out of pure desperation. After this, I became addicted to the pain. I was self-harming almost every day, in a cycle of heal, harm, heal, harm, heal, harm. I hid it from everyone, wearing baggy clothes and keeping up my bubbly front. It was a dark time. I so strongly believed that I needed to punish myself. That feeling has never really gone away.

I was struggling with the pressures of school, and the grip of anxiety and low-self esteem. I was depressed, but I didn't know how to talk about that at the time, so I just.. lived on autopilot. I was lucky to be dating someone, as this meant that one person did know, and could hold me accountable. He would check in with me regularly, and it gave me a reason to stop. In fact, the shame of the reactions of others was the only thing that helped. Then, I moved to university, and in this new environment, I felt free — free to reinvent myself, to dance and do drugs and have fun. I still self-harmed…