How can I cope with the fact that I self harm?

Understand that self-harm isn't some kind of terrible act that you should be demonized for. Self-harm is often times an unhealthy coping skill one develops in response to stressors when they feel as though they don't have any other way to deal with these feelings. You aren't a bad person for self-harming, you've merely developed a maladaptive coping skill. Replacing your self-harm with a more healthy coping skill is a follow-up step you can pursue.

The first step is to recognize that you deserve to take care of yourself. It is important to see this in a positive light, i.e. "I deserve to take care of myself", rather than in a negative light, i.e. "it is not ok to treat myself this way" because it might fuel feelings of guilt, which in turn cause self harm. The second step is to find someone to talk with about this behavior. It is best to seek support from someone who is not involved in your life, such as a psychotherapist or a doctor, because family and friend might become judgmental, or controlling, in order to manage their own feelings of guilt. The third step is to learn to love yourself. This is a long path, and it is best to leverage the love others give you in order to build a strong sense of self, in which you can reflect your own value as a lovable person. But for now, maybe try to accept it as a dogma: you are worthy of being loved, and it is ok if it is being loved by you only.

Self injury is a serious response to stress, depression, fear of distress and it affects people of all ages. Overcoming the urge to do that can be difficult but there's a lot of people that you can talk to about this such as a professional councillor, a close friend who can encourage you when you feel like doing it, a religious or spiritual advisor, a self injury support forum, etc. What has helped a lot of people are some alternate behaviours. When you feel stressed: 1. Punch a bag 2. Go for a vigorous walk or run 3. Practice deep breathing 4. Do something relaxing There are a lot more strategies that you can use but these are a few that come to mind

Be accepting of it, first off. Tell yourself, "OK, I self-harm, and this is an issue. What can I do to get better?" Whenever you have the urge to self-harm, find something to distract yourself, for at least a while. Whatever works for you; talking with friends, art, writing-- anything. What I did was compile things in advance before I had any urges. I had a box sitting by my desk full of items I loved, which really helped me get my mind off things while the want to hurt myself passed.

After you self harm, you have to live with that fact. However, that does not mean that you can’t recover!! You totally can recover, and talking about it is the first big step!

Understand that it's not your fault even when it may feel like it. During this time your not completely yourself and have complete control over your brain and that's okay. Are scars show us where we been and the journeys we been through.

When something bad happens to you, you have three choices. You can either let it define you, let it destroy you or you can let it strengthen you. When you look at your scars, you should see that they represent every battle you ever had with yourself that you lost. But that just drives you more to be better than you were yesterday.

just relax. the best thing you can do, is to contact an adult, or a supporter for that matter. Talking with people is the best thing you can do. especially because people loves you, and wouldn't want to see you hurt.

You can try to consult or to talk about it with someone. I think it's important for you to see that you need help and you can't continue to mutilate yourself. You need to evacuate your emotions by another way.

You can visit the self-harm communities here on 7 Cups or elsewhere. If you are a listener, there are guides to learn from under My Path > Training/Certificates. If you are comfortable, you can talk to a therapist. Good luck, darling!

I think the best thing you can do is acknowledge that it is a problem. Then work from there and try to figure out other activities that can distract you from self harm or help you "let it out"

Use art to release feelings in other ways. It sounds cheesy but works. Other ways may be to instead of cutting snap a rubber band on your arm

It can help to identify the reasons why you self harm, when you understand the why you can find a starting point to try and stop these behaviours and reach a place where you no longer hurt yourself. Counselling can help you not only discover why you self harm, but find healthier ways to deal with and overcome these issues.

Try not to think about it too much. If you are harming yourself while not getting help we at 7 cups strongly suggest seeing a counselor or therapist. If you are already seeing a therapist, and still struggle with self harm, try freezing what you harm yourself with in a cup of water, that way if you have the urge to cut or burn or whatever your poison is, you have to wait for it to melt. Then see if you really want to make that choice after you've waited such a long time.

Maybe stop self harming. If you're feeling guilty or bad about it, you should probably just stop. Instead of finding a way to cope with self harming, how about we replace self harm with a coping mechanism that doesn't need it's own coping mechanism.

Accept that what you are doing is not something that defines you. it is a dangerous and sometimes permanent solution to a temporary struggle. Speak up and talk to someone until they start to listen.

To cope with self-harm I found that I had to first learn to accept myself, as well as accept support

Dealing with the Fact that you self harm is never an easy thing to do, it takes strength and courage to accept that fact but once you have accepted it which can be done in many different ways which are different to each person i.e. talking to your parents/ an listener it becomes a lot easier to cope with the idea of not self harming again and that you are worth the recovery.

It can help to think about the ways that self-harm has helped you. In the big picture it is a maladaptive coping skill, but if it didn't do anything to help us, we would have no reason to do it at all. Sometimes, when you feel overwhelmed with grief/regret/self-loathing because you have harmed, it can help to remember there was a reason. It can also help to think of ways you can start to actually give yourself alternative. By researching and practicing a wide variety of healthy coping mechanisms we can eventually face overwhelming emotions & situations and truly have a choice - how will i cope with this? And then, over time, you can start to recover. But, realizing self harm has a reason, and realizing recovery is about REPLACING self harm, not just stopping it, can be really important parts of accepting that this is something you have done and something you continue to struggle with.

Try not to self-harm. Later on you'll regret it. But, when you self-harm, try to think about why you shouldn't do it. Sometimes it helps you stop.

You'll have moments where you'll regret ever putting that blade to your arm for the first time, but you can't change it. You can stop, but you can't change what already happened. You just have to accept the past and move on.

Self Harm is a very dangerous as well as potentially fatal addiction, but like other addictions you can work through the urges, you have to believe that there is a better way, and a big thing that has helped me is talking about it to my friends,

There are many websites that give alternatives when you are feeling a need to self harm such as cutting paper or drawings, find someone you trust who you can share these feelings with or talk to one of us!