Why do I feel the need to hurt myself?

for me, the reason i self harmed was that, i was able to control the pain i felt on the outside and it distracted me from the pain inside.

The pain deep inside cannot be heard or understood by anyone else but me. It gets overpowering when I feel nobody understands my pain (usually it's mental / emotional pain) that it could come to a point, by hurting myself physically.. the pain from the outer layer that can be seen and felt becomes more painful than what's inside for that moment. well of course it's also because of self-hatred, feeling unworthy, worthless, hopeless, etc. However, self-hurt isn't a solution; it's actually a mechanism of avoiding the true struggle that's happening inside.

Sometimes a person has the tendency to hurt himself/herself to be able to bring out the pain that killing him/her inside. The physical pain that he/she inflicts somehow lessen the demise that he/she is experiencing. Some might find hurting himself/herself as an avenue to contain his/her situation.

When I struggled with self harm, it was because I felt numb to any type of emotion. I didn't hurt myself because I wanted to end my life, I hurt myself because I no longer wanted to feel numb.

When you hurt yourself your body releases chemicals called endorphins, these are 'feel good' hormones. Self harm can help you cope with difficult thoughts and feelings and endorphins make us feel better about ourselves.

Self-harm might be a way of expressing self-control. It shows you that you have some control over your life. Another reason may be self-punishment.

Because physical pain makes you forget the emotional pain. But once u stop self harming the pain will come back. And so it's always once more.

Because sometimes it feels like there is no other way to deal with things. Sometimes all you want to do is take attention away from emotional pain no matter the cost.

Sometimes people feel the need to self harm when they are in great emotional distress and they start blamng themselves for everything that has gone wrong in their life. Other times, people use self harming as a means of getting attention from those around them. Regardless of the reason though, self harming will never fix anything. It will not fix one's problems, and it's certainly not a healthy way of asking for attention. Whatever the issue may be, if the urge is intense and you find yourself thinking about it a lot, you should definitely talk about it with someone you trust and someone whom you know is going to be there for you and support you through it. Whether that is a friend, a family member, or even a therapist. Self harm is never the answer to any problem.

You could be going through a rough time and hurting yourself is a way to release emotions and to sometimes feel better. Right now that could be your best way to release, and that's why you feel the need to. It ends up being a bit like an addiction. But just know that there are options out there, to help you stop and to find healthier methods of release.

The reason why I would hurt myself is because I felt like I had caused a lot of my emotional pain and I wanted to be punished. I wanted to feel worthless, sad and abused by myself because I deserved it. I felt like by me doing that I was showing how much I hated myself and I was embarrassed about it too. I felt like I was going crazy and no one would ever like me because of it. So therefore, I would hate myself even more for self harming. I am still working my way out of this destructive circle but one thing that gets me out of it is to realize that the things I hate about myself don’t define who I am. That is just a part of myself I can work on. They don’t make me a bad person, they just make me a damaged person who is healing.

I think is because the pain inside is too much to handle we want somehow to get distracted

Feeling the need to hurt yourself can be surprising and scary. Sometimes, the desire to self-harm can be our minds looking for a way we can control our pain. Our mind confuses hurting ourselves, and causing our own pain, with being able to control the pain people or things outside of us can cause. But the truth of the matter is that people/things outside of us can still cause us pain even when we're already hurting ourselves; so, self-harm isn't really accomplishing what our minds are trying to convince us it will. Try to be strong and out-smart the part of your mind that thinks self-harm will help. Tell your mind that we can't control everything, so we have to learn to cope with pain in healthier ways. Radically accept the truths that 1) life can be painful and 2) we are strong enough to handle that pain in healthy ways.

Why do people feel the need to kill ? or to abuse drugs and alcohol? or even to feel worthless ? we never truly know , thats up to you. you aren't worthless or alone , you may feel that you are and maybe thats because you feel people around you just don't understand what you're going through . they are great people here on 7 cups , but even talking to a professional , which we can refer you to might be better as well .

Causing pain means you lack pain somewhere else. I find most times it's due to being hurt so much throughout your life and then there all of a sudden is no pain. The best thing will be to find a good pain. Find something you absolutely love doing and do it as much as you can.

it takes 3 weeks to form a habit, and hurting yourself is a habit, overtime you get urge to hurt yourself try doing something else, walking your dog, going for a walk, or painiting a picture, after three weeks, the urge should start to fade