How to deal with self-harm alone?

I understand that this is a difficult subject to open up about, even to the close friends or family. However... there isn't much recovery alone, and even if it is possible it is not something I've personally seen or experienced. Get help, please. Its a vicious cycle and it's all too easy to get sucked into it. Find help, talk to a friend, a family member, a professional, you know best what will help. Be brave! The first step is hard, so so very hard, but it gets easier as you continue. Self harm is usually something that starts after years of accumulated pain and it takes time releasing that pain, but only after that emotional release and working through all those pent up issues do you finally learn to deal with it. Stay strong, take care!

In case there is no one to talk to, breathe. In and Out. Again. Try to calm down. I know it's hard and I'm proud that you're fighting. You might want to consider alternatives to self-harm like snapping a rubber band against your wrist or "burning" yourself with an ice cube. Sometimes it works. And please know, you're not a failure if you give in. It's hard and we can't always win. You're not alone. You've come such a long way. Whatever you do, I am proud of you. You can always start again, you don't even have to wait until tomorrow. If you just close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, that's good enough. Time for a new beginning.

Hey, personally as a person who has been self harming over a period of two years, it is DAMN HARD. You may have been doing it longer then me, which is even longer so you know even more how harder it is. Though if you want to learn how to stop, I want to start out by saying: Beginning my journey to stop self harming was not easy. It won’t always be consistent and it is inevitable that you will not follow these tips all the time( I sure wasn’t consistent). In fact I still do it today, but generally I’m happy to say that I have made progress. I am confident to say if you try, you can make at least a little bit of progress slowly. Most likely your journey could certainly be slow. After all, self harm can easily turn into addiction. Simply saying “to continue to go to therapy and the hospital” is temporary or long term solutions that take time. Don’t get me wrong, one half of achieving success is Therapy and Medication Therapy/ Meditation plays a IMPORTANT ROLL in defeating self destructive behaviors, as it can achieve these things: Besides building emotional regulation which is key, you will eventually find the source of your distress and identify triggers that will dramatically guide you in defeating self harm. Medication can aid you in decreasing your emotional distress to increase your ability where you can function and manage life. This should not be taken with a grain of salt. Though, as said before it only addresses one half of your success to stop self harming. The other detrimental half contains a word that we all generally dread; coping skills. This is a very underestimated skill, and I curse it under my breath to this day. But I realized it was one of the big things that got me instantly to stop. Whenever self harm occurs, we have a extremely elevated level of emotional distress and our regulation abilities are often low. The purpose of coping skills is to lower emotional distress and regulate your emotions. You will probably be sick of hearing this but the key to stoping self harm is to replace these mechanisms with a personalized list of positive coping skills. I’m done with the talking, here is a list of help full positive, creative coping skills; Writing on yourself: This is often discouraged by therapist because it is deemed to be a gateway to self harm. Often people write negative stuff and self mutilate with the pen. I am not discounting the professionals, but surprisingly it helped me. I would draw Mandela’s and Aztec patterns along my arm and I became distracted. I also did write negative stuff, but I found myself to get bored- kind of like writing all your negative thoughts on paper multiple times and getting bored. I dosed off. Caution: Though, if you know that you would self mutilate, do not do this. Drawing on Paper: I am often at school, where I can’t write on my arm without grabbing attention. A very discreet way and effective way is to sketch. When the teacher is talking and I feel the urge to go to the bathroom and self harm, I sketch on my paper. If you are in high school, when you have anxiety you are permitted to have a 504 which can give you exceptions and allow you to draw on any paper when in crisis with request. Hypnosis App: this is my far and most favorite one. This is an interactive app called hyp where you press the screen and a geometrical pattern swirls and binaural music is playing. It is very psychedelic, trippy, and abstract- I can not stop listening to it. You can edit it to change the shapes and the speed. It is extremely beautiful and is the one that is by far the most effective for me. Binaural Beats Music: this is not just meditation music, but certain binaural beats can bring you to a euphoria and make you feel somewhat nostalgic. It is just the matter of picking the right one. There is MILLIONS of videos on YouTube, and even better, you can download MUSI, a free app that contains all YouTube videos and allows you to listen with your screen closed. CAUTION: SHOULD NOT BE LISTENED TO WHEN OPERATING A VEHICLE . THAT STUFF CAN MAKE YOU SLEEP MAKING MEMES: I am a big fan of this one. Downloading editing apps and adobe photoshop goes a long way. I often search and make political memes. This makes you laugh and can lead you to ideas. I even had a meme notebook one time and sniped out photos of political figures and pasted them on model heads. SEARCHING MEMES: Instead of following people on Instagram that I don’t really relate to, I follow comedians and meme pages. I was depressed the whole day today and was tempted to pick up a knife because I was bored… And then found the stupidest, spicy meme. They have really obnoxious, stupid, questionable stuff which is my sense of humor. You’d be surprised what you would find on Instagram, there a whole universe… Taking Balloons and writing faces for all the people you hate and turning it into a creative film project: this is actually fun. I get to make stuff that nurtures my creativity and I have cool things to share on Instagram with only my 4 close friends. Just don’t expose the people you hate. Searching Places around the world and making a bucket list: this is fun. I bought notebooks from micheals and decorated it. I made it special and even wrote a note to my future kids or people that I wanted to give it to. It is a celebration of life and more of a nostalgic thing for me. Conduct Science Experiments / Learn new things: Grow plants, it’s fun to watch them grow. Learn the theory of relativity, make your own plasma ball with a scientist (this is dangerous, do something else.) Draw, do all those things you wanted to do as a kid. I look on Pinterest and it is very effective. I create my own styles! Polyvore is gone, but I use Pinterest as a shopping list! Explore your identity! Just don’t compare your self to models though. If you think it’s not a good idea don’t do it. Coping box with favorite candy; when I first heard the idea i was turned off because I already had 60 stress ball that I didn’t want and a plain box. Though I was suggested to make one and it was super fun! I went to the drug store and got vintage candies like high chews, the ones in the bottle, and I stashed it up in a secret compartment in the box! I also took a ballon put play doh with essential oils, and painted it with eyes and glued hair to it. It’s crazy. There’s also light bulbs sealed with glitter and water, mini lava lamps.. look on Pinterest. There’s some pretty trippy stuff… Talk to someone: Seriously, don’t just have the suicide hotline and your parents on your safety list. They are not always reliable. Sometimes they are helpful and others times they are complete hell. There are tons of people who care and hotline websites. If you are a religious you can find people who volunteer and a mentor. There’s ALOT. Keep your eyes out and seek vigorously. There’s always that person, I promise. KEEP YOUR KNIVES LOCKED UP: If you live with your parents and they care, have them closely monitor you and hide knives in a strong box. If you don’t live with your parents, hide them in a wall or somewhere, find a place where you have to do strenuous work to get access to knives. It’s not favorable, especially when you need them for cooking, but it works. Writing, coloring, sniffing oils, and meditation: I genuinely don’t like this one because I find it basic and boring. But it helps and “I’m willing to do any thing for my mental health” I guess. I’m not to enthusiastic about this but it works. It does if you are patient and take it seriously. CAUTION: Last resort sleeping If everything else fails go to bed. This can save your life but also ruin it if your not careful. When you wake up you feel better or more stable. But also do not make your first resort because you can end up making your depression worse and ruining your sleep pattern and self care. Sorry for the ramble. To be honest if you made it to the end, you are patient and maybe really willing. Thank you and good luck! I hope this helps! You are beautiful and you can do more then you think.

dealing with self-harm is hard to do as it is very addictive and dealing with it on your own is even harder to do. there are a few methods that can stop u from self harming. one is drawing a butterfly wherver you cut yourself and nam it after someone you love. If you cut yourself, you kille the butterfly so you killed someone that you loved which stops some people from cutting. another methos is drawing lines on your arm pretending that those are real cuts. you can also use an elastic band and keep pulling it and making itbounce back on your skin. this ensures that there are no scars and it only hurts for a second if you are really impulsive.

A really tough question to answer however , from my own personal experience of dealing with it alone if knowing that the feelings I have can be challenged in more positive ways. Although we have those intense feelings of wanting to harm ourselves in the moment , we get a short relief and then usually its the instant guilt. Sometimes challenging these intense thoughts in other ways can be useful you dont have to reach out. In the past I have drawn a picture of myself and around it written what bothering me and what i might do to challenge it. Then in speech bubbles ive put more positive ways of challenging the thoughts and feelings . For example on the outside - " I am not worthy its not worth it " then in the speech buuble " I will rememeber the positive things people have said about me "

Being someone who attempted to deal with self-harm alone, I don't think it's the best thing to do. Self-harm is more than just an external injury. It comes from real, deep hurt from inside. It's hard to heal that internal hurt if you don't have someone to listen to what you're hurting from. Isolating yourself could make the situation worse. When you don't have someone else's point of view on your situation, there isn't a whole lot of new hope for your situation, or motivation to seek improvement or healing. Find someone that you trust to talk to. Don't go through this alone... you don't have to! Having someone to walk through these hard times with will make you stronger, and will make your road to recovery faster.

Dealing with self-harm is never good to do alone, but I am sure you have already heard this before. Receiving help from family and friends, as well as professionals is very helpful, as cliche as this may seem. As someone who has dealt with this before, having help was very beneficial, but I am going to address your question, how to deal with it "alone". Talk to someone about it, even if it is anonymously. Think before you act. Try hiding the objects you use to hurt yourself in a place where they are difficult to access. Address your wounds, be sure that they are seen to and not infected. Stay safe, and please consider reaching out for help. You are not alone.

I'm really sorry that you are struggling with self harm all alone. That must be really difficult to cope with. I would suggest trying to use DBT TIPP skills to distract yourself in moments of intense distress. T.I.P.P. is an acronym. It stands for: T – Temperature I – Intense exercise P – Paced breathing P – paired muscle relaxation When you are in a moment of crisis or intense emotion, you can use these skills to help you calm down. > Temperature: you can try holding some ice cubes or splashing your face with really cold water This works similarly to self harm. The intense physical sensation serves as a distraction from the emotional distress. Intense exercise: jumping jacks, pushups, situps, sprint up or down some stairs. Paced breathing: at +2 seconds to your exhale. Listen to calm music. Paired muscle Relaxation: tense/ clench a group of muscles (such as your legs) as hard as you can for 5 seconds, then let go.

Breathe and know that the pain you feel is temporary. If you need to release your pain, talk it out. Talking it out, voicing your frustration is better and even feels better than self harm. Sometimes it just takes a few moments to realize that self harm isn’t giving you the change you want. I use to self harm and when I stopped that’s when I realized how much it was actually hurting me. If you can’t talk to someone journal it out. Voice your words and concern in a journal. You don’t have to come back to it. Depending on how you feel you can write it and then destroy it.

Dealing with self-harm is very challenging, but dealing with it alone makes it so much harder. I personally think dealing with it alone isn’t the best option, and that finding someone you trust (i.e. a friend, loved one, counselor, etc.) to talk to about it. From personal experience dealing with self-harm is a very difficult thing to hide, especially when you’re the only one who knows you’re doing it. The fear of someone else finding out keeps nawing at you in the back of your mind. But, there is a few ways to cope. When you feel the urge, give yourself 5 minutes. After that time passes, see if you still feel the need to self-harm. If you still do, try to give yourself another 5 minutes, and keep going until the urge goes away. But overall you still should find some way to talk to someone about it, keeping things to yourself isn’t healthy and can lead to bigger problems.