cw self-harm, child abuse
spoiler
I have been out of my abusive household for like 1.5 months. I ran away with nothing but a small backpack across the whole big country to save myself. I thought getting out of this situation would fix me but I was wrong. I get stuck in old patterns, sometimes I act like i’m still with my family. I feel guilty for everything even thought my best friend i’ve been living with tells me I haven’t done anything wrong. she’s sick and tired of me saying “i’m sorry”
sometimes (often) I can’t help but cry and beat myself. beating myself helps me stop crying and hating myself so much. especially when I feel i’m guilty and should punish myself like I was punished for every little thing as a child
today I had a flashback into my childhood and then had a vision of the escape day but I didn’t succeed in stealth escape like it was in reality, I saw myself being caught and dragged back and punished by my grandmother, I saw myself screaming and fighting her but losing I freaked out and got all hysterical and then uncontrollably beat myself until my friend stopped me
she gets very worried about me when I beat myself or cut myself with a knife (although I have done it only once since I started living with her unlike family times when I used to do it every week to cope with fear and abuse)
so, my question is: how do I make myself feel better if I mustn’t hurt myself? sometimes it is things I don’t want her to know so I can’t always tell it out
If it’s not possible to completely stop yourself from self-harming, try to use harm reduction principles such as keeping a well-stocked first aid kit or harm in ways which are less dangerous. Snapping a rubber band on your wrist is one thing that you could try but since you seem more likely to beat yourself (I’m assuming punches to the head/torso type of thing) then getting a punching bag and beating up the bag instead might help redirect your emotions outward.
You need therapy for sure but I don’t know how attainable that is for you. Without professional guidance in reprogramming your feelings of guilt and self-hatred you can only do so much. But be kind to yourself. Affirmations may seem corny but telling yourself you did nothing wrong, didn’t deserve your abuse, and are worthy of love from yourself and others, can make a tiny start on the road to healing.
In any case I hope you are able to grow and heal from this and find peace in your life. Much love from an internet stranger.
thanks, I’ll try the rubber thing if I succeed to get one!
I’ll get therapy when I move cities again, my another friend is going to bring me to the therapist who saved him when I get to Moscow but it’ll probably be a month or so…
Please be careful with snapping a band on your wrist. Repeatedly hitting tendons - especially if you’re dealing with a flashback and can’t regulate your behavior - can lead to permanent damage to your hands. If you absolutely must go this route, aim for a meaty spot on your arm.
First of all you really should be seeking professional help. Armchair psychologists that you’ll find on social media aren’t necessarily going to give you actually helpful advice, and perhaps even the opposite. Look into local services, and especially youth services if you’re still young.
Now for the armchair psychologist advice, which may or not be good advice:
You hurt yourself because you feel you are responsible for your situation, and you feel better because you feel like the one responsible is being punished.
In order to stop hurting yourself, you need to be able to question the faulty basis for your assumptions. Why is it that you are responsible? Is it you who caused you to be born into your body and with your family? Is it you who raised you and taught you values?
If a baby crys because it is hungry and the parent hits them, does this seem just to you? The baby is simply acting as any baby would, while the parent has neglected their responsibility.
So it is with you; you have simply acted as any child (and any youth, and so on) in their circumstances would have. Your family has neglected their duty to you, and that is not your fault.
As to how to proceed in moments where you feel guilty and that you need to harm yourself, firstly it’s important to recognize you’re in one of those situations. Simply telling yourself that you feel guilty and you feel the need to harm yourself is a good start, and may even be a sufficient substitute for actual harm. However much you feel you need to harm yourself, recognize that the possiblity of not harming yourself also exists.
Awareness of your own mental state is an important tool, and developing mindfulness through meditation could help, however I won’t recommend it, as sitting with only your thoughts could potentially subject you to a self harm situation. Not to say it will, but I simply don’t know enough about your situation to be positive that it won’t.
Other things you can do is try and understand the precipitating conditions which result in those feelings. Do you have any triggers, that is. You can work in a safe environment to explore those triggers, and desensitize yourself, but once again that’s probably best done under professional supervision.
As the other commenter said, positive self affirmation can also help.
And finally, from one internet stranger to another, I hope things get better for you. <3
Obviously it’s easy to say things and often hard to do them, but one casual observation is that self-harm is a temporary way of managing some issue, but it won’t actually solve the issue in the medium or long run.
So on a general level, I hope you’re looking for those broader solutions although it could be that they will take quite some time to find or implement.
And in the short run, if there are other ways you can manage your feelings that don’t have side effects such as guilt or possibly leaving scars or bruises or health risks such as infection, those are probably worth trying.
as someone not going thru what ur going thru but i also struggled with beating myself and what not, u gotta not do it for ur friend it is a very worrying pattern. i promised my ex (now) that i wouldnt hurt myself anymore and I really really tried not to and now its not really a coping mechanism i think of unless things get really bad. then i consciously keep my hands open to remind myself.
this ex of mine happens to have a friend in a very similar situation as you except she (my ex’s friend) just tried to do something that you can’t always take back (and the friend regretted doing it) and id hate to see you or your friend have to go thru that.
just my 2 cents sometimes conciously not being self harming works until u lose the habit
