Hurt

Right from the start this has a trigger warning. This blog is going to talk about self-harm. So if that’s not for you, then please scroll on. No hard feelings. I promise!

First things first; self-harm, for me, is not just about the obvious. The teenagers who are suffering from existential angst. It’s so much more complex than that. For starters, I know people in their 60’s who still self-harm. I am nearly 52, and I do too. But perhaps not in the way you might think.

Self-harm comes in many different forms, we assume, as previously mentioned, that it’s younger people, and it involves a blade of some kind. The stereotypical image of a younger person with stripes on their arms comes to mind. And for many, that may well be the case. For some of us, it’s much more complex than that.

It’s taken me to this ripe old age to realise that I actually self-harm in more ways than I realised. They generally sit in two or three camps. Food & health and skin picking. The latter is probably the easiest one to get out into the world.

I have a thing for skin picking. Some of this can be related to ADHD, and some of it is related to self-harm. It’s not my primary release, because the others are much easier and less obvious to the external viewer.

Skin picking happens when I am stressed. It used to be my fingers, but now it tends to be less obvious places on my body. There is a big thing with ADHD and skin picking; it tends to be a stim, so whilst this is easier to talk about in one aspect, it’s hard to figure out what is going on – because it could well be just a simple need for something to comfort me or to do. It might not actually be ‘true’ self-harm.

What might also be worth pointing out is that for a number of us, self-harm isn’t actually about wanting to do enough damage that you end your life or scar yourself, it can be about dealing with a pressure build-up in your head. It can be about things becoming so much that you need a release value.

By the act of self-harming, you have control over something, when otherwise you may not.

The biggest one for me is food & health. Sounds like an odd one, but it really is something that I’ve noticed that I do. So for example, I know that I do not tolerate gluten well. I am not a coeliac, so it’s not life and death, but it does give me issues. But I eat a fair bit of it in my diet.

This is where it gets complex for me to explain. So this consumption is not about me hurting myself; it’s actually not about me at all. Not directly, it’s about putting others before me and therefore looking after someone else instead of me. In that I don’t want to make their life difficult or change their way of eating, so I eat the same as them and have issues with it. So whilst you may not think of this in the same league as other acts of self-harm, I do.

I am choosing to prioritize someone else’s needs over mine, which ultimately damages my health. So that, my friends, to me, is self-harm.

I am actively making the decision to do something to hurt me.

It’s a similar thing with food in general. I have struggled with my weight for most of my adult life. I have successfully lost about 4 stone in the past, and have put it all back on again (that’s a whole other blog sometime) but why did I do that?

Well, I did exercise a lot and currently, due to back issues, I am not able to do that; but I also got really good at restricting my food intake. Once I stopped being able to exercise, I started to use food as a crutch to help me deal with the complicated emotions about my injury. It became something else I could also use as a form of punishment.

Some people might have called it disordered eating or emotional eating, but I see it as another subtly different form of self-harm.

I realise writing this, that not everyone will agree with my assessment of the situation. But one of the biggest issues I have around mental health is that we are told how we should think, speak and behave. Mental health is incredibly complex and nuanced. We don’t all fit into diagnosis boxes as we should.

The reason why I believe my food and health habits are a form of self-harm is because it’s about control. Which comes about because I don’t feel good enough. That comes from several sources. Being told I was never going to make anything of myself when I was at school. Having boyfriends who said hateful things to me, husbands who abused me, and of course, being bullied at various times in my life for my sex, the way I look at so much more.

By keeping myself in a larger body, I assume I am less attractive; and so attract less attention. The massive head fuck in all this, is that I actively dress in a way that garners me plenty of attention!

I’ve only got to sit in a coffee shop alone, to feel the eyes on me. Usually, middle-aged men, who I think I confuse. I am clearly very female, I usually have red lips and a lot of jewellery, all traditionally assumed female traits. But I am also very masculine in the way that I talk and present myself.

As with all my blogs, this comes from my own experiences, my studying of psychotherapy and counselling; but also the circle of friends I keep. The more I think about how we are as humans, the less inclined I am to put things into neat categories. Especially myself! But again, that’s not really the point.

The point is, that self-harm can come in many different guises, and for some of us, it’s how we cope when our world feels like it’s falling apart.

Oh, and of course the title is Nine Inch Nails… Whilst it seems a glaringly obvious choice, just choosing this as a title brings back memories. Some of which are painful and others which are far from it. Nothing is ever simple, is it?