Self-harm: personal thoughts

"Has there ever been a time where you considered hurting yourself or anyone?"

This question has been asked of me several times by my therapists. At least twice this semester.
Every time I've been asked this my answer has been "No". It's not something I've ever considered.

I have gotten to really low points in my life.There have been times that I've felt really depressed and yet for some reason, I've never gone so far as to try and hurt myself or anything like that.

Honestly, I'm not quite sure why this is. Trust me, there have been such low points in my life that I probably could have done something like this and yet I haven't. I've never considered it.

It's something I don't quite understand this myself. I guess there is an inner strength that I have that even I'm not aware of. Something that stops me from harming myself. I guess there's some part of me that refuses to give up even if I feel like giving up.

I've been told by my therapists that I'm a fighter and I guess I am. Some part of me refuses to give up no matter how difficult things get. That's why I'm in therapy. Because some part of me still has hope even if I don't see it.

Again, no one forced me into going to therapy. I decided it on my own. I just knew that I could no longer handle things on my own. I knew I needed help or things would get much worse.

But still no matter how bad things have gotten, I've never considered hurting myself.

However, there's something I've never mentioned to my therapists or anyone else before now:

There have been times when I've gotten so down on myself that I've been afraid I could do something crazy.  That something would just push me over that edge. Sometimes in these situations, I would get nervous around sharp objects. That something would just trigger me and send me resorting to hurting myself.  But I never did. I never have and I think it's because it's because of that inner strength. That keeps me from resorting to hurting myself; of ever taking it that far.


These thoughts don't happen that often. Only a few times has this ever happened. I've never mentioned these thoughts before because nothing has ever come from it. I've never gone so far as to actually hurt myself. All I'm saying is that I've gotten to the point where I've been nervous if I had the strength to keep myself from resorting to self-harm.  I didn't know if I had the strength to keep myself from hurting myself on purpose. It's times like this that test me and I realize I do have the strength.

I think about if I could ever self-harm and I honestly can't ever see  myself resorting to that. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'd be too afraid to go that far no matter how bad things might get.

The other thing is that I have support. I have people who care about me. I particularly have someone who I care so much about that I could never harm myself without feeling as though I'd hurt him. That person is my nephew.

I've talked about this on my Writing Tumblr. My nephew means so much to me. He and I have such a close relationship. I feel as though he is my strength. He's the reason I could never hurt myself or even consider taking my own life. I'd hurt my family but he's the one who'd be affected the most.   I couldn't stand the thought of him being hurt. The thought of him struggling. I know he’d struggle and I know it would be hardest on him. I couldn’t bear to have him suffer like that which is why I could never go that far.I’ve known him since he was a little baby. I’ve watched him grow up. I couldn’t stand the thought of not being there for him when he got older.

In addition to my nephew being part of my strength, I have my writing ability. I mentioned this a couple days ago. I think it's because I'm able to write and express myself in words that I don't resort to self-harming.  Whenever I get really down on myself or anything, I turn to writing.  Either physically writing or typing.  Getting my thoughts and emotions down on paper helps me. It's therapeutic. Sometimes as I'm writing or typing, tears are streaming down my face or I'm just so frustrated that I put more pressure on my pencil or pound the keys harder than they need to.  My writing helps me. Keeps me from resorting to other things to express my pain.

There's also music. I turn to music to get me through tough times too. I have an iPod playlist entitled "Don't Give Up" full of songs of encouragement that I listen to when times are difficult. Usually it's a combination of both music and my writing ability that gets me through. I listen to my playlist as I'm writing.

This whole topic of self-harm came up because I was reading about someone who does self-harm on Tumblr. They are getting help for it but still they give in to self-harm more often than not. It pained me to read about this but it also got me thinking about me and my problems. It got me thinking about how even though I struggle with mental health issues, I don't resort to self harm; why I don't resort to self harm.  How even though there have been low points in my life, I've never considered hurting myself.

 It made me realize that I have things that help me remain strong in difficult times. I have things that I turn to instead of resorting to self-harm and for that I'm extremely grateful.