#stopping me from self harm

[platypusisnotonfire]

This is my son.

He won’t let me get a good picture of him at the moment but

he just saved my life

I fell asleep in the bath (with a horrible migraine and a pharmacy of migraine meds in my system)

And he clawed my head above water while I woke up.

Little boy

My man

I love you O’Malley

[slavhew]

skirts suit strider

[elmaxlys]

Ghoultober 2024 - Day 16: Ukaku

[sysig]

Finally made a Parapluesch OC, introducing Mama Oz ♥ (Patreon)

[annabelle--cane]

hurting me. hurting me. toby whithouse showrunner of being human uk and sarah dollard writer of episode 5.05 "no care all responsibility" you are hurting me. why did you do this to me personally.

[gxlden-angels]

Shoutout to my therapist for now ending sessions with "We out here sinning! We out here suffering!" as a weirdly hopeful affirmation for me

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

one odd thing about going deeper is that I'm no longer satisfied with shallower. and that's, weirdly enough, a net positive. I've self harmed - eh, twice? in the last month. both were well into the criteria that should have got sutures and ignored it; suspect I hit a vein once and was extremely close to muscle, which feels kind of odd. yeah, it's ramped up; yeah, there's a lot of blood and all that kind of stuff. very high risk of infection, potential nerve damage and all that kind of stuff (though I have not got either of them; I scared off an infection that wanted to hang round by chucking quantities of alcohol on it). but at the same time. that's only twice. that's a lot better than previously.

[justbreakonme]

Whumpee has no idea how long they’ve been in the shower.

They should get out, dry off, and go to bed. Stop wasting precious water and time staring holes through the white tile wall.

But the pain is unbearable.

The only thing that had helped so far was aiming the blistering water at their aches and pains. They weren’t sure if the heat helped soothe them or simply gave them a different pain as a distraction, one they could control.

Time was running out, and so was the hot water. Any minute now Caretaker would be at the door, scolding them for wasting all the water.

Just one more minute, they thought over and over again, just another minute then I’ll be fine.

On the other side of the bathroom door was a bed that would hurt to lay in, sheets too hot and too cold at the same time, and hours of silent stillness.

They wanted to sleep. God, they needed to so badly, but it hurt too much. Every time they moved, no matter how they laid or sat or stood…pain.

They clung to fleeting moments of moderate comfort, where they could position themselves just right. But it never lasted.

A timid knock brought them out of their spiral.

“Whumpee? Are you okay in there?”

The question made tears form in their eyes.

No, no they weren’t, why did everything hurt to much? How could they be in so much pain?

“Yes, I’m just getting out of the shower…”

[royalreef]

@infernalpursuit inquired: how does your muse react when they're scared? does it change, depending on what is currenly scaring them?

(( Oh, absolutely it depends on what's currently scaring her!

The thing you have to understand about Miranda is that she's less of a person, in the sense that her personality and reactions are organic and naturally occurring, and moreso that she's someone who has been so intensely groomed and micro-managed and pushed in such a specific direction that a lot of the way that she is is entirely on purpose.

Her personality isn't really a natural product of her birth nor her circumstance in the same way someone else's personality might be. It's more like... There's no way that people can go through something like what she had gone through and not turn out in a very similar way to her. It's a designed process in this way, something that very intentionally obliterates any other chance to be anything else, and makes becoming this highly specific mold of a person into a life-or-death matter, something that you can't will or whim or nature your way out of. Miranda is the way that she is because she's been intentionally ground down and shredded into the person that she is. She doesn't really have a concrete sense of self. She doesn't even really know who she is. She's not supposed to, she's just supposed to be a means to serve a singular purpose and a singular end, and all she even can comprehend doing is that purpose.

Fear is a major part of this process, this total obliteration of any other mere possibility, but I also feel like it's a little disingenuous to call it fear in the same way most people would relate to it. It's the kind of fear that's so big and bone-deep and constant that it stops really feeling like fear at all, the kind of thing that Miranda herself has a very hard time of realizing that she's feeling even when it's particularly bad.

It might be more accurate to call it getting locked into a constant state of flight-or-fight. It's a constant existential threat where Miranda is sincerely and totally convinced that she could die at any moment and anyone could hurt her as much as they wanted, constantly living solely in the very present and unable to think of what even a short distance ahead in time would be like, because she just never feels comfortable or secure enough to stop thinking of the right now. She's what happens when the fear has been intensified strongly enough that it never dips below what would be debilitating for anyone else, and thus has become wildly detached to her own body, physical harm to her body, threats to her own life, or any escalation of fear.

This is, in fact, one of the things that I worry about disappointing roleplay partners with at times! Because their muse will act scary or try to frighten Miranda, and it just doesn't work. She just doesn't respond to the situation in a measurably different way than how she normally does, because she's under so much constant stress and strain and terror that it's not really any different to her than how everything else already is.

The only real times when she starts to show it, in fact, are places where her aversion and fear of them have been specifically cultivated. Miranda is a tool, and a tool doesn't break under expected strain, but you do have to be able to sharpen it and make sure it remains useful. You do have to take it apart to do maintenance on it, make sure it's working. The points where Miranda starts to actually, sincerely, show her genuine fear and terror, are during these points and in these situations where her aversion of them can be used to punish her and make sure she's being redirected in the proper direction.

In which case, Miranda's fear response is also highly specific and the only real option that other people who have gone through it come out with.

Mostly, she freezes up. She starts fawning hard. She lets it happen, over and over and over again until the object of her fear goes away, because it's going to be easier if she doesn't fight back or resist. She starts disassociating, disconnecting from her body and her thoughts, forgetting where she is or what's happening to her, because then she doesn't have to be present to register it and the memories are easier to repress later. She starts to people-please, trying to make the object of her fear happy and content them, because doing what they tell her to do and making them happy makes it not last as long. If she just does what they want her to, then they won't hurt her as much. If she just listens when she's told, then she won't get punished as much.

The end result is that she's very... robotic, in a sense. She does what she is told, to the letter. She will do what she is told, and she will not fuss or cry or cause any further problems if it also hurts her as well. She will be good, because the only choice other than being good is total obliteration. They should tell her what to do. They should make her do what they want her to do. It's okay that she's not there, or it's hurting her. It's even better if that happens, in fact, because then it's not as bad. She will not mention it after the fact, she will not hold it against them, she will not upset them again. She will be good. She was designed to be good.

Which, again, is part of why Miranda's fear response can be so inappropriate sometimes... Because she's been cultivated this way, because other people punishing her is so ingrained into her mind as a fundamental way of being, very often she will pick the seemingly much scarier or painful option over that cultivated social fear. She will happily hurt herself for someone else, and she will not be afraid of it, or be very upset at all. She will happily do many frightening things and deal with things that anyone else wouldn't be able to, because she's already locked into a permanent state of terror, and the only exception would be what happens if she doesn't do this. She's a tool. The only thing a tool has to fear is not fulfilling its purpose.

It's why she keeps doing increasingly dangerous things, too, seemingly without regard to her own life or death. Fear is an adaptation which allowed living things to avoid situations and things that were dangerous to them. Because Miranda's fear is constant and always at its peak, she doesn't register minor fluctuations to it, nor does she have it to try and get her to avoid things that might or will hurt her. It's also why her pain response is so bizarre and detached, and doesn't take very many efforts to avoid pain in general.

It also means, too, is that the potential for other people accidentally setting off or triggering this particular type of cultivated fear is very high, basically intentionally so. She has to be easy to control and redirect as needed, after all. If someone else gets close to her, gets her in an intimate situation similar to how she was cultivated to respond to punishment, then she can very easily get locked into a loop that they didn't know they were setting off. She's not in the state of mind to notice contradictions or try and correct herself, let alone notice if something is wrong, so nothing she can do can stop this from happening beyond general discouragement from those situations.

It just also means that it can be rather upsetting for other people when they notice that Miranda's immediate fear response, in wholly out-of-proportion situations, is to just sit there and take it without protest, even to the point of seemingly not reacting to someone nearly killing her if they do it in the right way.

[represseddepressedqueer]

How do people deal with being in the minority of people in their twenties who no one has ever had a crush on? Knowing that I’m functionally undesirable and that NO ONE has ever looked at me and had a serious romantic+sexual, non-fetishising crush is really fucking bumming me out.

Like I can’t talk about this with friends because they don’t believe and just say that I’m putting myself down, I can’t afford a therapist to talk to about this, and now I’m no longer aroace so I’m getting crushes and finding people attractive while knowing that I’m never going to experience those feelings reciprocated.

I’ve been through objectively worse things in my life but knowing that I’m always going to be yearning for a connection that I’ll never get is enough to make me wanna truly end it all.

Any genuine tips for dealing with this???

[milkbreadtoast]

Hey guys, i found out too late but webtoon is doing an event for their 9th anniversary where u can unlock 9 episodes for daily pass series instead of 1 (resets at 7pm, so if u unlock 9 right now u can unlock 9 more at 7pm today)... but it's ONLY for the month of july (i found so late im sorry😭😭) so there's like 3 days left...

but I rly recommend checking these series out and unlocking as many daily pass eps as u can before july ends!!!

The Makeup Remover: This is like (one of) my fav webtoons EVER... u have to read it its got everything... Funny, cute art style, insightful + refreshing writing + social commentary that hits hard... A riveting story that reminds me of sports anime tournaments... AMAZING pacing and paneling/visual storytelling... extremely compelling well rounded characters, especially FEMALE CHARACTERS!!!, who have such incredible character dev, I cried so much bc I love them so much and it just hits so hard.... even the romance is well written even tho it's not the focus (unlike what the webtoon categorization says)... JUST READ IT PLS ITS MY FAV... It stuck w me long after I first finished it... and I'm on my 3rd read now and it hits just as hard as ever, I love it so much TT

When the Day Comes

Rly good slice of life... Even if u don't normally like slice of life genre, I think this is rly worth a read for everyone. I love the author's subtle, realistic writing style and pacing, they make even the smallest moments have impact and u can tangibly feel how each chara is feeling... It's a real treat to read and even if nothing else, the art and art style is GORGEOUS!!! Soso good and insp. But the writing is also really good, so it's a real gem... Also there's a canon lesbian chara who's rly well written and I love her deeply...

[softgrungeprophet]

something something the frequency with which peter parker angrily wishes death upon people in his inner thoughts, a la "diebullseyediebullseyediebullseyediebullseye" (asm#596)

(he's pretending to be venom with a suit made of unstable molecules)

"Kill Johnny Storm! Dispose of the body!! Collect insurance!!!" (ff#17) etc...

this of course is only two (mostly) humorous examples but there are definitely more lmao

[trans-axolotl]

for about two years now ive struggled with relapses in self harm and have not really known how to deal with my desires for harm, health, and existing thoughts on antipsychiatry. ive been accessing psychiatric resources for well over a decade with a lot of trauma inflicted over that time. ive also dealt with really harsh approaches to reducing self harm that both began the problem in the first place and worsened it.

ive been working with my therapist to stop self harming but, to be honest, i have no desire to stop. i try my best to reduce risk where i can such as not self harming in an emotional state, using clean implements, and keeping it light. previously i didnt care about any of those things and self harm was mainly a dangerous coping mechanism. but now i see it almost as a form of body modification with a lot of intentionality to it.

i really dont know what to think. its objectively dangerous since i am harming myself but i also cant agree with the general aims of therapy and psychiatry to stop self harming as an ultimate goal. i want to be happy and healthy and for me that means living with self harm as a reality of something i will continue to do. and i think its my right as an autonomous person to choose what i do with my body, even if its harmful. yet i can feel the claws of psychiatry and feel so much shame and hatred towards the fact i cant stop. or more significantly, that i dont want to.

sorry for such a long ask, but essentially what im getting at is, how does one handle harm reduction when there is no desire to ever fully stop? i believe in my own right to bodily autonomy but ive also been told repeatedly that using my bodily autonomy to harm myself makes me undeserving of it and instead in need of carceral punishment. how do i even begin to navigate those contradictions of feeling like ive been horribly hurt and dehumanized and feeling like on some level ive deserved that dehumanization because of the pain i inflict? is self harm as body modification even a concept or idea that people have discussed? since i mainly just see it discussed as a coping mechanism.

content note: continued discussion of self harm and self harm methods.

Hi, anon. Thanks so much for reaching out.

I really resonated with so much of what you shared. It's really hard to try to navigate all our feelings associated with self harm when we are constantly hearing from society that our self harm makes us dangerous or unworthy or unable to live outside of institutions. For me, it honestly feels really violating when other people like providers try to push their narrative of what self harm means onto me. My relationship with my self harm is so personal and there's a lot of different meaning I attach to it, and I want the room to be able to talk about it in a way that actually makes sense to me.

Something that's helped me in trying to navigate all of this for myself is really just to come back to these values of bodily autonomy and harm reduction. A really important harm reduction value for me is that it is completely okay if people don't ever stop (whether we're talking about drugs, self harm, disorderly eating, etc). It's important to me that we can defend people's right to do all these things and recognize that harm reduction should not be just another method of coercion trying to convince people to stop. I strongly believe that people can have meaningful and valuable lives that also include self harm as a part of our lives. I want to build a world where we can say that we're not interested in completely stopping self harm and that statement is not reacted to with shame or blame, but rather with curiosity and respect for the fact that we are the experts on our own lives and choices. Part of encouraging autonomy is recognizing that we are allowed to make choices about our lives that might not be what the psych system wants us to make.

Anyway, all of this is to say: I think it's okay if you're not interested in ever stopping self harming, and I know a lot of people who also feel similarly to you. You absolutely have the right to interpret your self harm in a way that makes sense for you. I've definitely heard other people talk about self harm as body modification (I think some of the harm reduction zines in this google drive might talk about it, but I haven't read through them in a while. Continued content note for discussion of self harm, self harm methods, and diagrams of anatomy and self harm). It makes a lot of sense why you might connect self harm and body modification, and that's something that would resonate with a lot of other people. You have the right to build a life that includes self harm as a part of it, and find a way to do it that makes sense for your body and life.

That feeling of dehumanization you described is so so real. I really just feel a lot of rage towards a psychiatric system that makes us feel so hurt and conflicted. Untangling that learned shame and hatred towards ourselves is so fucking hard, but just know that you are not alone in that and that we have the right to reject the ways the psych system punishes us.

And I want to be clear that none of this is to downplay the very real harm, pain, or risk that can come with self harm, but rather to point out that abstinence only methods, shame, and carceral psychiatry did not do anything to support me with that. Instead, it left me feeling trapped and like it was worthless to even try to figure out what I needed in really difficult moments. So I also really just want to acknowledge and celebrate all the stuff you listed in your ask--using clean implements, not self harming in an emotional state, and keeping it light. I'm really glad that you've found some steps to take that make self harm more manageable for you. Those are not lesser steps or a waste of your time just because you are not interested in stopping self harm, and those things are such a great example of how harm reduction doesn't require you to stop self harming in order to make some changes that reduce risk.

Just sending a lot of love and solidarity to you, anon, from another person who is not interested in completely stopping self harm, even as my relationship to my self harm shifts and changes over the years. There are a lot of us out here and we deserve to have the space to openly talk about these things without facing judgement.

💜💜💜💜

[derpinette]

i am something of a non-practicing cutter

[iwakuraz]

it's not going too well

[mithliya]

I hate the way you are being treated for experiencing trauma and sexual abuse, no survivor deserves this including you. I acknowledge you have incredible grace in dealing with this but more importantly you shouldn’t have to, it’s not right to put a survivor in this situation and constantly triggering their trauma no matter what you think about them. I have had similar experiences with CSA and ongoing SA after and I can’t imagine how I would deal with being picked apart like you have been. I don’t care what grievances these people have with you, if they actually supported survivors they wouldn’t react in this way to you (also I fully believe you about your experiences and about your sexuality if that isn’t clear). It sickens me to see people saying they fight for women’s rights treat you like this. If we can’t support our fellow women what’s the point? I know not all women have the same opinions and politics but it’s seems very basic to me to not harass a survivor of these things. The least they could do is shut up and leave you alone. I honestly don’t know how you can deal with this, I know if it was directed at me I would’ve either fallen deeper into CPTSD or gone offline entirely or both. I am glad you have the strength to continue though bc I think your perspective on many issues is difficult to find and deeply important to hear. I guess I don’t know what I mean with this message other than thank you for what you do and please do not let these awful people take you back into that horrible place that I think all survivors know. Your voice is so important and I hope to continue hearing it, you make change being outspoken. I know we can’t control being triggered and sometimes can’t regulate our responses but I hope that you can block these people and be as unbothered as is possible. Other survivors see you, I see you, I know we are in some ways the same and these people clearly cannot conceive of being in our position

it’s not right to put a survivor in this situation and constantly triggering their trauma no matter what you think about them.

i keep saying this but it just falls on deaf ears!

in terms of how i deal with this… ive said this before & was mocked for it but this has triggered my PTSD several times. i almost always end up having nightmares for weeks afterwards, more flashbacks, and perhaps a mental breakdown or two followed by a long period of dissociation. when i brought up how deeply hurtful it is and how much it triggers me, i end up getting mocked & accused of guilt tripping.

so basically, i’m not allowed to respond to assumptions made about my trauma bc it’s traumadumping. i’m not allowed to talk about the negative impact being harassed over my trauma by these ppl has bc it’s guilt tripping. they have the right to say vile things like saying i’m a “retired ho” (for having a trauma response like hypersexuality as a child and being sexually abused????) and saying that me reacting in a common way CSA victims react to rape a decade ago makes me bipolar or histrionic (love being called a hysterical slut for having a normal reaction to facing rape as my first sexual experience) but i have no right to correct these assumptions at all. it always ends up with several of them harassing me on & off anon, and other people just silently watching. once these ppl leave like they always inevitably do, then radblr starts talking about how horrible these ppl are & often will even harass me over these ppl’s presence as well! idk. it’s a constant lose-lose for me.

anyways… thank u for ur sweet msg ❤️ many other CSA survivours & rape survivours have reached out to me and told me that me talking about my story made them feel less crazy/alone bc they also have a similar story. many are lesbians who face an additional trauma & disgust & shame bc they see how trauma similar to their own is misconstrued & talked about. i’m glad at least that from this persistent harassment i’ve been experiencing for like 5 years now, women with similar stories reached out to me. it made me feel less alone and more understood. i try not to let all this stuff affect me & have been taking breaks online and/or talking to my gf whenever it does take a toll on me. it doesn’t fix it but it helps. some of it is unavoidable bc no matter how many anons i block, i keep getting msgs about it regardless and new blogs keep being made to discuss it