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New York, 8:26 AM
Mon Nov 30
18 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/30/08
I had a (I would term mild) SI tendency between the ages of 15 and 24 in that whenever I had done something that I was unhappy about or regretted or whenever something I felt unable to cope with occured I would cut my arms.
However, my scars while multiple are light, the point to my SI was always to feel pain and see the blood, to almost drive home to myself that my situations were not as bad as they could be.
I have no real idea why I did this or why I stopped, it was done in private, no one bar one boyfriend who (understandably) freaked out when he woke up to find me bleeding ever knew about it and I had a loving and happy family upbringing.
The only thing I could say about it was that I had so much emotion at times and it seemed so huge that I had no idea how to control it and SI gave it some form of release.
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Self-industry?
I'm pretty damned industrious.
However, I haven't injured myself in three months (go me!)
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The reason complex PTSD is different is that it is a reaction to trauma, as opposed to an 'organic' pathology. At least in my case, it proved to be true. All my BPD/cPTSD symptoms abated and disappeared after intense analysis of the trauma.
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I used to cut, and still fantasize about hurting myself sometimes. Non of the cutting was really putting me at risk, always superficial, always clean, always discreet.
I know exactly why I cut - and know others who did similar things for similar reasons - I was in enormous emotional pain. For me it was a way of managing the pain I felt from my dad's sexual abuse. I also binged. That was another way. But I didn't do a lot of the other things people with my background do (drugs, alcohol, exploitative sexual relationships)and am doing really well today, so I think it worked for me as a survival mechanism.
I think there needs to be a differentiation between biologically triggered and emotionally triggered. It's important for treatment too - for years I got various pills for depression, assuming so chemical imbalance. Only lately, when I started delving into my past, did I get off the pills. I don't need them, and they didn't address the root problem.
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I say this as someone in recovery who finds a lot of support and comfort in identifying with people who abuse other substances or seek to escape similar emotional situations - whatever your drug/harm of choice... recovery is recovery and support from peers is imperative.
12/30/08
It's a tough job, making these DSM decisions -- I certainly don't envy their positions.
12/30/08
The reason being is because I have suffered from serious mental disorders in the past and even until this day but I have never cut or harmed myself in any way and definately not self-embedded objects into my body. My sister has never been diagnosed with any mental disorders yet she still cut herself. She no longer does it and I don't know if she hides any signs of mental disorder but from looking at her you couldn't tell she had issues or cut.
She has always been an outgoing girl, happy, or at least it looks that way.
That's why it's so hard to categorize self harm and even harder to treat a patient who does and help them stop cutting. One thing is for sure and that is that cutting is not normal and there is something mentally wrong going on inside a person's head.
12/30/08
And it's pretty dumb to assume that anyone is saying all depressed/axious/ocd/autistic/what have you people self-injure. That's not the case, though it creates a convenient strawman for you to anecdotally slay.
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Also, this is a pertinent question: can a thing be both a disorder and symptomatic? I feel like in the medical community this kind of thing is okay--like, hypertension is a blood pressure dysfunction, but it's not a causal dysfunction, it's a symptomatic one.
Does getting listed as a disorder in the DSM imply that something is a root cause, rather than a symptomatic dysfunction?
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Co-morbidity is incredibly common so in that sense, I think it might be useful to label it a disorder.
Really though, I have no idea. And now my head hurts.
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Just FYI, hypertension is split up into two categories: Primary and Secondary Hypertension. Primary is idiopathic, meaning, it's just stand-alone hypertension and nothing's really causing it. It just is. Secondary is secondary to something else, it has a cause, therefore, it's a symptom of a disease process. So, bad example.
12/30/08
@Pleasure: Trauma--emotional, physical, or otherwise--is a (very high) degree of stress.
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