I’m not a fan of the self harm picture. I’ve always had a difficult time with them. Because they are usually from someone who has already been through the self harm, they always make me feel like I’m going to go through it too, like I’m the one in the photo. I like the pictures that show that someone who has been through it can still have a normal life with their friends and family.
Personally, I think the self harm, while distressing, is not the worst of the worst. It’s often just the fact that the person in the self harm is someone you don’t immediately recognize, so you have to look at their face to give them any kind of recognition. And you know that they’re in pain, but you can’t feel anything when you look at their face.
I agree. While we all want to stop a bad habit, it’s important to realize that we do a lot of things out of habit. We eat foods because they’re on our list of “must eats.” We do exercise because it’s on the list of “things we need to do.” Often, it’s the things we do that are the least conscious of the changes we want to make.
But then you have a bad habit that doesn’t have to be consciously changed. For example, I like to walk on my toes, and when I walk on my toes, I walk a lot faster. I also like to run, and when I run, I run a lot faster. One day, I woke up and realized something was wrong. I didn’t feel my toes anymore. I could still feel them, but they were numb.
And then I started walking on them and running a lot faster. I noticed I had a lot more energy. It was like I had a second brain that wasn’t even aware of the body. I was no longer self-conscious about my legs, but I was self-sabotaging my energy.
People with self-loathing and body dysmorphia are very common, and they can experience a variety of feelings (anxiety, depression, guilt, shame) while struggling with their physical symptoms. These feelings can get so bad, that the sufferer often has to spend time in hospital. Self-harm is a very common reaction to these types of feelings, and it tends to be on the extreme end of the spectrum.
I’m not entirely sure why self-harm doesn’t cause the mind and body to go haywire, but I do know that it’s not usually caused by an extreme amount of energy. It would seem to be a more common reaction to the mind and body being too busy getting rid of unwanted thoughts and emotions to focusing on physical symptoms.
If you’re a fan of horror movies, the reaction to fear is a lot like self-harm: our minds and bodies get so caught up with physical reaction to the situation that we can’t take a breath. This leads to confusion, paranoia, and a whole lot of other awful things that we usually get a brief glimpse of in nightmares.
If youre thinking about taking up self-harm, you should try to remember that its not just about self-harm, there are other ways to go about it too. For example, if you think that your body is going to explode, then you could get some anti-anxiety meds and put them in a ziplock bag and just have them in your car if you dont want to drink them or use them on someone.