Understanding Self Harm

A couple of weeks ago I leafed through the Recovery College’s prospectus, picking out the courses that I thought appropriate to me. One of them was the title of this prose. At the time I signed up for it I wasn’t thinking too much and when the big day rolled around I began to consider my choice. At the beginning of each session you will find yourself put under the spotlight of the question: “what expectations do you have about this course?”

In the past I’ve played it by ear and said what came off the top of my head, but for some reason this time was different. During the bus journey there I played out this question’s scenario eventually settling on: “I have experienced self-harm in the past and wanted to understand more about what drove me to it”.

When actually put in that spotlight I managed to piece some fragmented speech together, drawing not only on my bus journey preparation but also winging it. I started my retrospection by happening on the metaphor of a box. I had never spent time dwelling on my experiences of self-harm; instead I shoved it all into a box, locked it up tight and stowed it away out of sight.

“That’s very common”, the peer trainer said with a comforting smile.

After a bit of housekeeping we split into pairs to brainstorm what goes on in your mind and body before and after you have harmed yourself. The course facilitator later commented positively on my assertion that the mind isn’t a separate entity to the body, and that they are one and the same, although this is beside the point.

When we had done writing we re-joined the others and discussed our ideas. The most dramatic for me was that physical pain – self-inflicted in this case – reconnects you with your physical body when you are so trapped in your head; buried under frustration and, in my case psychosis. You can become so numb that self-harm can release you from that as though drawing you out of your own head like poison from a wound.

Although when I had cut my hand open I was too embarrassed to show it to anyone, I felt like I had made a physical token of the invisible torment that was going on inside me, that I myself couldn’t put into words. There was a perverse sense of achievement that went along with this and I can well imagine how that would become addictive just like making a work of art.

Fortunately my mum spotted the bloody mess and it distressed her so much that I was able to unconsciously leave it all locked away in that box for ten years until this day. Boy am I happy that my box wasn’t akin to Pandora’s and that when I had a peek all hell didn’t break loose!

This course had come along at the right time when I was in the right place - I had control. I fondly pulled out the contents of my box like they were childhood memories, allowing the sensations that accompanied them to wash through me.

As the session continued I became aware of the novel feeling that I am – or was, depending on your stance – a self-harmer. I began remembering all those times when I was alone and things got so intense and frustrating that I would hit myself in the head or, if I had a wall nearby, hit my head against that. It makes me wonder if it is the medication that helps prevent me from getting into that kind of state again.

Now that I am lowering the dose of my meds I may find the answer to that question. I hope for the sake of the people I love that it turns out the meds have acted as a support while I become strong enough to walk unaided again and I am not going to collapse. I certainly feel much more in touch with the physical world, in fact I only believe in the physical world and that I am part of it and not subjective to it.

Everyone’s case is unique; there is no absolute knowledge of where your path will take you.

I’m glad that I came to this course at this time in my recovery.

I found this an interesting read:

http://rockland92.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/understanding-self-harm.html

Have you heard of the Butterfly Project too?

http://fav.me/d764p36