Self-Harm

by Jenna Bella Oldridge   Apr 3, 2024


That pivotal moment you decide for the first time not to hurt yourself.
You grapple with your urges and find it within yourself not to give in.
It's messy and it's complicated but somehow you manage to sit with those feelings and respond to them rather than react to them.
Of course the conflict continues.
You've won a battle not the war.
You solider on. The fight continues and sometimes you revert back to old coping mechanisms.
Sometimes you still hurt yourself only it's getting better.
Sometimes you manage not to hurt yourself at all.
Sometimes you surpass your own expectations of being able to sit with your feelings.
Slowly you're redefining what it means to be with yourself exactly as you are.
It's still not easy though, sometimes it's exceptionally to difficult to navigate the experience of feeling everything so intently.
but you persevere.
Of course you're still drawn in by the familiarity of old ways but you're beginning to regulate your emotions differently.
There's a shift.
At some point you're sat there with a Razor in your hand and you finally find yourself thinking my body is far too good for this, I am far too good to for this.
- JBO

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Latest Comments

  • 7 months ago

    by BOB GALLO

    Unlike my good friend Poet on.... I can not relate to the self harm, at list not the way is unreeled here. My solace and refuge has always been alcohol. For me, if it doesn't com to the final act of self harm, suicide, is so useless, and as you emblazoned in the end, I and my body, are too precious to be harmed. ( haha except my leaver and stomach )they rather deserve tender touches instead.
    yet even the final act which takes bravery, is also so cowardly, because you fail the tasks in hand and give up. Yes overcoming the grievances and sorrows are exactly our tasks.
    And yet even though my drug of choice has never been this, ( self harm) I can appreciate the horror, and the heroic attempts of heart to rase above it as you beautifully described.

  • 7 months ago

    by Poet on the Piano

    I relate to this so much! I just wanted to say thank you for writing and sharing this. It's been a long battle for myself, but there is insight over the years and times when I've realized "wait, I don't want to do this, and I don't deserve this". Something that has stuck with me is the truth that recovery isn't linear. And there will be times where we can sit with the urge, conquer it, or even times when it is too overpowering... but that doesn't mean we've lost or become weak in any sense of the word.

    "Feeling everything so intently"
    - I understand this so much. Truly. I've come to realize for me, it's not necessarily a good or bad thing. It's neutral at times. It's what I do and how I respond that is important, but that never means that the intensity in which I feel is ever wrong or something to scold myself for/criticize.

    Wish I had more words. Just know I see and hear you here, and am sending support. Welcome to the site, by the way :)

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