i began self-harming in infancy, before i could speak. before i could conceptualise what self-harm meant, my body and nervous system were already primed to receive regulation in the form of pain. this trend continued as i got older and did escalate slightly from hitting and biting to cutting, but the key factor is that cutting has always been a sensory experience for me. the sensation of pain, particularly sharp, skin-breaking pain, is deeply soothing to me when it is within my control. the problem is that there’s no way to acceptably cause yourself sharp, skin-breaking pain. any attempt to do so is labelled “ego-dystonic” simply because it makes other people uncomfortable that i cope like this.
but no one has ever asked me about that.
no one has ever questioned what cutting does for me or why i do it. it’s a matter of “stop now or you’re not eligible for treatment,” which, by the way, is completely asinine and makes no one safer. it just ensures that people who self-harm and don’t want to stop right away can’t access the care they need to reach the point where stopping becomes both possible and desirable.
other types of medicine do not mandate full cessation of any symptom as a prerequisite for treatment. addicts are not required to cease using before they enter treatment. successful addiction treatment relies on building new coping skills to aid the reduction or cessation of use and further more, reduction is considered a win in addiction, but in self-harm or disordered eating, any outcome beyond complete remission is treated as not just a failure of the treatment but a failure of the patient. the idea is that “if they just tried harder” they would be able to get clean, but that doesn’t account for the fact that cessation of the coping mechanism without an adequate replacement actually puts the patient at a greater risk of doing something drastic.
additionally, it doesn’t account for cases like mine. i’m not trying to hurt myself as a punishment or as an emotional release. my nervous system is just primed to be fed highly painful stimuli as soothing. why does the way i was born have to be wrong just because people unaffected by my self-harm in the grand scheme of things are uncomfortable?
and please understand, this isn’t me saying ‘self-harm is good’. it’s me begging you to understand that my nervous system needs this and taking it away doesn’t make me more stable, it makes me suffer. this isn’t me saying ‘eating disorders are good’. this is me saying ‘food is the one thing in my life that i can control and not being able to control anything is worse for my mental health than restricting or binge/purging.’