Mental Health Any men with experience of self harm? Thread is now open to people of any gender who experience self harm and need somewhere to discuss this.

[Eligiu]

Hi, I have posted a bit about this before.

I have a long term issue with self harm which started in my late teens.

Technically I would also categorise my drug use as self harm as it is done for self punishment but in this case I'm talking solely about physical self harm.

I have punched walls and broken fingers several times.

I cut myself, although this is fairly superficial and has never resulted in needing any urgent medical attention. When I am drunk I am liable to cut deeper, out of carelessness.

I have a significant issue with burning. I have given myself a decent amount of severe full thickness burns requiring my attendance at the local hospital burns unit for treatment. They usually take 2-3 months to heal and require weekly dressing changes. This happens 2-3 times per year and can be triggered by something relatively minor. The problem with the extent to which I burn is that it doesn't actually hurt much - once you have reached the point of a full thickness burn, the nerve endings are all completely gone so you can't actually feel any pain.

Last weekend I burnt myself again. I made it almost a year this time without doing it. I'm really disappointed because this is the worst burn I've ever given myself. It's significantly larger than my previous ones, completely third degree (not second/third like some previous ones) and definitely worse. The burns unit gave me 5 free Acticoat (medical grade silver nitrate dressings you can wear for a week at a time and get wet) which cost $50 each. They said I can have the burn dressed at my GP clinic unless something goes wrong in which case I'll have to return to the burns unit.

What frustrates me is the reason I did it this time. I had to see my dad on the weekend (who I'm not on speaking terms with for a multitude of reasons) and was really triggered by that. Consequently, I wanted to talk to my GP about it when I saw him, but as is typical for me I don't feel able to bring up the conversation myself, for fear of being dismissed. Instead I fell into an old habit which developed with my friends over the past 5 years whereby I self harm in order to prompt someone to notice the injury, then ask about why I did it which then allows me to freely discuss it as needed. I'm finding this a very tough habit to break. My friends accidentally impliedly encouraged this behaviour because I was so unable to open up emotionally that it was somewhat permitted and even encouraged as a way of allowing me to communicate.

I understand deeply that it is maladaptive and it doesn't serve any positive purpose in my life, yet still I find myself falling back into old habits when under the pressure of wanting to talk about something important with someone close to me.

It isn't for attention, I hide it from people on a day to day basis (although I no longer hide my scars as I just cannot be bothered anymore and I've stopped caring about what people think). I don't want their sympathy or anything. It's specifically done so they'll ask about what happened to cause it.

Are there any other men in here who have struggled with self harm? What reasons did you engage in it for? How were you able to stop?

 

[Eligiu]

I went through a self harm phase a few years back as a result of being doxxed in a very severe way

I started cutting up my legs due to the extreme self hatred and anxiety

Superficial at first and then the cuts started needing stitches

I landed in the psych ward a few times because of this

I stopped because it wasn't worth it and I knew the individuals who doxxed me would want me to hurt myself

My friends all know I self harm and they often just tell me to be nice to myself. My mum knows I have a history with it but is unaware that it's ongoing. My dad also knows I have an issue with it as years ago when I first started getting tattoos to cover my cuts, he asked why I was wasting money on tattoos. I said it was to cover up scars from cutting. He responded something along the lines of 'well you should have thought about that before you cut yourself, shouldn't you.'

So yeah, not much understanding coming from my parents.

I had a Lived Experience Mentor through my intensive outpatient rehab I did who was male and who had severe self harm scars on his arms. I spoke to him a lot about this issue when I had contact with him.

An ex friend of mine, when I was talking to him about how my self harm problem makes me feel gender dysphoria due to it being perceived as a stereotypically 'teenage girl' behaviour disclosed to me that he also used to do it, however I never saw any scars and he was very unwilling to go into any further details. I tried to bring it up again a week or so later and he said 'I'm sorry mate, that's a part of my life I've locked in a box and I'm never opening it again.' So unfortunately I didn't really get much of a benefit out of talking to him.

It's really hard for me to be able to quit self harming for this reason because it is actually how I communicate with people close to me. Because of my autism I also find it incredibly difficult to name the emotions I feel (more than say, good or bad/happy or sad generally) which means if someone were to ask me to describe how I feel I'd be at a total loss for words. I'm currently working on this in speech therapy right now trying to widen my emotional vocabulary. I think if I were able to more accurately describe my feelings and name them, I would feel much less of a need to burn myself this badly to try and communicate to a second party my struggles.

I am running out of space on my arm to burn, truth being told. I don't know what I'll do when I'm all out of space. I'm hesitant to move to my legs as they're very hairy and it'll be more painful than the burn taking the Hypafix dressing off the Acticoat, plus I don't really love the idea of sitting in my jocks in front of my GP in the nurses office while he takes a look at a burn on my leg.

At the same time though I don't see this being an issue that goes away purely because I've run out of 'prime real estate' unfortunately. I think it's going to take something much more significant to change my mindset about why I feel like I need to do this.

Other reasons I engage in self harm are:

- self punishment
- creating a sense of control
- grounding me when I dissociate
- displaying emotional pain in a physical way which people can see and which 'validates' said emotional pain.

Do you share any of these reasons?

 

[Conky]

Yeah self punishment is a big one for me

 

[Eligiu]

Yeah self punishment is a big one for me

This is a hard one for me to tackle because I often feel like self harming in response to issues surrounding my family. I feel guilty that I don't speak to my father, and I feel like I'm a bad person because that hurts him. Then because I feel like a bad person, I feel like I should self harm and punish myself.

However the issue is, I self harmed to punish myself while I was still on speaking terms with him because of his ongoing abuse and my blaming myself for the abuse. I think I'm a bad person because something this bad would only happen to a bad person, therefore I must be bad etc.

It really feels like a no win situation I've got myself into at the moment, at least where my self harm is concerned.

Is it still something you have issues with or have you stopped completely?

 

[Conky]

This is a hard one for me to tackle because I often feel like self harming in response to issues surrounding my family. I feel guilty that I don't speak to my father, and I feel like I'm a bad person because that hurts him. Then because I feel like a bad person, I feel like I should self harm and punish myself.

However the issue is, I self harmed to punish myself while I was still on speaking terms with him because of his ongoing abuse and my blaming myself for the abuse. I think I'm a bad person because something this bad would only happen to a bad person, therefore I must be bad etc.

It really feels like a no win situation I've got myself into at the moment, at least where my self harm is concerned.

Is it still something you have issues with or have you stopped completely?

I stopped completely

I found drugs to be much better than cutting

 

[Eligiu]

I stopped completely

I found drugs to be much better than cutting

Honestly to me they're basically equivalent. As an IV user I use to inflict self punishment too. I care less about the drug I inject and far more about the fact that I inject it. I only use meth because I'm on maintenance therapy and heroin is impossible to find where I live anyway whereas meth when I relapsed after 18 months I had a dealer sorted in 4 hours after that period of time with zero contacts.

I starting IVing because I was deliberately trying to ruin my life as quickly as possible and I didn't think I deserved anything more than becoming a junky. I immensely regret that decision 7 years later but at this stage I have become very addicted to the ritual.

I've tried using other ways, it just doesn't work. I always come back to the needle.

With weed it's self punishment because it gives me psychosis and yet I'll still smoke it.

With cough syrup it's self punishment because it makes me feel like I'm going to die and my body aches but I'll still do it.

With alcohol it's self punishment because I hate the feeling of being drunk and needing to piss all night but I'll still do it.

I've been restraining from engaging in any of those substances recently.

Opiates are the one drug where I don't entirely think it's self punishment and I actually have an addiction. But that's because if you held any drug and IV heroin out in front of me and gave me a choice to pick one, I'd pick shooting up heroin every single time.

So it's hard for me to justify stopping physically self harming or self harming through drug use given they both serve the exact same purpose. If I'm doing one, I may as well be doing the other because the actual root cause of the problem isn't being addressed if that makes sense.

Do you think you have different reasons for using drugs than self harming?

 

[Conky]

Do you think you have different reasons for using drugs than self harming?

Self medication

I feel like my emotions are naturally defective and drugs are very good at making me feel normal

 

[Eligiu]

Self medication

I feel like my emotions are naturally defective and drugs are very good at making me feel normal

Okay. I mean everyone is different. I also use drugs to exercise control, to avoid things I don't want to deal with. Not ever recreationally. I think with opiates yes sure it was self medication I would be able to admit that.

I really just wish there were more men around who struggled with self harm who I could talk to. It really helped having the two people in my life (even if one barely wanted to discuss it) because at least then they both actually truly understood what it was like to do it and then feel mad at yourself but relief at the same time for following through with it.

Most people in my life just really don't understand why I engage in it and no matter how much I try, they seem to just always fall short of having it click.

 

[Crash Override]

Hey, I also self harm and haven't been able to quit it. My reasons? I dunno, definitely self punishment, grounding and control. I also do it more when I'm psychotic for various complicated reasons that seem perfectly sensible at the time. It's not usually to die although that has been a reason but more to prove I'm alive? I've also had a lot of backlash because of the stigma of it being a teenage girl thing but I think generally it's hard for people to understand. People do many things to hurt themselves, like drinking and drugs, but cutting has a more immediate effect. I have some pretty severe scarring on my arms and legs and don't have the effort to give a fuck what people think any more so don't hide them. I do understand that it can be a cry for help. I'm not good at asking for help when I need it, so yeah, I don't know what else to say but yeah I get it man

 

[Eligiu]

Hey, I also self harm and haven't been able to quit it. My reasons? I dunno, definitely self punishment, grounding and control. I also do it more when I'm psychotic for various complicated reasons that seem perfectly sensible at the time. It's not usually to die although that has been a reason but more to prove I'm alive? I've also had a lot of backlash because of the stigma of it being a teenage girl thing but I think generally it's hard for people to understand. People do many things to hurt themselves, like drinking and drugs, but cutting has a more immediate effect. I have some pretty severe scarring on my arms and legs and don't have the effort to give a fuck what people think any more so don't hide them. I do understand that it can be a cry for help. I'm not good at asking for help when I need it, so yeah, I don't know what else to say but yeah I get it man

The stigma of it being a teenage girl thing for me is especially difficult due to being a trans man as it causes me the added bonus of gender dysphoria and feeling invalid as a man because of this issue that I have. I feel like if I were a cisgender man I might feel emasculated, though I can't really comment on that. Perhaps you can explain how it being a 'teenage girl' thing makes you feel as a cisgender man as opposed to my scenario, because I think they are slightly different.

Self punishment is the main reason behind why I do it. Someone asked me recently whether I get the 'endorphin rush' from self harm and I had to explain that I'm not sure I do, instead I get more of a sense of relief then a feeling that I've done the right thing in punishing myself.

The burns are a problem. They take forever to heal, and they're a pain in the ass while they do so. I suppose I'm fortunate with this most recent one that I won't be able to feel anything at all while it's healing, which is certainly better than feeling pain, but I am very disappointed in myself for messing up again this badly.

 

[assclass]

i used to rip off my toe nails. I recently caught myself in a stressful moment doing the same. It was a way to physically hate myself without punching something hard. I stopped when I had to switch all my socks from white to black because the tips were stained in blood, and I was unable to wear sandals during summer without horrifying people who saw my bloody toes.

 

[Crash Override]

The stigma of it being a teenage girl thing for me is especially difficult due to being a trans man as it causes me the added bonus of gender dysphoria and feeling invalid as a man because of this issue that I have. I feel like if I were a cisgender man I might feel emasculated, though I can't really comment on that. Perhaps you can explain how it being a 'teenage girl' thing makes you feel as a cisgender man as opposed to my scenario, because I think they are slightly different.

Self punishment is the main reason behind why I do it. Someone asked me recently whether I get the 'endorphin rush' from self harm and I had to explain that I'm not sure I do, instead I get more of a sense of relief then a feeling that I've done the right thing in punishing myself.

The burns are a problem. They take forever to heal, and they're a pain in the ass while they do so. I suppose I'm fortunate with this most recent one that I won't be able to feel anything at all while it's healing, which is certainly better than feeling pain, but I am very disappointed in myself for messing up again this badly.

I can imagine being transgender will make it more complicated. For me, I don't know if I ever felt emasculated as such though. When I was growing up the whole teenager girl cutter stereotype was big while I was at school, so early on when I wasn't so savvy about keeping it hidden I got lumped into that category as well - that I was only going through a phase because it was popular and doing it for attention. So I was dismissed quite a lot when in fact I was becoming really quite unwell mentally and being treated like one of those silly teenage girls added to the confusion, made me hate myself more and made me hide it better. It wasn't until things got worse and deeper and when I had no choice but to ask for help that people saw what I'd done to myself and realised that I was actually quite fucked up. Adults were scared for me and my peers were scared of me.

I do want to add that I don't think that a worse injury equals worse suffering. If anyone is purposefully hurting themselves, including those teenage girls, then there's some issue going on there. It's a shame it wasn't understood better 20 years ago. And it's hit and miss whether people understand now or not to be honest, especially as I'm now in my 30s and still doing it.

That's interesting about the endorphin rush. I'd say there is a bit of a rush, but it's more like a very low-key and brief sense of pleasure, for lack of a better word, of succeeding in doing it "right", like the right level of punishment, the right level of control or focus achieved. I don't tend to feel an awful lot afterwards to be honest. Maybe relief, sometimes it just means I'm able to get on with the day or leave the house.

Burns really are a bitch. It's not something I've done too often. I don't know that having no pain is fortunate as such, it just means you've gone too far this time. Try not to be too hard on yourself though. You can either use the disappointment to feel worse about yourself or as an incentive not to do it again.

 

[Crash Override]

i used to rip off my toe nails. I recently caught myself in a stressful moment doing the same. It was a way to physically hate myself without punching something hard. I stopped when I had to switch all my socks from white to black because the tips were stained in blood, and I was unable to wear sandals during summer without horrifying people who saw my bloody toes.

Damn, man. My first reaction was "wtf" but thinking about it, I can't really judge. Ouch...

 

[Lil'LinaptkSix]

All my life.
Been a life of confusion and eveytime I jabbed, smoked, snorted etc to escape it never happened.
Talk about passive-aggressive attempts to leave it all behind.......

 

[Eligiu]

All my life.
Been a life of confusion and eveytime I jabbed, smoked, snorted etc to escape it never happened.
Talk about passive-aggressive attempts to leave it all behind.......

In this instance I'm more specifically talking about self harm by way of cutting/burning/other methods of inflicting wounds separately to drug use because I'm hoping to facilitate some discussion between male members of the forum who engage or have engaged with this specific behaviour, because we are usually not considered in the group of people who engage in these behaviours instead, teenage girls are (which means for some fun emotions around that regarding the gendered nature of our coping mechanism).

I don't disagree that drug use is a method of self harm, because my IV use most certainly is exactly that, but it isn't difficult to find male drug users. It's far more difficult to find a male cutter or burner and that is what I'm hoping this thread might be able to do for me and others who end up posting in here.

Not trying to be dismissive because again, drug use absolutely can be a form of self harm for people and is for me, but it's a particular type of self harm that I'm looking to hear experiences of from guys in the forum.

 

[Eligiu]

I can imagine being transgender will make it more complicated. For me, I don't know if I ever felt emasculated as such though. When I was growing up the whole teenager girl cutter stereotype was big while I was at school, so early on when I wasn't so savvy about keeping it hidden I got lumped into that category as well - that I was only going through a phase because it was popular and doing it for attention. So I was dismissed quite a lot when in fact I was becoming really quite unwell mentally and being treated like one of those silly teenage girls added to the confusion, made me hate myself more and made me hide it better. It wasn't until things got worse and deeper and when I had no choice but to ask for help that people saw what I'd done to myself and realised that I was actually quite fucked up. Adults were scared for me and my peers were scared of me.

I do want to add that I don't think that a worse injury equals worse suffering. If anyone is purposefully hurting themselves, including those teenage girls, then there's some issue going on there. It's a shame it wasn't understood better 20 years ago. And it's hit and miss whether people understand now or not to be honest, especially as I'm now in my 30s and still doing it.

That's interesting about the endorphin rush. I'd say there is a bit of a rush, but it's more like a very low-key and brief sense of pleasure, for lack of a better word, of succeeding in doing it "right", like the right level of punishment, the right level of control or focus achieved. I don't tend to feel an awful lot afterwards to be honest. Maybe relief, sometimes it just means I'm able to get on with the day or leave the house.

Burns really are a bitch. It's not something I've done too often. I don't know that having no pain is fortunate as such, it just means you've gone too far this time. Try not to be too hard on yourself though. You can either use the disappointment to feel worse about yourself or as an incentive not to do it again.

It's definitely one of those rarer moments where being trans pops up into my life again when otherwise I'd mostly forgotten about it due to how long I've transitioned for. I just can't shake that sense that it makes me less of a man, or that I really am a girl who is just super fucked up and made the wrong choice even though I've never been more comfortable, happier or confident in myself and my body and it just keeps getting better the longer that passes. I mean as of this year I can finally grow something resembling a full beard which is something that I have desperately wanted the moment I started testosterone, but also from when I was a teenager as well.

I started cutting when I was about 17. It was extremely superficial. I then gave myself a third degree burn which became infected as I wasn't old enough to have a Medicare card to see a doctor so I had to somehow (and somehow did) manage to uninfect it by treating it with silver dressings. Lucky. I cut myself a bit while I was living overseas in Germany for 8 months, and would stub out cigarettes on my hand and wrist.

When I got home from Germany I went from being able to moderate my drinking to being completely addicted to drugs again within a couple of weeks. I didn't even make it a week without using. I figured out while I was over there that my family situation was far from normal.

By March 2016 I'd run away from home and was homeless. No money except stuff I sold off while I tried to get approval for my student payments. My stupid country has a rule where you need to be 22 to be deemed financially independent from your parents and I was only 21. So I needed one of my parents at least to fill out an 'unreasonable to live at home' form which posed an issue because my parents actually had no issue with me going home, I just refused to. Unreal that even though I was literally sleeping under bridges and on the streets when I couldn't find a housesitting gig or crash at a friend's place and was getting buy with grant payments from the University that I wasn't deemed independent until I was almost 22. I started cutting in earnest during this time, multiple timea a day to the extent where my arms were completely covered in dozens of cuts in various stages of healing. This continued through to 2017 at the end of the year. When I went to rehab I continued cutting.

Through 2018-2020 I would cut myself on and ongoing nature when things became stressful, I felt a lot of shame about my childhood abuse, or I wanted to communicate with a friend that I needed them to ask how I was. There were occasions where I would again burn myself severely.

I'm sorry to hear that you were lumped in with the people who just did it as a phase. To be honest I do know some people who self harm out of edgyness and not emotional pain, like I have a friend who is my brothers best mate who uses drugs in a very self destructive way but his self harm is purely part of his goth aesthetic and not done for negative reasons. Be just brands himself and shit to prove he can do it.

There is probably merit in the arguement that anyone who is self harming has some kind of problem, but I've noticed that people who do it in very obvious areas very superficially often seem to have less problems than people who hide their self harm or do it very severely. Maybe it's because I don't actually like the attention I get from the self harm - I want the injury noticed so that a conversation can be had about why I did it and that is the intended focal point of the discussion, not the actual injury, that I find it difficult to handle the type of people who do self harm for attention because I do find it a bit manipulative having had it done to me before and also having had to deal with an incident we had which was ongoing with a member on the discord we had to dedicate endless time and energy to because the moment he felt he wasn't getting enough attention from other members he would threaten to cut himself in a very superficial way and that type of behaviour tends to wear very thin, eventually, especially when you're constantly telling them to avoid their triggers for doing it, distract themselves, do something new, go to therapy, and try medication but they're intent on engaging deliberately in activities they know trigger them to cut and snow no effort to make any change.

I long ago figured out that the best way to manage my self harm is not to tell myself I won't ever do it again, but rather just accept that it is likely and try to hold off as long as possible. Doing it this way results in me having far less cravings and not falling into a shame spiral when I do do it and repeating the behaviour more times due to the shame which is an undesirable outcome.

Do you count days or have a similar method to mine?

 

[nonwillknow]

Personally I don't see anything about self harm being effeminate. Kinda like saying being suicidal is for women.

I have no idea what its like to be trans but as a guy who's always struggled with their sexuality, stereotypes like that being a "teenage girl thing" are simply not true - pain goes through all creeds/races/genders/sexuality.

I started cutting when I lost my last friend from high school. Couldn't deal with loneliness or past trauma as a kid and as an adult and ruminated on it until I wanted to die. The mentality of "I'll show them my pain" crept in quite often. Began using hard drugs/drinking heavily because i wanted to get some sort of comfort and the notion it could kill me seemed welcome. Ended up scarring most of my arms and torso from cutting, only really did it twice, but it was pretty extensive. Years later I'd have another falling out where i basically lost my mind and began burning myself with cigarettes out of sheer insanity. Now I just kinda punch myself or a wall.

I definitely know what you mean by the drugs/drinking being a punishment - where some find refuge others might find pain, or delusion. I've been struggling with marijuana lately, makes me feel horrible and afraid, it drives me crazy thinking I can't smoke it anymore and feel normal but everyone else can. I've smoked my entire life now when i pick it up there is an instant dread and things spin out of control. Yet I'm still fiending for it. I don't think i'm trying to self harm anymore but it certainly is harmful for me.

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

put some cigs out on my belly several years back. glad I don't do that anymore.

 

[lonelyDude]

Hi, I have posted a bit about this before.

I have a long term issue with self harm which started in my late teens.

Technically I would also categorise my drug use as self harm as it is done for self punishment but in this case I'm talking solely about physical self harm.

I have punched walls and broken fingers several times.

I cut myself, although this is fairly superficial and has never resulted in needing any urgent medical attention. When I am drunk I am liable to cut deeper, out of carelessness.

I have a significant issue with burning. I have given myself a decent amount of severe full thickness burns requiring my attendance at the local hospital burns unit for treatment. They usually take 2-3 months to heal and require weekly dressing changes. This happens 2-3 times per year and can be triggered by something relatively minor. The problem with the extent to which I burn is that it doesn't actually hurt much - once you have reached the point of a full thickness burn, the nerve endings are all completely gone so you can't actually feel any pain.

Last weekend I burnt myself again. I made it almost a year this time without doing it. I'm really disappointed because this is the worst burn I've ever given myself. It's significantly larger than my previous ones, completely third degree (not second/third like some previous ones) and definitely worse. The burns unit gave me 5 free Acticoat (medical grade silver nitrate dressings you can wear for a week at a time and get wet) which cost $50 each. They said I can have the burn dressed at my GP clinic unless something goes wrong in which case I'll have to return to the burns unit.

What frustrates me is the reason I did it this time. I had to see my dad on the weekend (who I'm not on speaking terms with for a multitude of reasons) and was really triggered by that. Consequently, I wanted to talk to my GP about it when I saw him, but as is typical for me I don't feel able to bring up the conversation myself, for fear of being dismissed. Instead I fell into an old habit which developed with my friends over the past 5 years whereby I self harm in order to prompt someone to notice the injury, then ask about why I did it which then allows me to freely discuss it as needed. I'm finding this a very tough habit to break. My friends accidentally impliedly encouraged this behaviour because I was so unable to open up emotionally that it was somewhat permitted and even encouraged as a way of allowing me to communicate.

I understand deeply that it is maladaptive and it doesn't serve any positive purpose in my life, yet still I find myself falling back into old habits when under the pressure of wanting to talk about something important with someone close to me.

It isn't for attention, I hide it from people on a day to day basis (although I no longer hide my scars as I just cannot be bothered anymore and I've stopped caring about what people think). I don't want their sympathy or anything. It's specifically done so they'll ask about what happened to cause it.

Are there any other men in here who have struggled with self harm? What reasons did you engage in it for? How were you able to stop?

you are upset with the way you feel about what others think about you.

your trying to punish your self as you think that this will make what you think about your self valid.

its all bullshit dude your cool and know if you do wrong and are more than capable of make amense for what you do.

time to stop thinking of suicide and thinking of genocide for you are a product of your environment and you are not solely responsible for your outcome.

so do you wish to commit patricide ?

didnt think so.

so why hurt your self because you wont hurt those who hurt you ?

a valid question and when you find the answer you will find a way to slowly move towards a solution.

life hurts bro

for all of us.

only by standing up and facing our pain will be get past it.

it does get better and to be honest the hardest thing is the demons in our own minds.

even they in time will be overcome.

 

[assclass]

Damn, man. My first reaction was "wtf" but thinking about it, I can't really judge. Ouch...

i read as a kid that nazi would pull peoples finger nails out with pliers and make them write letters...

going for long walks with freshly removed toe nails was my penance, and I think it taught me to accept and ignore physical pain.