I have been thinking about this post... Why do we do this? I would like to know why others felt the urge to self-harm?
For me I have been able to identify a number of issues that prompt the urge to self-harm.
1) I feel intense anger towards WH and want to physically hurt him, because I can't physically attack him, I seem to re-direct that urge onto myself. My urge for self-harm is basically self-directed rage
2)I feel self-loathing for:
a) denying the signs of his A for so long
b)Wanting to reconcile
c)tolerating his lying, TT, defensiveness, arrogance etc for so long
d)being a doormat to not only WH, but to other family-members
e)having eternal hope that the people who treat me badly will ultimately change
I would be really interested to hear what others who have self-harmed feel has prompted them to do so.
For me, I’d started in HS. It was always preceded by intense self-loathing, self-hatred, when the “voices” in my head would get so intense that I just couldn’t shut them up. I have a serious guilt complex so that, even if I say something truthful, but it was too blunt or perceived as “mean”, I’ll beat myself up over how “tactless” I was. I’ll beat myself over my stupidity, my failings in a situation, my own social anxiety at times. This affair really hasn’t helped; I’ll literally, logically list all of the reasons why my WH was right to have his A, why he enjoyed his A and why being with me was actually burdensome, loaded with responsibility and lost its “excitement, positivity and spark”. And of course, in doing so, I will take my anger, frustration, depression and sadness and anguish out on myself: I have cut myself, the last time was a month or so ago; during WH’s TT, I attempted to take a cocktail of pills; I’ve rammed my head into walls; I’ve punched myself repeatedly in the head and body. Well, yesterday, I took matches and pressed them into my skin to feel the burn because that was the logicking session that I’m talking about.
It stops the thoughts because like a poster said, I do calm myself down to be methodical about it. And the release from it is a touch cathartic; for some reason, the build up of all of my emotions get released and it gets taken down a notch or two as opposed to being incredibly intense like it was before the self-harm.
I have a nasty scar on my thigh where I attempted to cut really deep to get to an artery because I was intent on killing myself; this is from my previous relationship, and I feel completely abhorrent that I did that; that I got so low. I’m angry that I’ve gotten so low again when I promised myself I wouldn’t get to this point again, but I have. Like during the start of this whole mess, when WH first told me half the truth, I took sewing needles and jabbed them into my skin.
Now, I try to utilize chanting, but to be honest, it still doesn’t work. WH asked me to take out on him what I do to myself. Foolishly, I agreed and hit him on three separate occasions. Not cool. So, now I’m struggling to get out of this spiral of rage and anger and depression. Because none of these things are helping nor are they really conducive to getting us to R.
I just wish I could forget all of this had ever happened. 
