Help My happy, I need my happy, I need to SH

[FieldsofLavender]

I just want my happy, I just... It hurts... Cutting is the only thing that makes me feel truly happy... I don't understand how I'm supposed to do this... Nothing else makes me so happy, everything is so painful and awful without it... How am I supposed to go without this?...

 

[kanashikunaika]

Could you try doing something that would get your mind off of it? Like, trying to stretch out all of your muscles, even ones you didn't know you had, or by doodling a line then trying to draw something in it, or humming and making your own song instead? You can also play a youtube vid or something in the background to really make your mind busy.

I haven't dealt with SH in throughout my journey 'cuz of a promise I made a long time ago, but I think you've become addicted to the feeling it gave you, and it might help to find something else to do to occupy your mind.

 

[FieldsofLavender]

Could you try doing something that would get your mind off of it? Like, trying to stretch out all of your muscles, even ones you didn't know you had, or by doodling a line then trying to draw something in it, or humming and making your own song instead? You can also play a youtube vid or something in the background to really make your mind busy.

I haven't dealt with SH in throughout my journey 'cuz of a promise I made a long time ago, but I think you've become addicted to the feeling it gave you, and it might help to find something else to do to occupy your mind.

I try really hard to distract myself constantly, usually with multiple things at once, it's kind of how I keep myself from breaking and trying to ctb again or relapse... I haven't tried the drawing thing though, I might do that... It's just really hard, when it really hits me it's really hard to stay distracted when I know, I know I could be feeling so, so much better right now...

 

[kanashikunaika]

I try really hard to distract myself constantly, usually with multiple things at once, it's kind of how I keep myself from breaking and trying to ctb again or relapse... I haven't tried the drawing thing though, I might do that... It's just really hard, when it really hits me it's really hard to stay distracted when I know, I know I could be feeling so, so much better right now...

It also might help to re-frame SH as something inherently bad for you, even if it makes you feel good, like heroin.
But you've got this, you can find a better way to make yourself happy, even if it takes time.

 

[FieldsofLavender]

It also might help to re-frame SH as something inherently bad for you, even if it makes you feel good, like heroin.
But you've got this, you can find a better way to make yourself happy, even if it takes time.

How do I reframe it?... I-I mean, I assume it's not easy... Especially because I've been relying on it for happiness for like almost five years now... How do I convince myself it's not my happy?...

 

[kanashikunaika]

How do I reframe it?... I-I mean, I assume it's not easy... Especially because I've been relying on it for happiness for like almost five years now... How do I convince myself it's not my happy?...

Even though you're happy in the moment of the SH, has it actually made anything better? Or has it been blinding you with a simple pleasure to keep yourself from moving ahead? If you change your goal from feeling happy at the moment, to feeling happy consistently, then I think you'll find the motivation to work on finding a new happy. A healthy happy. Imagine a world where your default is happy, and try to make that your goal. I'm not a therapist, but that's what I would try.

 

[never mind me]

If self harming actually makes you happy then why do you think you shouldn't do it? Maybe you realize that there are only certain aspects of it you don't like, like the social stigma attached to it or a tendency to overdo it and get yourself in trouble with it. Then it might be worthwile to check, if there are milder forms of self harming that evade the bad aspects of self harming like limiting yourself to less dangerous forms of self harm and/or forms of self harm that cannot be detected by others.
On the other hand, if you actually don't want to self harm any more, because you don't like the self harming in itself any more, this should be enough of a motivation to find other things that make you happy. Probably you need to try out and it might help to also try things that are not socially accepted, even if that means moving from one vice to the next in the eyes of the society. It can still make a big difference in quality of life for some people. For example I personally got rid of an eating disorder by moving on to cutting myself and once having arguments with people around me about my self-harming became too tiring I officially stopped and soon restarted, but doing it in a way that nobody ever sees. A few years later I discovered drugs (especially weed) and moved (at least for the most part) on from physical self harm to smoking weed. Maybe I only swapped symptoms, but I felt a lot better with cutting myself than with an eating disorder and I feel a lot better now with regularly smoking weed than I did with regularly cutting myself.