This is another thing I was doing without realizing what it was. It’s amazing how much stuff I was completely oblivious to in my own life, and in my own head.
Self harm is any activity where you, essentially, hurt yourself on purpose. It can take many forms, ranging from cutting your skin, burning yourself, intentionally preventing wounds from healing, punching things, etc…
It is done to express and deal with deep distress and emotional pain.
In my case, my main method would be to punch brick or concrete walls. Wooden ones would do in a pinch, but there was too much give to them. Other ones I did, included punching my own forehead, and I would often pick scabs way too early. I also tended to massage bruises to feel the pain from them more readily and keep them around longer.
I should point out that I have not done this in a while, and definitely not since December 8th. I’m not proud that I did it, but I thought it was something I should talk about.
The underlying emotion was always an intense feeling of utter frustration. Obviously, in hindsight now, I can see where that was building up from. The pain I caused, had the opposite effect on my emotions. It numbed them. The more my hand or knuckles hurt, the less my insides hurt.
I think that this was also why I played ball hockey without shin pads for the longest time. My shin bones are riddled with dents from all the hockey sticks that have hacked me. Again, it was emotionally numbing. I only started wearing shin pads after one particular hack cut my skin through the fat layer.
I also think that while there was an effect of numbing, there was also a dampening of my internal filters. Enough so, that I (Jess) could experience the world. It was only a tiny little bit, but I’m pretty sure it was there. After all, most of that frustration was coming from me.
I’m surprised I never broke any bones with the walls. I was never trying to, but sometimes I’d punch harder and harder and harder to see how much pain I could stand, and how numb it would make my emotions. Because of the effects, the pain feels good not bad. It was helping me deal with things.
For me, this was just another way of coping with emotions I didn’t want to deal with. Numb them if they bubble up from where I tried to bury them. Anything except actually experiencing them. *facepalm*
I seriously doubt I will do this anymore. It’s not needed for me. I have taken ownership of my emotions, they are mine, I am not theirs’. It just gets a bit tricky with still kinda being James for 9-10 hours a day on weekdays.
– Jess