Cutting, Anger, and Depression - Advice?

Dear Moozer

Hello and welcome to the forums. I hope we can be of help and support to you and that you find this an interesting place to be.

It seems that you are feeling the urge to cut yourself because you are feeling more emotional at the moment, would that be fair to say?

It is impressive that you say that you know the truth of the situation, even though your feelings are telling you otherwise. The ability to remember what is real when your brain is functioning emotionally (and as you say illogically) is valuable.

What other sorts of things do you do to relieve stress?

Roger

I feel the need to punish myself for failures. I am frustrated with myself, and am angry about many things that seem beyond my control. I have been doing this for a long time, but it occurred to me about a year ago that I shoud "grow up" and "get over things". So I am trying.

When I am at the max point, beyond me, I do many things. I write. I make music (either just play something on piano or whatever is handy or actually make stuff up). I verbally abuse whoever is near or just pick a verbal fight. I do self damage. but any damage is never visable to others, and I do not tell anyone - except here.

I also pray. But it is almost as if I do not really want to escape. It is almost as though I MUST go through the pain. I don't know what to do about it.

Today is a better day, in some ways. But I care too much about so many trivial things, and can't seem to just let things go.

Hi Moozer - tough call!

I was interested in your saying that it had occurred to you that you should "grow up" and "get over things", and it raised two questions in my mind.

How does "growing up" happen? What prevents it happening?

What is that needs to be "got over"?

You will get much sympathy for your feeling of "not really wanting to escape" - this seems to be a very common experience.

Kathleen

I am struggling. Or maybe I'm not struggling hard enough. Because I just want to quit it all. Not really at the core of me, but all along the edges.

When a friend of mine committed suicide, (not that I would do this, I can promise that), what I felt other than disappointment in their death, I was jealous because I can never do that. Sometimes it seems like that would be the ultimate release from everything.

The question about What prevents growing up? I don't know. Perhaps I just don't have it in me. I am an emotional cripple - yet I am the one that others come to for help and advice. I feel like such a sham. I can sympathyze with "Ophelia" who drifts down the river on her back to her death. Shakespeare makes it sound so pleasant. I know it isn't. I become overwhelmed with what I perceive as disappointments, rejection by a single individual who for some inexplicable reason means more to me, crises at work, blah blah.

The other question of what needs to be gotten over: well. That's a good question. Things that happen when you are young should be dealt with and forgotten. The facts seem unreal at times, so I don't tell. I was sexually abused by a peripheral female relative as a 4 year old (as was my younger brother, I found out years later). I was molested by a woman at 13, (I am a woman also); raped by my boyfriend at 17; attacked and raped by a male friend in whose band I played, and was attacked by an employer.

Those issues aside, I also have a lot of physical problems, but I think they may all (or many) be related. I have osteroporosis and at times have broken bones by merely walking. I have spinal degeneration and have difficulty walking at times. So I don't feel physically great - often. After a major car wreck when I was 21, the Dr.s tried to get me to go on permanent disability because they said I'd never be able to hold down a job. This seems so defeatist, that I rejected the idea. But it's a tough thing to do. I know... blah blah blah

I don't know how to stop. I feel sorry for myself, and that is dumb. It gets me no where at all. It also flies in the face of my faith. I truly in my heart believe that God loves me, and is in control - which is another reason I try to not cut. That is changing what I know God wants and doesn't want. It is very tangled.

Hello again Moozer

I've read through this whole thread again, and I want to have a think about all the things you have said before I respond. I will be online again tomorrow, and hope to post again then.

Meanwhile, am thinking of you.

Kathleen

Okay, my post is gonna suck, but here goes, I noticed something in your posts.

Why do you say 'blah, blah, blah'? I'm curious, because I say very similiar things when I talk to my friend (well, when I used to) about upsetting things about myself. I felt self-indulgent, selfish, and that she probably didn't care for those things (even though she's always said she cares), well, this isn't really about me, I were just curious whether its the same for you? What I mean is, you make it sound as if you think you shouldn't talk about the things much?

I just want to say, you never have to worry about saying stuff on here, something I found out, you've been through an awefull lot and I think you should feel its okay to talk about them as much as you need to.

As for the cutting, I've never become a major cutter myself, maybe its because my past isn't anywhere near as traumatic, I don't know. But I dipped into it for the very same reasons. I'm sorry to say I don't really know how to help, I think I got out of it because things have never really been that bad for me.

I feel as if you're most certainly NOT a sham, it takes alot in a person who is going through hell (by the sounds of it) to still be there for friends, to help them even though you're having thoughts of wanting to suicide, I respect that, alot.

Why do you feel as if you're not grown up? I haven't seen anything to indicate otherwise.

I'm no expert, and I know its been said before, but I think the key to your problem is your thinking style, you need to not blame yourself for things (heck, why not blame others? If we take a fictional example, person A blames themselves for 5 incidents with 5 different people, surely its simply plain unlikely that at least half of these mistakes aren't the other people's faults?). Okay, fair enough, I don't really know enough to know what you perceive to be your 'failures', I really shouldn't be posting here, I'm not being very helpfull, sorry. I think it might help if you write down the good things you do each day (possibly as you do them if you're like me and brush them off later), and then, when you think about one of your 'failures', you can read them and say to yourself 'hey, I only made one mistake (or however many, again, I don't know what your 'mistakes' are) in a day in which I did so many great things, go me!'.

Okay, I'll keep quiet now, I should really be keeping quiet for the people who know their stuff to help .

P.S Good luck with everything .

Dear Moozer

I’ve been turning your story over in my mind – while being very aware that you can only have given us the very barest outline here.

I get the impression that the cutting serves a beneficial purpose in that it relieves the feeling that you might explode with the pressure of all the emotion inside.

At the same time, it feels like you have to do it to punish yourself for your failures (not growing up, not getting over things, being such a bad person that these terrible things happened to you)

And yet you know that you must not do it because it is wrong and contrary to your own spiritual beliefs.

So when you do it you feel relieved but guilty for contravening the spiritual law.

And when you don’t do it, you feel that you are keeping the spiritual law, but guilty because you deserve to be punished.

Does that sound about right?

So whatever you do, you end up feeling dreadful –damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

Even from the bare facts that you reveal, one can see that such experiences are not easy to “get over”. Have you ever been able to have any therapy to address these issues? I would expect that the traumatic impact of these memories could be deactivated quite quickly through using an approach like the rewind technique – a process which allows one to review difficult experiences in a detached manner and gradually eliminate the emotional “charge” of the memories.

When they no longer carry that charge, it is possible to re-assess what these experiences mean. You could then set about the process of growing up – which might need to be done several times, as, with each traumatic experience, it is as if part of your self gets “frozen” at that age. It IS possible to “defrost” those alienated parts and grow them on and integrate them with who you are now, but quite challenging to deal with on your own.

The overall effect would be to reduce the emotional build-up and thus reduce and even eliminate the temptation to harm – because there would no longer be any need for this.

I would recommend that you do seek help to do this. There is no reason why you should be destined to a life of misery, because help is available.

If therapy is not a viable option for you, for whatever reason, it does not mean that you cannot do anything about the situation. It may take longer, but you know you can get support here and share with others who are facing their own demons. If you like, I am willing to post up some suggestions about how you could go about this, but my first recommendation is that you get help from a good therapist.

Kathleen

My goodness! It is almost as though both of you have crawled into my head and are rooting through the rubbish there. Both of you - egor and KF person - have stated things that are absolutely dead on.

I even laughed at egor's blame thing. It sounds like fun - and it might work, but I would probably have to deal with the guilt of blaming others! Thank you for not making me feel like an idiot. I nkiow, I know - we are responsible for ouw own feelings and no one can make us feel ANYTHING without our permission (here is where I might say blah blah blah - but for different reasons). Contrary to the cute little sayings, I feel a lot of things that I am somehow giving into, rather than sticking up for myself.

Kathleen - you are very correct in your summary. There are no counselors near me at all. The nearest one is an hour anda half away - not that it wouldbe impossible to do it, but unlikely to maintain appointments. I had researched and found an excellent counselor, but she insisted on meeting with me during the day - and I woul dhave to take off half a day each time. I just can't do that! So, we shall wait and see what is in store for me.

Thank you for your responses. I dont' feel quite as odd about everything right now.

I got some therapy at a very bad time in my life. I was recommended a particular therapist, and felt happy that she had agreed to see me (she was retired, and didn't see many people any more). But to get to her I had to get two trains, and it took two hours. Then we would have our session - about one hour. Then I had to travel home again. So it would eat up quite a lot of the day. I had to re-organise my life around it for a while.

She was good.

I had a lot to think about during my train journeys.

It was worth it.

Best investment I ever made...

Kathleen

I understand the value of this, but if I was going to do that, I would have to quit my job - and that would present a whole new arena of problems. My head knows everything - I think - that I need to know - it's just BELIEVING what I know that I find impossible to do. Or to enact the theories I understand -- I am very good at helping others (as I often do in my role at work) but am empty when it comes to sorting out myself. Oh well. I figure I'm not that far off from some sort of ending anyway.

Hi Moozer

It's a fair point - and this is probably not a great time to enter a whole new arena of problems! It's an interesting aspect of human behaviour, isn't it, that capacity we have to KNOW the answers, but not to BELIEVE them! It seems incredible, doesn't it? It leads one to ask the question, how does something become a BELIEF?

Everything must have started off as just a "piece of information" of some kind. How do we go about the task of assigning the value "TRUE" or "FALSE" to a particular piece of information?

And once that value has been assigned, is it possible to change it? Well, we know it is. Many people once believed totally in the existence of Father Christmas. However, few of us carried that belief into adulthood. How did we do that? What really convinced us that Father Christmas is an imaginary, metaphorical figure, and not a real person? What kind of process did we go through which allowed us to let go of Father Christmas, even though we felt sad, and face the reaiity of a world where gifts are given by living, breathing givers - other humans like ourselves, and not by magical beings?

I wonder which one of the beliefs you hold now, and which may be contributing to the difficulties you are experiencing, is most like "Father Christmas" in its nature? What would have to happen for that belief to change?

Rather than trying to "change everything" (a far too daunting task), it could help to think about just one aspect like this, and see what it would take for a change to occur.

What do you think, Moozer?

Kathleen

That is a fair question. I am thinking on it, and will try to sort out maybe two things - or even one - that I can work with.

My daughter (who was visiting) asked me on Sunday when I was upset about something: "Is this past, present or future?" Then she reminded me it was a choice I would have to make -- and further reminded me that this is what I told her constantly as she was growing up. She is so well balanced and positive that it is boggling.

I know it's work. And I know it takes focus. And committment. So hee I go...

Self mutilation is a very self destructive behaviour pattern. But with support, talking about it and working with a skilled therapist, it can be overcome or become less. I talk of experience since i was severely abused as child and also has this behaviour. But see the self cutting as a battle or war with small battles in it. Sometimes you win, sometimes you loose. The fact is the overall war can be won. The cutting can become less, less deep and you can feel you can stop. It is basically anger turned within. So I want to encourage and say i know what you are going through - remember it takes time and will not come right in one day, because it took long to develope as pattern

Hi bsharp.flat,

Welcome to the Forum.

As you say some behaviours, including self mutilation seem to be self destructive, although they do also have a purpose for the person who engages in the behaviour. Though there may be better ways of achieving the purpose than that behaviour

I agree that with the right intervention a person can become free of the old, unhelpful behaviour, but I don't think that it has to take a long time, even if the pattern is well established. Many people do quickly change long established patterns - perhaps you know people who've given up smoking from one day to the next, or people who are freed from phobias?