Sam W wrote:Hi Sabine,
If you're at a point where you're harming yourself, that's a sign that it's time to up the search for mental healthcare and find someone who can help you, or call in emergency mental healthcare if it gets worse. Have you ever spoken to a therapist, past or present, about these behaviors? If so, did they offer any advice or supports? And since you mention you've done this in front of your family, how do they react? Do they see it as the serious thing it is?
In the short term, have you ever used a resource like a crisis hotline, something you can call when those feelings hit? You may also want to check out this book to see if it has any helpful strategies: Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws by Kate Bornstein.
I don’t recall working with my past therapist on my self harm behaviors, however I currently don’t have one now. My parents and I are still finding strategies for me to work on at home while getting me a therapist. I still carry that belief that sometimes I don’t need mental healthcare because my progress has been somewhat slow and I still exhibit some OCD behaviors. I have internalized this from my parents sometimes.
Even though they see how this is serious, they don’t believe it to be deadly enough for me to be taken to an institution. I also want to live independently and I know I can’t do this, but this is the first time I have done it and it is not been a streak. Either, they try to understand my behavior and try to get me to use my strategies, sometimes not coming in or dashing in to give me ice (in a situation where its not a tense situation between both parties). All I want to do is just get on with my task and stop making a scene, so I really don’t wanna stop to calm down sometimes. I just want to come back and do my work or exercise or task as soon as I can.
In terms of hotlines, I tried. Some like Switchboard are only open in a certain hours a day and I can’t can’t call them because I’m in Austria. And again, I don’t want my parents walking in on me and taking away my phone worrying that I may kill myself (which I won’t) and overreacting. And are these two books free on the Internet? Because I may want to check them out without buying.
I also would like to cure part of my internalized abelism because the mechanism in which I self harm, I call “retarded” it’s because I look embarrassing and it’s less dangerous (at least in the moment). Also, I tell myself that I am one of the bad autistics because I hurt myself and I don’t stim and try not to be autistic through behavior. I don’t look like the perfect autistic, either high support needs and nonverbal, obviously autistic and verbal or verbal and completely not obviously autistic. I try not to be weird and I am so socially conscious because of that.
I really don’t wanna go to a crisis center or a psychiatric institution despite many a time contemplating. I don’t want to loose my independence as well because I have applied to three colleges. I don’t want the fact that I self harm to equal to the fact that I want to die or that I really am going to kill myself. I don’t want to get anyone involved!