self-injury

Punishments include such things as flashbacks, flooding of unbearable emotions, painful body memories, flooding of memories in which the survivor perpetrated against others, self-harm, and suicide attempts.

She was not suicidal; that is what people never managed to grasp. Cutting relieved the pressure and stood as some enduring demonstration of her emotion, some way to be in control of a body that could toss her about with seizures. It was borderline artistic to mark her body, chiaroscuro designs in blood. Dying is the last thing she would want, like any healthy organism. A little pain, a small invoked sting trailing her arm, brought her much closer to grounded when she could not keep her head from racing, her thoughts from consuming her with obsession. An ounce of liquid weight loss and she could go back to being herself again. Usually.

Trying to destroy yourself gives a pretty clear message and it's not one I think you'd like. Sounds a bit like, __'m too self-centered to be constructive, so I have to open a vein_

With DID patients, if they feel hostility or aggression they take it out on themselves with self-harm... They__e self-destructive and repeatedly suicidal, more so than any other psychological disorder. So that's what's typical _ not this wild aggression, or stalking women [or robbery].- Dr Bethany Brand, on Billy Milligan and Multiple Personality Disorder (DID)

She closes her eyes, and I can see the moisture. She__ deep-breathing again, and I notice her hands are clutched around the opposing wrists, nails digging in deep, hard, scratching. Pain to replace pain.

Every lineament of the girl's wasted body is a testament to her inner turmoil. Willow can only imagine what kind of pain she must be in to destroy herself that way. She knows there's something ironic in her compassion for the other girl, but she can't help feeling that this utter mortification of the flesh is far worse than anything that she herself has done.

Why can't I remember our family Christmas, or a warm spring day, or anything that might have been pleasant? It is as though the filter of recall is itself altered, so that it blocks out everything but the darkest colors of the spectrum.

Somehow however just knowing that I could fully expect unhappiness to return _ if not predictably then nevertheless reliably _ was strangely liberating. The point was that even chaos had a structure a beginning and eventually an end. It was possible to live through it. I__ been doing as much for twenty years.

It__ all about self-discipline. Like, self-obsession is connected completely with self-loathing, and it__ the same with, if you__e got a weight problem. It__ all about_ finding some worth in yourself, knowing that you__e got the discipline to do it, and knowing that other people maybe can__ do it. And it__ also, I think, really connected to the fact that you almost feel, like, silent, you have no voice, you__e mute, there__ just no, you__e got no option. Even if you could express yourself nobody would listen anyway. Things that go on inside you, there__ no other way to get rid of them.

I can feel the hurt. There's something good about it. Mostly it makes me stop remembering.

Oh God just look at me now... one night opens words and utters pain... I cannot begin to explain to you... this... I am not here. This is not happening. Oh wait, it is, isn't it?I am a ghost. I am not here, not really. You see skin and cuts and frailty...these are symptoms, you known, of a ghost. An unclear image with unclear thoughts whispering vague things...If I told you what was really in my head, you''d never let me leave this place. And I have no desire to spend time in hell while I'm still, in theory, alive.

Truth shines light on darkness by questioning it.

I decry the injustice of my wounds, only to look down and see that I am holding a smoking gun in one hand and a fistful of ammunition in the other.

I am not "cured"--I know I never will be. I will always crave that pain to keep me centered. I will always be just a little astounded when I get through a crisis without putting a blade to my flesh.

Unspeakable feelings need to find expression in words. However... verbalization of very intense feelings may be a difficult task.

We all have scars; both inside and out. Use your experience to support those who are going down the same road of destruction you once went down. Know that your past is worth more than the pain you once carried, because it can now be used to comfort and give strength to another soul who is suffering. Cherish your trials and tribulations as gifts; embrace these opportunities to share the grace you have been given.

We both knew what it was to hurt our bodies. It's a strange reason to bond with someone, but I think we both needed to feel understood, and, even though we couldn't love ourselves, we could love each other.

When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you__l do anything to make it go away.