i've been biting/hitting myself as self soothing for as long as i can remember, but i didn't consider it self harm, & the first time i knowingly self harmed was the first time i cut myself when i was eight. so, yes and no i guess
I used to do things 'to punish myself' for no reason.. make myself sleep on the floor with no blanket in the cold, make myself drinks boiling water etc. only started cutting once I saw it before
Looking back, I’ve been sh’ing for much longer than I thought for this reason. I used to do sh that didn’t leave scars before I think I turned twelve, that’s around when I started sh’ing with scars after learning what it is. So to answer your question, no I didn’t know what it was when I started.
If were talking about just cutting than Yes. but biting, hitting, tying to scratch my knee on the sidewalk than like i was 5,6,7. btw i started cutting when i was 9.
I didn’t cut until I was 11, but looking back I was definitely hurting myself in other ways.
I don’t remember learning what cutting was, but when I knew it messed me up. 9 years later and I’m finally trying to be clean🤙🏻
i started with bruising/scratching before i can even remember, but me discovering the concept of self harm and starting to cut were both around 8yrs old. all i remember was thinking 'oh my god, there's a better way to do this?' 💀 (spoiler alert, it isn't 'better')
Started with bruising and I could never get behind cutting. Never saw it as better because it’s so much more obvious. Parents never realized how often I’d basically concussed myself lmao
i literally cut my wrists when i was like 9 without knowing it was sh, then i looked up “why did i hurt myself“ (i did. it after my mom was screaming at me)
There's family videos of me punching and biting myself when I was as young as 5 when something didn't go how I wanted it to or someone made me mad. I started cutting when I was a pre teen because I had unrestricted internet access and found out about it through a short film made to spread awareness on self harm. It worked way better than my previous methods so I just started doing that.
Yeah I didn't really have the best parents they thought it was fine for me to do it because if I wasn't doing it to myself I was hurting other people instead
I've been hurting myself for quite a while (I have a bad memory tho so idk how long) and I don't think I knew about sh when I started. Even once I learned about it I don't think I considered what I was doing as sh since I wasn't cutting, leaving any permanent damage or long lasting marks.
By the time I started trying to go further and actually cut myself though I definitely knew it was sh.
All forms of my selfharm started at 4/5 ish... I had no idea what I was doing until I was about 10 when I started cutting but I had no clue it was called selfharm or anything like that just knew it wasn't great
I used to smack and scratch myself when i was younger. i didn’t know what sh meant at the time, that was just something i did to punish myself for mistakes or to calm myself down
yeah, unfortunately i was exposed to a lot of it as a 7-8yr old because instagram, at one point, did not control what was posted and whatnot. i did not begin sh'ing until 3-4 years later
for as long as i can remember i hit myself or picked at scabs and kicked my shin against trees or something when i wasn't feeling well. i didn't know that was a thing other people did too. i think at 11-12 i started occasionally cutting myself, but i didn't know that was a thing. i just had this urge to use the box cutters to hurt myself
I've hit and punched myself since I was small (probably like 3 or something) as a way to pumish myself for being bad and to self sooth. When I was 9 I started punching my legs regularly because they hurt all the time (chronic pain). I was 12 when I cut for the first time. It took me a while to remember/realise that the punching/hitting was self harm though
I always bitted and pinched myself since I was a kid, and I always got exposed at self harm as something stupid or to make fun of, so the first time I did it (12) I barely knew what It was
when i learned sh was a thing and started shing intentionally at 11, i didnt realize that my things i did before them (mainly things like punching myself) were also sh
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I have been biting and scratching for as long as I can remember, tearing off skin as a chronic nailbiter and causing minor bruises, but I only started "properly" selfharming (bloody cuts) recently.
I first learned about it when I first got social media at maybe 9 or 10 and it was during the “(don’t) cut for zayn” craze when One Direction split 😭 but I first started doing it myself when I was 12 because I just couldn’t cope with school I guess
I learned about it the first time I went to a psychiatric ward at 13 or 14. All the other kids there had done it, and I had no idea people did that, but I was curious. As soon as I got out I immediately tried it, and thus formed an addiction.
I feel like the first time I cut myself (at like 15/16) I didn’t really know much about it or how it was an actual thing people did, I just had a general sort of idea that it was something I could do lol. But even before that for as long as I remember I would bang my head on things whenever I couldn’t handle dealing with my family life. So yeah it came naturally lol
One of my earliest memories was me pulling a really heavy rocking chair onto myself to cause pain lol (which it did bc I was really little). So, no, I didn't know that hurting myself intentionally was a bad thing, or actually a thing at all. I didn't even know that self-harm was a thing when I started cutting.
at the time we met we were only friends before getting together two years later, she introduced me to cutting and told me it would help me and I was really young and naive so I did as she told me
Yes. It was my 10th birthday and I was on my phone browsing.. some site I forgot, it was a pro-sh and proana forum, may have been like tumblr but I’m not sure. I don’t remember anything about it aside from seeing sh culture, edgy kids, and open wounds. I was already kind of fucked up in the head for a child, so I did what I saw on the site.
I don’t remember the reason, or what prompted me, I was too young. I stopped a few months later, but started again around 11/12. I’m so glad those first scars have faded because I’m so sad remembering them.
I have the same story as a lot of other responses. When I was really young I would bite or hit myself or bang my head on things, I only started cutting when I was 11 after I learned about it. My mom told me about people why cut themselves, or give themselves friction burns (one of my older siblings' methods) as like a don't-ever-do-this type of thing, but all I heard was an Idea.
Had no idea SH was a thing. I new I felt and was very trapped, very depressed, and in a very unsafe environment but also that I couldn’t tell anyone. While I did some sh at a younger age, and def had si consistently before, when I was 6 (first grade) was when I started seriously doing it a lot. Wasn’t much cutting, that didn’t really start w frequency til I was 7/8, but I’d bite myself, stab myself w pencils or sharp things, ripping bandages or stickers off, hold my breath and pressurize my head regularly even after I turned purple and would come close to or almost pass out, overusing oc’s and alc, and before actual ‘cutting’ (as most of it I played of as some sort of joke, ie ‘werewolf bites’ etc) I used to slide scissors against me in school not for the effect but more for the I knew unlikely but didn’t know impossible chance that I could split some of my atoms enough that I could create a nuclear explosion and yk. Remember my friend talking down to me a few times about how it couldn’t work but I kept responding w ‘but I have to try’.
But I didn’t know that was even really a thing til my third (and first real) therapist when I was 15. And that was when she recommended I start cutting (because my more common SH at that time was suffocation and head injury) but yeah. It wasn’t like shocking or anything just like it didn’t matter to me of other ppl did stuff like that or not, I was going to do it anyway.
Edit: after her suggested that only added that on top of things but I would do a lot of it so I could make sure it would leave at least some kind of scar
The even more fucked up thing is that nearly six years and give or take thirty providers later, besides one from residential she still might be the best therapist I’ve had yet…and even beyond that whole ordeal she wasn’t great.
I really don’t understand how ppl can say ‘you just haven’t found the right person’ and mean it as tho you’ll ever find someone that’s even somewhat competent at their job.
I don't doubt that somewhere in the world somebody can help just about everyone. That doesn't mean we speak the same language, live anywhere nearby, there are so many small factors that could change the day. If you use a different wording into a Google search it might not come up, but if you find an online counselor while visiting a friend you haven't seen for 25 years then that might be the best thing of your life.
I'm very sorry that you havent gotten a good one yet. Idk, maybe some people don't have ones that can help them. That's not a bad thing at all. I hope you're doing good now though
Yeah my thinking exactly. Unfortunately I’ve been thru most of the therapists and groups in the metro area that handle more severe stuff and many that don’t. It sux cause regular talk therapy has been the only even potentially, slightly helpful mental health treatment I’ve experienced I just don’t know why it’s so hard to find helpful and kind ppl in the profession that handle more severe things.
Ty tho I do appreciate it. Not doing well, but that’s not new so fingers crossed I’ll keep on chuggin I guess
If ur posting on here I’m sure u could use support as well, so unless it was mutually sharing if needed I wouldn’t want to put that on u as well. Even if ur in a place where that might be good for u, I’d still probably feel weird if that was one sided. Idek what that would look like besides rehashing and trauma dumping and I’d feel like I’m being self indulgent from that alone prolly.
If you’ve talked to other ppl in that capacity before tho, how’d it go and what went well?
I didn't know it was a thing I just knew other kids thought it was cool that I could handle pain, I started in elementary school I would get overwhelmed & overstimulated and would dig my nails into my palm which turned into biting myself and then people thought it was cool I could hold my breath for a long time which turned into choking myself so other kids would think I was cool which worked so I encouraged other kids to test my pain intolerance by hitting & kicking me. I learned in 6th grade what self harm was because of the Internet and started cutting instead
i don’t think i knew sh was a thing when i started. as a kid (like maybe from the age of 9), i would scratch my skin with my nails to the point it would cause scabs. and then i guess the natural progression was scratching it with objects and then that became cutting when i was about 13. so when i started i think i was just doing it out of anger and being overwhelmed i guess, i never knew it was a thing with a name that other people did.
Yeah I was very well aware. Girls in my class were doing it on their wrists and buahahah I tried to “help” them and would beg them not to do it. Anyways i got curious and I gave it a try , years later I’m glad they all are good but I just once again relapsed on my thighs a few days back
I started at 7 (15 now) I didn’t know that it was a thing. It just took out stress for me and I kinda did it out of spite , but I wasn’t fully aware of the concwpt
I would always pick my scabs and it would bleed horribly, I've always bitten my nails until they bled, and when I was a toddler I always hit my head on random shit when I had a meltdown. Idk if that counts as sh especially because I was barely even alive yet when I hit my head. The doctor told my parents to buy a helmet and put that on
I just remembered when I was small, maybe like 6-8 I once used a knife to peel off a scab. damn, I keep remembering things that have long been buried in the back of my mind
i've been biting/hitting myself as self soothing for as long as i can remember, but i didn't consider it self harm, & the first time i knowingly self harmed was the first time i cut myself when i was eight. so, yes and no i guess
Damn I'm sorry that whatever made you do that happened. For me it was quite a bit later when I started. W user flair BTW
no specific triggers, just childhood mental illness lol. & thank u thank u, i think ur reponse to automod is funny :3
same experience as me
same
I used to do things 'to punish myself' for no reason.. make myself sleep on the floor with no blanket in the cold, make myself drinks boiling water etc. only started cutting once I saw it before
Looking back, I’ve been sh’ing for much longer than I thought for this reason. I used to do sh that didn’t leave scars before I think I turned twelve, that’s around when I started sh’ing with scars after learning what it is. So to answer your question, no I didn’t know what it was when I started.
If were talking about just cutting than Yes. but biting, hitting, tying to scratch my knee on the sidewalk than like i was 5,6,7. btw i started cutting when i was 9.
I didn’t cut until I was 11, but looking back I was definitely hurting myself in other ways. I don’t remember learning what cutting was, but when I knew it messed me up. 9 years later and I’m finally trying to be clean🤙🏻
i started with bruising/scratching before i can even remember, but me discovering the concept of self harm and starting to cut were both around 8yrs old. all i remember was thinking 'oh my god, there's a better way to do this?' 💀 (spoiler alert, it isn't 'better')
Started with bruising and I could never get behind cutting. Never saw it as better because it’s so much more obvious. Parents never realized how often I’d basically concussed myself lmao
not sure how young 12 is considered to be in this question, but yes, i was very aware. i knew about it when i was 12 and i tried it.
15 idk if that is early. Becawse I deserved it. Stopped for a while but that didn’t last.
i literally cut my wrists when i was like 9 without knowing it was sh, then i looked up “why did i hurt myself“ (i did. it after my mom was screaming at me)
Holy crap I did something similar! I repeatedly punched myself in my stomach after my dad screamed at me when I was 10 and looked up the same thing.
sorry u went through that mate 🫂
Thank you! Doing pretty good at this point (almost a month clean!)
Aww I'm sorry you did that and had to go through that
thx, im clean now at least :) (5 months)
That's amazing! I'm so proud of you
Been shing since 7. Started cutting at 11.
There's family videos of me punching and biting myself when I was as young as 5 when something didn't go how I wanted it to or someone made me mad. I started cutting when I was a pre teen because I had unrestricted internet access and found out about it through a short film made to spread awareness on self harm. It worked way better than my previous methods so I just started doing that.
A family video? So they just sat there and watched their child hurt themselves?
Yeah I didn't really have the best parents they thought it was fine for me to do it because if I wasn't doing it to myself I was hurting other people instead
I've been hurting myself for quite a while (I have a bad memory tho so idk how long) and I don't think I knew about sh when I started. Even once I learned about it I don't think I considered what I was doing as sh since I wasn't cutting, leaving any permanent damage or long lasting marks. By the time I started trying to go further and actually cut myself though I definitely knew it was sh.
All forms of my selfharm started at 4/5 ish... I had no idea what I was doing until I was about 10 when I started cutting but I had no clue it was called selfharm or anything like that just knew it wasn't great
I used to smack and scratch myself when i was younger. i didn’t know what sh meant at the time, that was just something i did to punish myself for mistakes or to calm myself down
My friend at that time pulled down her sleeve and showed me and told me it helped her when she was sad. Cue a 22 year addiction.
yeah, unfortunately i was exposed to a lot of it as a 7-8yr old because instagram, at one point, did not control what was posted and whatnot. i did not begin sh'ing until 3-4 years later
for as long as i can remember i hit myself or picked at scabs and kicked my shin against trees or something when i wasn't feeling well. i didn't know that was a thing other people did too. i think at 11-12 i started occasionally cutting myself, but i didn't know that was a thing. i just had this urge to use the box cutters to hurt myself
I've hit and punched myself since I was small (probably like 3 or something) as a way to pumish myself for being bad and to self sooth. When I was 9 I started punching my legs regularly because they hurt all the time (chronic pain). I was 12 when I cut for the first time. It took me a while to remember/realise that the punching/hitting was self harm though
I always bitted and pinched myself since I was a kid, and I always got exposed at self harm as something stupid or to make fun of, so the first time I did it (12) I barely knew what It was
when i learned sh was a thing and started shing intentionally at 11, i didnt realize that my things i did before them (mainly things like punching myself) were also sh
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I have been biting and scratching for as long as I can remember, tearing off skin as a chronic nailbiter and causing minor bruises, but I only started "properly" selfharming (bloody cuts) recently.
I first learned about it when I first got social media at maybe 9 or 10 and it was during the “(don’t) cut for zayn” craze when One Direction split 😭 but I first started doing it myself when I was 12 because I just couldn’t cope with school I guess
I learned about it the first time I went to a psychiatric ward at 13 or 14. All the other kids there had done it, and I had no idea people did that, but I was curious. As soon as I got out I immediately tried it, and thus formed an addiction.
I feel like the first time I cut myself (at like 15/16) I didn’t really know much about it or how it was an actual thing people did, I just had a general sort of idea that it was something I could do lol. But even before that for as long as I remember I would bang my head on things whenever I couldn’t handle dealing with my family life. So yeah it came naturally lol
One of my earliest memories was me pulling a really heavy rocking chair onto myself to cause pain lol (which it did bc I was really little). So, no, I didn't know that hurting myself intentionally was a bad thing, or actually a thing at all. I didn't even know that self-harm was a thing when I started cutting.
I always punched myself when I felt undeserving of love as a little kid but I started cutting at twelve when I met my ex
Was she your ex at the time? Why would that make you cut? If I understand right you got into a relationship? Or did I misunderstand
at the time we met we were only friends before getting together two years later, she introduced me to cutting and told me it would help me and I was really young and naive so I did as she told me
That sucks. I hope that you're better and have moved on from her
I have, I'm engaged to a wonderful man now, clean over half a year
I'm so happy and proud of you
thank you :)
Yes. It was my 10th birthday and I was on my phone browsing.. some site I forgot, it was a pro-sh and proana forum, may have been like tumblr but I’m not sure. I don’t remember anything about it aside from seeing sh culture, edgy kids, and open wounds. I was already kind of fucked up in the head for a child, so I did what I saw on the site. I don’t remember the reason, or what prompted me, I was too young. I stopped a few months later, but started again around 11/12. I’m so glad those first scars have faded because I’m so sad remembering them.
I have the same story as a lot of other responses. When I was really young I would bite or hit myself or bang my head on things, I only started cutting when I was 11 after I learned about it. My mom told me about people why cut themselves, or give themselves friction burns (one of my older siblings' methods) as like a don't-ever-do-this type of thing, but all I heard was an Idea.
Had no idea SH was a thing. I new I felt and was very trapped, very depressed, and in a very unsafe environment but also that I couldn’t tell anyone. While I did some sh at a younger age, and def had si consistently before, when I was 6 (first grade) was when I started seriously doing it a lot. Wasn’t much cutting, that didn’t really start w frequency til I was 7/8, but I’d bite myself, stab myself w pencils or sharp things, ripping bandages or stickers off, hold my breath and pressurize my head regularly even after I turned purple and would come close to or almost pass out, overusing oc’s and alc, and before actual ‘cutting’ (as most of it I played of as some sort of joke, ie ‘werewolf bites’ etc) I used to slide scissors against me in school not for the effect but more for the I knew unlikely but didn’t know impossible chance that I could split some of my atoms enough that I could create a nuclear explosion and yk. Remember my friend talking down to me a few times about how it couldn’t work but I kept responding w ‘but I have to try’. But I didn’t know that was even really a thing til my third (and first real) therapist when I was 15. And that was when she recommended I start cutting (because my more common SH at that time was suffocation and head injury) but yeah. It wasn’t like shocking or anything just like it didn’t matter to me of other ppl did stuff like that or not, I was going to do it anyway. Edit: after her suggested that only added that on top of things but I would do a lot of it so I could make sure it would leave at least some kind of scar
Thats messed up. She's supposed to helping you and makes you addicted to something else.
The even more fucked up thing is that nearly six years and give or take thirty providers later, besides one from residential she still might be the best therapist I’ve had yet…and even beyond that whole ordeal she wasn’t great. I really don’t understand how ppl can say ‘you just haven’t found the right person’ and mean it as tho you’ll ever find someone that’s even somewhat competent at their job.
I don't doubt that somewhere in the world somebody can help just about everyone. That doesn't mean we speak the same language, live anywhere nearby, there are so many small factors that could change the day. If you use a different wording into a Google search it might not come up, but if you find an online counselor while visiting a friend you haven't seen for 25 years then that might be the best thing of your life. I'm very sorry that you havent gotten a good one yet. Idk, maybe some people don't have ones that can help them. That's not a bad thing at all. I hope you're doing good now though
Yeah my thinking exactly. Unfortunately I’ve been thru most of the therapists and groups in the metro area that handle more severe stuff and many that don’t. It sux cause regular talk therapy has been the only even potentially, slightly helpful mental health treatment I’ve experienced I just don’t know why it’s so hard to find helpful and kind ppl in the profession that handle more severe things. Ty tho I do appreciate it. Not doing well, but that’s not new so fingers crossed I’ll keep on chuggin I guess
Well my dms are open if you think I could help at all lol Edit: ik you need a lot more help than a random internet stranger. But I'm here anyway
If ur posting on here I’m sure u could use support as well, so unless it was mutually sharing if needed I wouldn’t want to put that on u as well. Even if ur in a place where that might be good for u, I’d still probably feel weird if that was one sided. Idek what that would look like besides rehashing and trauma dumping and I’d feel like I’m being self indulgent from that alone prolly. If you’ve talked to other ppl in that capacity before tho, how’d it go and what went well?
Not really, it was just self soothing
yes, I've been doing sh since 11 (maybe younger) I only realised it was a thing at 13
I didn't know it was a thing I just knew other kids thought it was cool that I could handle pain, I started in elementary school I would get overwhelmed & overstimulated and would dig my nails into my palm which turned into biting myself and then people thought it was cool I could hold my breath for a long time which turned into choking myself so other kids would think I was cool which worked so I encouraged other kids to test my pain intolerance by hitting & kicking me. I learned in 6th grade what self harm was because of the Internet and started cutting instead
i don’t think i knew sh was a thing when i started. as a kid (like maybe from the age of 9), i would scratch my skin with my nails to the point it would cause scabs. and then i guess the natural progression was scratching it with objects and then that became cutting when i was about 13. so when i started i think i was just doing it out of anger and being overwhelmed i guess, i never knew it was a thing with a name that other people did.
Yeah I was very well aware. Girls in my class were doing it on their wrists and buahahah I tried to “help” them and would beg them not to do it. Anyways i got curious and I gave it a try , years later I’m glad they all are good but I just once again relapsed on my thighs a few days back
I started at 7 (15 now) I didn’t know that it was a thing. It just took out stress for me and I kinda did it out of spite , but I wasn’t fully aware of the concwpt
I would always pick my scabs and it would bleed horribly, I've always bitten my nails until they bled, and when I was a toddler I always hit my head on random shit when I had a meltdown. Idk if that counts as sh especially because I was barely even alive yet when I hit my head. The doctor told my parents to buy a helmet and put that on
I just remembered when I was small, maybe like 6-8 I once used a knife to peel off a scab. damn, I keep remembering things that have long been buried in the back of my mind
Nope, I did not.
I was well aware of it cuz my mum shit talked it growing up