Self-harming?

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What are some of the reasons why you have self-harmed? What did you do to yourself that was considered as self-harm? I'm sorry if this is a touchy subject, but I just want to use realistic themes in my story.

My reasons for self-harm were the lack of control I had over my emotions. I would take a tack and try to pierce my skin enough to make little scars. It wasn't enough to cause any kind of bleeding for me, but it was a way for me to cope with the problems. After I told my previous psychiatrist about all this on my iPad (I had to change because the one I had before retired), he put me on abilify, and I haven't had any problem with my emotions since.

Why I self-harmed?
Mental illness, self-loathing

How?
Overdose
Scraping the skin off my arms
Banging my head against the wall
Sticking pins in my hands
More passive: Trying to smoke myself to death

How I got over it?
I grew up

Why? I'm not really sure. Being overwhelmed by feelings was often followed by self-injury.

How? Probably not appropriate to get into details. Suffice to say it was still considered "minor self-injury" but did require hospitalisation sometimes.

How I got over it? A lot of time spent better understanding myself and my place in the world. Instead of letting things spiral out of control I have got better at asking people to explain what is going on in a social situation.

I have a question to you. What are you looking for from this thread? I might be able to reply better if i knew what you were hoping to gain or was it just to share your experience?

Why? Uh well, I self harmed somewhat for about a year when it gained a lot of media attention and was almost shown as an easy way to cope (even though it was simultaneously being accurately portrayed as unhealthy). So yeah, it kind of turned into a "if everybody else is doing it, then why not try?" I was only 13.

How? Cutting

When I do it it is because I feel like I deserve it. I hit myself mostly or sometimes bite myself. I never use objects because the regret from that would be overwhelming. I would never be able to see or use the object for its proper use again. I would have defiled it.

Frustrations and lower coping capacity.

Why? Out of pain. Not really physical or mental pain, but it's like people do stuff that hurts your feelings and it pains you. I was hurting over stuff that happened to me and it kept getting to me.
What? Do suicide attempts count? Don't worry, I'm fine now. That's from years ago. I'm doing better now, but I still have the same kind of pain before, but I'm not trying to kill myself anymore. I'm better able to deal with it. Out of frustration, I'd bang my head a bit or whack at a wall with my arm. I can't do self harm very well because I'm so skittish of pain.
The thing about self harm is the fact there's always a reason behind it. People don't hurt themselves when they're happy or have nothing better to do. There's always a reason behind it and it's not exactly pleasant. Self harm can also be in many different ways and it's not always conscious or intended. For example, I was picked on so much in middle school that my appetite decreased and I got so skinny I looked anorexic. It wasn't that I was intending to stop eating because I felt fat, it's just that the teasing hurt me so much I just didn't feel like eating. I just didn't really feel hungry. Part of the teasing was people didn't want to be around me because I had a cough for a few years that wouldn't go away and it burned off a lot of calories since it takes so much energy to cough every day. So the coughing resulted in teasing and both resulted in loss of appetite and looking like I'm anorexic even though I wasn't. Thankfully, I got rid of the cough thanks to modern medicine and I gained some more weight and got my appetite back.
Getting back to what I was saying, self harm comes with a reason. I notice it's like an outlet for pain. You're hurt about something and it hurts so bad, making yourself feel physical pain is like giving the mental pain a hole to escape through out of your body. The sad part is the mental pain comes back and the "hole" heals and it's like you have to keep making more holes to let the pain out.

I am not aware if this qualified as "self-harm" in that I was not in a consciously self-harming frame of mind when I did it- but I used to peel the epidermal layer off of my lips when they'd chap. still do the same with chapped skin. maybe an OCD thing? I would feel better once the dangling ragged flesh was peeled off nice and neat.

Why? Many reasons, when uncontrollably angry, better to hurt myself than some one else. Feeling the pain can be soothing to a stressful situation or physical pain can relieve the mental pain.

Bashing my head against a brick wall; burning myself with cigarettes; cutting; sticking needles in myself; scalding myself in the shower;

I jumped off a bridge, cut myself and have taken overdoses.

Some people might say they are suicide attempts but they were all during or just after really severe meltdowns, at the point where I could not stand to be myself any longer.

Ended in hospital each time.

I do not enter into such pursuits any longer.

90% of my past self-harm has been psychotic in nature. For example pouring boiling hot water over my head, sticking pins into my hands with intention of driving them the whole way through, ingesting chemicals etc.

Thankfully I don't have serious long-lasting damage (I do have some sequelae though).

I rarely thought "I'm X emotion which is why I'm self-harming". I just remember situations like "the Spies are going to find me, so if I set fire to myself and destroy myself, the world won't end" (when I was very delusional), thankfully the police found me on all such occasions in public.

I have scars (both incisions and burn marks) from where I have tried to sever arteries etc, as part of delusional episodes.

In the present, I do self-harm, but I don't self-harm like I used to. My self-harm nowadays is done during meltdowns, usually in the form of bruises and tearing of my skin.

25mg Olanzapine and a lot of support has kept me out of the psych ward for three years. Last time I tried to set myself on fire and nearly set a policeman's arm on fire during the struggle of me being sectioned.

I never want to go back to that part of my life.

^^^
glad that you are doing better