Struggling to Overcome Self-Harm and the Desire for More Scars

to put it in perspective, what makes the scars beautiful is that they are scars. they have healed over a wound, figuratively and literally. you admit that you want to move past sh but you are almost there. i agree that you should talk to your therapist about wanting more of them, but you should be happy that your body wants you to heal and move past all the pain you’ve been through. like you aren’t giving yourself enough credit for being clean and please please please tell ur therapist that other people in your life are making you feel weird about it. it’s not fair for their comments to make you even think about harming again. even if these people are trying to say stuff out of love they aren’t getting the full picture and i think you should let ur therapist know

i think it’s good to be comfortable with your scars, but i don’t think it is good to want more. you should look at your scars more of a thing you were able to overcome and move on from. you should be proud of all the progress you’ve made and other people in your life shouldn’t make you feel like having them visible is bad. at the end of the day it’s your body and you shouldn’t feel the need to change any parts of it that you don’t mind.

it’s not your responsibility to please other people with your looks, your scars are a part of who you are!!

If you’re comfortable with your scars, don’t change for anyone. You being comfortable and happy is perfectly okay and you don’t need to change.

Honestly .. BDSM and a healthy relationship stopped me from self harming 🤷‍♀️ it was a healthy controlled way for me to experience things I wanted.

So I e been thinking about this and I kinda understand where you're coming from about the scars. I happen to like the wound care aspect of self injury. Getting tattooed scratched that itch for me. Still hurt and I got to tend to my wounds and something beautiful came out of it

I think it’s first important to look into why you’re comfortable with them. Is it because they’re a part of you that you’re accustomed to or is it because of romanticism? If you come to the conclusion that it’s the first option, you’re completely fair to not want to get rid of them. I personally don’t want to remove my scars but would love to cover them with a tattoo, I just can’t bring myself to fully remove them. If it’s the second option, perhaps try finding ways to cover them and break that attachment as well as finding a way to not want to cause them anymore. I often did this by drawing on myself, finding cool jewelry, I even recently pierced my lip to help with urges. Self harm can be an addiction as well as a coping mechanism but I’m so happy that you’ve been clean for so long, I hope it continues 💕

Sorry if I’m repeating- low key didn’t read the other comments. I like mine. I like mine because it’s a reminder that this IS real. Everyone can tell me that I’m attention seeking or faking or I can convince myself that, but when I see what happened, what I did to myself, I get happy cause I’m the only one who understand my own pain. I know what I went through and the amount of pain and sorrow I had to endure to do that to myself. No one can own my understanding and my pain but me. Personally, I will never heal my scars. I love them.

It's okay to be comfortable with your self harm scars, I have a big one on my hand that too me years to stop thinking about when I was around people. Wanting more scars isn't a bad thing, if you like the aesthetic that's up to you, but there's safe ways to get more. Someone above me mention scarification, which is a safe and controlled environment and worth looking into. But a person should never hurt themselves because they may do permanent internal damage that doesn't just affect their skin

at least your telling people unlike me who never said I word to anyone. You’ve got guts

I was first introduced to ED from reading a book when i was in 7th grade and it messed me up for years. Like I would get myself drunk too fast so I’d have an excuse. That shit took over my whole fucking life. There’s nothing romantic about being sick.

I think it's one thing to be comfortable in your own skin but at the same time idealizing self injury is not the right way to stay healthy. I have very large scars due to a lack of collagen and I've covered my upper body with a number of tattoos but some of my scars, especially ones on veins, are triggering to myself

I don’t think liking/being comfortable with your scars is inherently bad. I’m comfortable with my scars because they are as much a piece of me as my hair. I don’t know if this will help you but something that helped me was to paint “ugly” scenes. I would get messy and paint tragedy to distract myself. Something about the paint covering my skin and then being able to wash it away but still have the art remain as therapeutic for me

since the whole romanticizing the scars thing can be very serious, i would talk to a therapist, especially if it's because of the internet. it can really mess up your perspective if that was your first intro to self harm and mental health. you would have to reteach yourself how to view these things in a healthy manner.

you should also look into scarification. hopefully, this helps. have a nice day!

I think it might be the romanticism thing. I see that I I here, and self harm/suicide is very romanticized in my mind, and I want to change that. but how do I stop this?

you might be romanticizing the look of them. if you were introduced to self harming by the internet, it's probably that.