Self Harm: Part 3 What Self-Harm Actually Feels Like

Self Harm: Part 3 What Self-Harm Actually Feels Like

Tonight the urge came back like it always does: quiet at first, then loud enough to shake the walls of my chest. People talk about “urges” like they’re thoughts. They’re not thoughts. They’re sensations. Physical, heavy, magnetic. It starts in the ribs. A pressure. A tightening. A feeling like something inside me is going to burst unless I give it somewhere to go. Some nights it feels like drowning slowly in a room with no water. Some nights it feels like my skin is too small for everything I feel. Some nights it feels like I’m slipping out of my body and need something sharp to tie me back to the living world. I wish it was dramatic. It’s not. It’s mundane. It’s familiar. It’s ritual. That’s the part no one understands. Self-harm isn’t a monster in the dark. It’s the monster who sits beside you at breakfast. It’s the friend who overstays their welcome but you’re too exhausted to kick them out. It’s the habit that whispers, “We’ve been here before. We know how to do this. It’ll make everything quiet again.” And the worst part? It does. For a moment. A single, trembling moment. Then the guilt hits like a second wave — heavier, quieter, deeper. But in that first moment? There’s relief. Warm, terrible relief. And that’s the hook. That’s the addiction. That’s the reason it’s so hard to let go. People ask: “Why would you hurt yourself like that?” Because sometimes pain feels safer than emotion. Because sometimes blood feels easier than honesty. Because sometimes I don’t know how to feel anything without a physical anchor. Self-harm feels like control. Like proof that I can make something stop. Like evidence that I still exist. And then afterward it feels like regret. Like apology. Like a secret I have to bury before morning. Tonight I didn’t do anything. But the urge sat beside me. Breathing. Waiting. And I sat with it. Breathing. Waiting. Trying to choose myself instead of the silence. I don’t know if that counts as healing. But maybe it does. Maybe survival is quieter than I expected. — MICRO-PIECE: “Nights I Didn’t Trust Myself” (A haunting standalone piece) There were nights I didn’t trust myself with my own hands. Nights where the shadows felt sharper than the light. Nights where the air felt too thick, the silence too loud, the memories too close. I would sit on the edge of my bed, hands clenched, breath held, waiting for the urge to pass like a storm that didn’t know my name. And every minute I survived felt stolen. Every breath felt borrowed. Every heartbeat felt like it might break open into something red. I don’t romanticize those nights. I survived them. Barely. Bloodlessly. Quietly. There are nights where i don’t trust myself. There were nights I didn’t trust myself. But I stayed. I stayed.

hopedieslast

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