How I Rehabbed Myself to Quit Self-Harming and Stay Sober
Everything that has happened made me the happy and successfully sober person I am today.
Before you start reading, I want to remind you that this article is by no means any professional advice. This article is written for the sole purpose of sharing my story and to help people know that they are not alone. If you need help, please turn to someone you trust.
You are not alone
For five years, I believed the only way to stop the pain was to divert my emotional pain to physical pain. I always felt that if I made myself numb enough to not feel the pain, I would not feel depressed and lonely. Because physical pain might hurt for a few moments, but the emotional pain eats you alive.
What I didn’t realise was that I was finding temporary solutions to a much bigger problem. These “temporary solutions” only made me worse and deteriorated my health to the point that I attempted suicide on several accounts.
When my friends knew about my destructive behaviour of self-harming, they ratted me out to people who made me much worse. The worst part of it all was that all my friends left me because in their eyes I was trouble. After my last attempt at taking my own life, I realised that my problems won’t end by ending them for myself.
My problems would then be the problems of my loved-ones after my departing. I knew nobody was going to help me, I mean my school’s social worker teased my scars, so I decided to help myself. I wanted to get better, and I knew the first step of getting better was realising that the best person that could help me was me.
Recovery was a long, painful, yet beautiful process. Letting go of bad habits is hard for anyone, but it isn’t impossible. Throughout my journey to recovering, I learnt beautiful things about myself. One amazing thing I learnt was that it is okay to fail, just keep trying, giving up is not an option.
Throughout my journey, I always wrote a dairy. As I was flipping through the pages of my diary, I realised throughout my long journey of trial and error and not giving up, I had several ways that I used to rehab myself to quit self-harming and staying sober for nearly over 3 years now.
Keeping sharp objects away from myself
I had a bad habit of cutting my flesh. It was quiet, nobody could hear me, and it took my pain away for a few moments. It is also the hardest to quit because of how pathetic I always felt seeing my wounds every day in the shower. But then, I knew that I had to take the hard road and immediately throw all my sharp objects. I even threw away my scissors and used a ruler to cut paper when I needed to. Then I realised my nails were also long and sharp so I cut those away too because I didn’t want to do a half-ass job at my self-rehab.
I will be lying if I said that it didn’t take time for me to completely stay away from sharp objects. When I first started, I relapsed more than just a couple of times because it was indeed tough to immediately quit. Don’t give up because it is hard. Life would be so dull if everything was handed to us on a silver platter. What even would be our purpose here?
So my entire point is to just start and don’t give up even if you fail a hundred times. Maybe you’ll succeed the one hundred and one time. So don’t let your efforts go to waste by quitting.
I found alternative methods
When a smoker tries to quit smoking, you don’t just expect them to throw away their packet of cigs and be done with smoking. It is a long and exhausting process. For smokers, they usually go for nicotine patches first before they can entirely quit smoking. For me, I used rubber bands. I knew it was impossible for me to just stop cutting after so many years of using it as a means to “fix” my problems.
Drastic changes in a short period usually end up in failure and relapse, 99% of said relapses are worse than when you first start changing yourself for the better. Just use the analogy of weight loss; when you lose a lot of weight in an extremely short period of time, you can gain so much more once you stop your extreme diet. The same thing applies here.
I would put loose rubber bands around my wrist, and I would snap them a few times whenever I felt the need to cut. It honestly really helped me. It was a huge achievement the day that I no longer had the urge to self-harm and threw my rubber bands away too.
I would literally RUN away from my problems
Before, I used to use self-harm as a coping mechanism to run away from my problems. Now, I literally use my legs and a pair of sports shoes and go running till my guts hurt whenever I feel depressed and lost.
These running sessions aren’t only a great way to kick in that day’s exercise. They are also terrific for letting my anger, frustration, hurt and depression out without hurting me. I will be out running and thinking about ways I can better the situation; there has yet to be a day that this method fails me. This is one of the best ways I stay sober.
Toxic people; GOODBYE!
Easier said than done. Sometimes, we just don’t want to let go of people who we know are hurting us because we think they can change. Having hope is good, having too much hope in other people just to be let down by them constantly is terrible. I had a lot of people who thought my mental illness was bullshit.
The list of said people includes but is not limited to; my family, my friends, my school’s social worker and the list goes on. While I couldn’t really deal with the problems inside my home as easily, I decided to deal with the easier ones first. I stopped talking to my toxic friends who only ever spoke about themselves and would never hear me out. Trust me, reading a beautiful book in the library during lunch break made me much happier than sitting around a table of toxic people. As for my social worker, I literally stopped going to my sessions with her because I genuinely felt they were making me worse.
For the first time in forever, I put myself first, and it was the best feeling ever. My problems at home took time to resolve. Therefore, I occupied myself with afterschool activities (like debating) which would eat my weekends away to stay as far away from home as possible so I could heal myself. Apart from the fact that my public speaking skills improved significantly, I was also happier because my parents were proud of me for doing what I loved.
The energy people give off is crucial to our mental health, so if somebody is consistently giving you bad energy, it is time to let them go. It is okay to take time to let go and move on. The most important thing is that you realise that sometimes letting go hurts much less than holding on.
It took me more than 2 years to move on from the one person who hurt me more than anyone ever did, but I couldn’t leave her because I loved her. It was when I woke up to the realisation that she was perfectly happy with or without me, she didn’t need me, she didn’t even think of me. Then I decided that it was officially time to let go and move on. For the first month, I felt hollow almost every day. I knew to let go of her was the right choice, but I missed her. I felt like I lost something, yet at the same time, I felt this heavyweight just come off of my shoulder.
People are essential in life. The right people are better. Letting go of all this toxicity that was bullying my life just made me happier. I focused on myself instead of other’s needs. For once, I was alone, but I didn’t feel lonely.
I do me
Let me just tell you one thing real quick, crushing people down just because you are sad is not cool. I don’t care if you mind me doing something I love. If I want to give it a shot and if it isn’t affecting anybody, you should stay the hell out of it. It is my life. Thank you for sharing your concerns with me, but I am a grown-ass woman, and I know what I am doing. I am not telling anyone to bear any of the potential consequences of my actions.
One of the main reasons I was always so depressed and constantly had anxiety attacks was that people around me would tell me what I can and cannot do. They would make my judgement for me because they felt it was what is best for me. I, on the other hand, always gave into their opinions because I didn’t want to lose them.
I thought maybe they really do have good intentions and I should listen to what other people think. My streak of staying sober relied on me being happier and not letting things bother me too much. The constant need for approval from other people only made me depressed. I quickly learnt that if the people around me are not happy about my success in life, then I am surrounding myself with all the wrong people.
How others saw me shouldn’t be the determining factor of my life or my happiness. True, it is good to hear different opinions. It is not true, however, to let people always let you down. Life is about trial and error. You do you. Wear that red lipstick if it makes you feel like a boss bitch and don’t care what other’s say about it.
If they have a problem, they should just look away. Constantly requiring people’s approval will make you feel shit and might cause you to relapse. To get people’s approval, you need to approve of yourself first. Be the best version of you, take baby steps to be the best version of you. Soon, very soon, you are going to see great changes in your life and in your mood. Sobriety is a great accomplishment, so do it for yourself. You do you.
I am forever grateful that I got a second chance at life so many times. Apart from the fact that I survived, I also recovered. Even though it took a lot of time, patience, hard work, and failure, I still did it. I always told myself that giving up was not an option. I made myself realise that hurting myself would only make my problems worse and never better. I found many beautiful ways of coping with my depression, and I am proud to say that my flesh has only seen a few unintentional paper cuts for 3 years now.
My depression almost killed me several times. Self-harm kept me going until I figured out how I could stop depression from being the determining factor of everything I did in my life. I hope this article gave you hope. Hope that things can and will get better. I hope this article also gave you faith and encouragement. Faith that life may be horrible, but it can also be beautiful, and encouragement that failure is inevitable but then giving up is a choice, a choice you must not make.
I will not blame anyone or change anything that has happened in my life. Each event either broke me or made me. But at the end of the day, everything that has happened made me the happy and successfully sober person I am today.
