Self harm is different to suicide....why people self harm

I want this blog to be honest and informative.Often people think self harm is a suicide attempt. In fact often people self harm ironically as the opposite and they self harm to feel alive in a state of dissociation(dissociation for me happens when I am so emotionally distressed I zone out and end up acting on self harm thoughts...it is like being drunk in that you know you are doing it but your not in control).Also people think of self harm as cutting but it can take many forms such as burning, hair pulling skin picking , head banging, overdosing and tying ligatures. I was about 13 when I first self harmed but it was only a couple of minor scratches really and at that age my main problem was an eating disorder which wasn't as a form of self harm (I've heard some people say they used food as a way to harm themself by starving or bingeing and purging but for me my eating disorder was about wanting to feel I was good at something and wanting to feel in control and to help me fit in where I felt I didn't fit in...I thought if I wasn't fat at least that was one thing i couldn't be bullied for). Anyway I was going off on a tangent there...back to self harm. To start with my self harm started seriously when I was in my early 20s. By then I was struggling alot with my eating disorders...from the outside an eating disorder looks like someone not wanting to eat or wanting to binge eat or be sick. But inside the person with the eating disorder there is a constant voice in your head that is battling...the eating disorder voices and your own rational voice. For me there was an anorexic voice that would tell me me I didn't deserve to eat...all food was bad....then the bulimia voice tells you you can eat but only if you punish yourself and compensate for eating it by being sick or exercising or taking laxatives but that argues with anorexia as anorexia tells you you will still have calories inside of you and then your own rational voice that wants you to have a normal life and tells you you need to eat to be able to enjoy things, to work and socialise etc. (The eating disorder voice gets stronger when you see no hope in your life...for example if anxiety and depression are also barriers to you being able to work or socialise etc...). So one day I remember sitting crying on the kitchen floor because I just wanted to eat something...but all the voices were arguing with each other so I threw a mug in frustration and without thinking about it I picked up a piece and cut my arm with it. As time went on and I lost control and bulimia took hold more...anorexia would make me feel so guilty about eating that it became a cycle of if I ate I had to get rid of it and then punish myself by self harming. Then as time went on self harm became a way to deal with negative emotions. I had a stressful job working with adults with challenging behaviour and that was when my self harm became at its worst...it was long hours in an environment that was often understaffed and it was common to get attacked. Every patient had their own reasons for their behaviour which wasn't their fault but because it was often short staffed there were times it was very stressful. I got signed off sick from that job and because I already had my own mental health problems I barely got out of bed for 3 months before I got another care job in a less challenging environment...I loved caring for other people. At work I came across as bubbly and confident when often I would be going to work having spent a night before eating and being sick and self harming then going to work in long sleeves and bandages underneath. It got to a point the cuts were getting deeper and needing medical attention. For me I also don't like confrontation or upsetting anyone else intentionally so often instead of arguing with someone who had upset me I would take the negative emotion out on myself. My self harm was only cutting for a long time but then I started overdosing too. Sometimes my overdoses were suicide attempts because I ended up with the eating disorder voice getting to your fat and you deserve to die...but there was always my own voice that didn't want to die and that's the voice that would ask for help...even though there was no help....I ended up taking 60 overdoses in one year but once it becomes that your whole life is a crisis mental health services rarely intervene apart from to send me home to my mum as my carer after medical treatment.. One person can self harm in more than one way and for lots of different reasons and the self harm can change forms for example in 2015 I did end up having a longer admission to the mental health acute ward and I ended up getting sectioned as I was dissociating so much and acting impulsively on self harm and suicide thoughts constantly. To start with I was admitted as a short admission with the aim of stabilising with my self harm to go back to a residential therapeutic community I had gone to because local services had exhausted all avenues with me, but I felt being there was making me worse so I decided not to go back...but then my mum and dad said they couldn't cope with me at home anymore as my mental health had got so bad I couldn't leave the house without overdosing. In my emotional mind I felt rejected....my parents had thought if they wouldn't have me home I would get more help for my mental health to make me better (but just because someone is in hospital doesn't mean they are actually getting therapy.....they are often just a holding place with no headwork. ...I did eventually get sent to an out of area placement for intensive psychology but the psychologist left as I got there but I will do another blog on therapies and where I feel I have been let down in the past but also some good therapists I have had). When I was informal as a patient on an acute ward I continued to self harm by cutting but then my suicidal thoughts got stronger and I began tying ligatures to the extent of a severe one where I got a thought in my head I deserved to die and I tied a TV wire and clothing around my neck tightly and double knotted. The thought was that strong that when I heard a nurse coming in I hid behind a sofa and they didn't know I was there. My own survival instinct kicked in and I last minute managed to crawl down the corridor to another patients room where I passed out somehow under the bed. Staff had struggled to untie it and in their struggle to cut it off had banged my head on the bed and I had 2 black eyes and a lump on my head. There was a point to me mentioning suicide attempts too as there is a close link. I found that when you tie a ligature tight your mind goes blank and it shut the eating disorder and other voices up so sometimes even ligatures were self harm rather than suicide attempts but they were both. In hospital ligatures replaced overdoses. ...overdoses can be self harm too....when I could find no other way to deal with my eating disorder I would think if I was physically Ill in hospital I couldn't eat. When I was on the acute ward as a sectioned patient on the locked ward where there are no mugs or sharp objects (I was breaking mugs to self harm with on the open ward)I began banging my head on walls as my thoughts were so bad I was dissociating so badly I was having to be restrained to stop me doing it....I struggle alot now with memory and concentration problems as a result. Like I said during that time I was getting no therapy just meds to sedate me and staff with me 24 hours a day to keep me  safe. I am actually thankful to those staff that did help me stay alive that year. I am getting better at fighting self harm and suicidal thoughts and I will continue to fight. I'm embarrassed by my self harm scars but I want them to become a story of a battle that fought and won...