Most of y'all have known me for a long time. I've been around the site to some extent since 2005. Half my life. I could post in the regular forums, but honestly I just don't want to open up like that to everyone, so I'm keeping this here.

In the past two years I have had a LOT of trouble with self-harming behaviors, especially burns. Although there were many varied ways in which I harmed myself, burns were the most serious.

A lot of stuff has happened in two years. My life was completely turned upside down when S broke up with me and we moved. I was still really codependent on her, even when we lived together just as roommates. The pandemic shook everyone, including me. I did come out as non-binary and started hormones, which was (and is) awesome, but when my parents didn't accept me right away it started yet another self-harm spiral after I had gone five months without.

For the last three months I've essentially gone up to two weeks without SH, and then I'll do it again, sometimes a few days in a row. I had a lot of potentially dangerous things happen, so I resorted to burning again. I did a burn I didn't think was that bad on January 6th, but it turned out I had to have surgery and be hospitalized for a week. Because of where it was plastic surgeons were the ones operating on it, not burns. The burn team in my city basically won't treat me surgically anymore, preferring instead to apply salves or ointments to let the injured tissue slough off naturally, and I think plastics is about at that point, too. I feel like my addiction frustrates and annoys everyone, and that only makes things worse.

Five days after being released from the hospital I burned again, this time somewhere no one will see. I am in a lot of pain but I refuse to have someone look at it; I'm pretty sure it can heal on its own and I don't want to have anyone examine it. I am tired of the hospital and I am afraid of what will happen if I go there, both medically and psychiatric-wise. I was honest with my PHP therapist today and told her I could stay safe. So far that's been the case, although it's difficult.

I just feel so defeated. I've been struggling with self-harm almost as long as I have been on TH. It gets better for a year or two, but then I just fall right back down. I am thirty. My goal was to not self-harm anymore after thirty and that didn't happen. I have sworn I don't want to be forty or fifty and getting stitches or whatnot in the ER but I am afraid I may turn into one of those people. I've tried every level of therapy, and many of the therapeutic approaches, to face this, and yet I still do it. DBT helps, but when I am triggered I have a hard time using skills. Currently PHP is a good form of structure, and I am learning new things, but the urges don't get any better. I don't make sense, either. I go to the ER writhing in pain on Friday and then Monday I am burning a very sensitive area so I feel more pain? They probably are going to think I am trying to get drugs, if I were to go to the ER again.

I just want to heal, and move on with my life. Get to a place where I can really help people, because I don't feel like I can help anyone with where I am at. I want to say goodbye to self-harm. In therapy exercises I have written multiple letters saying goodbye to self-harm, but I always come back, like a toxic relationship.

What can I do to heal? How can I move on, and make this a thing of the past?