Do you want to get better?

I'm curious. Because sometimes I feel that I would rather stay this way the rest of my life than ever heal and be healthy. Why is that? Why would I want to stay sick??

Does anyone else relate?

Yea, i think i understand that. Ive just kind of accepted what i do like a nervous tick. I really do have more important things to think about than if i cut myself. thinking about it constantly seems to make a person do it more.

gratteciel, are you talking about just the cutting or your entire dx? I want to get better.... to be 'normal' again. But by that I mean my entire dx, not the cutting. I just look at the cutting as a side effect of my real problems. If I could solve those I think the cutting would resolve on its own.

I often had the feeling of not wanting to get better. When I think about it, it might be because I centered my identity around my problems and illnesses. If I didn't have any issues, what would be left? I couldn't really fathom it, and only came up with an empty shell. My self-harm stopped and my moods got better, but I still am suffering with many other issues, so I still cannot imagine what would be left of me without it. I've been like this for so long, I'm not sure who I would be if it were gone and I were "fixed". Right when I hit my teenage years, things went massively downhill. So right when you're supposed to be finding out who you are, I was doing badly. So my identity got mixed in with all of it. I'm not sure what would happen if I got better, and started living normally like everyone else, I simply can't see it. Like how Shattered said, wanting to be "normal" again, I've never experienced normal, I'm not sure what that feels like.

- EGD.

I guess I'm talking about both. I don't want to stop cutting. I do want to stop lashing out at my friends, but I don't want to let people in. I don't want to trust people; I WANT to fear being close to people. I want to be alone and I want to hide in my bed every chance I get. I can't imagine being better without, like EGD said, losing my identity. I feel like I am a cutter. I am depressed. I am borderline. That's who I am; I can't just turn my back on my identity.

Thats intense... I never thought about what it would be like if your dx developed into part of your identity. I was severely depressed at times during my mid teens, but thinking back the majority of the time I was only mildly depressed. When I think of 'normal' for myself I consider it to be a state of mild depression. Do I consider that normal for me because that was how usually felt back then? If this is the case I can see why you would feel attached to your dx.

I WANT to fear being close to people. I want to be alone and I want to hide in my bed every chance I get. I can't imagine being better without, like EGD said, losing my identity. I feel like I am a cutter. I am depressed. I am borderline.

But your dx is just part of your identity. You would still be somebody if you could escape it - probably a happier somebody. We all have days that are better than others. Wouldn't you like to have more of these days? Isn't that what we are all trying to accomplish?

Have you had reasons not to trust or get close to people?
because that could have a lot to do with not wanting to trust them.

Your experiences in life, your body, your likes and dislikes the people close to you, your triumphs and struggles, thats what gives you identity. The whole person. Not just some arbitrary criteria in the DSM (which changes on the whim of whoever is on the panel for its revision at the time.)
Your exsistance and personhood give you your identity, and you will still have an identity even as you grow and change throughout lifes stages.

And i know any change life can be scary or offputting. it doesent even have to do with disease.

You know, I think it is a part of my personality as well. I have been accused of being in love with feeling depressed. Even by the closest of people to me. And you know what? I think they are right. I don't know anything else but to feel like I do. I have no wish, right now, to stop cutting. I feel like this is who I am. I have never known anything different. I have always felt like a piece or crap and not much of anything. I may not have always cut, but it took on a different form early on. I let it progress and now I am at this point. When I start to feel "normal" or "level" then I always stop my meds, and then when I get too crazy, I start them again. It is truly like I like the way I feel. I think actually that I do. As I have said, I have never known anything else. I truly think that at times I really don't want to get better.

EarlGreyDregs wrote:I often had the feeling of not wanting to get better. When I think about it, it might be because I centered my identity around my problems and illnesses. If I didn't have any issues, what would be left? I couldn't really fathom it, and only came up with an empty shell. My self-harm stopped and my moods got better, but I still am suffering with many other issues, so I still cannot imagine what would be left of me without it. I've been like this for so long, I'm not sure who I would be if it were gone and I were "fixed". Right when I hit my teenage years, things went massively downhill. So right when you're supposed to be finding out who you are, I was doing badly. So my identity got mixed in with all of it. I'm not sure what would happen if I got better, and started living normally like everyone else, I simply can't see it. Like how Shattered said, wanting to be "normal" again, I've never experienced normal, I'm not sure what that feels like.

- EGD.

gosh i could have written that! i feel exacctly the same, that my idendtity has been built and made of secrets and pain and issues. i actually did my first cuts when, after 2 years, my emotional pain started to get better (and became anger) when i was 13/14. of course i don't like experiencing heavy emotional pain, but once it's gone, i almost miss it, in a way i like feeling extreme emotions cause i feel it triggers creativity (when you're in-between the really bad moments), and it makes me feel i'm alive. i hate mild (sp??), i hate numbness.

Is this the same for everybody? I find this very interesting I thought I was the only person who felt like this. Sometimes I cut just to make me more depressed. I love it. I love to sabotage my progress and be "in that place". its so comforting. nothing can hurt me if i'm in that place. I push myself to be depressed. I feel that bipolar and si is my life. I am completely indifferent to getting better with the cutting. It took me a long time to realize this but its true. and I try to be depressed as often as I can, I listen to sad music, I sleep too much and purposely put bad thoughts in my head.
I'm glad that im bi-polar I take pride in knowing that my creativity stems from it. I couldn't live without it.