Anyone ever had this odd sensation? Is it an urge?

Hey,

I used to carve when I went through a very bad depression. After therapy a decade ago, I managed to stop that particular kind of self-harm.

However, now whenever I'm low on energy, I sort of 'feel' it on my arm? Like a light touch... It feels the way it used to when I was hesitant at those times, only now I'm not doing anything.

Is this my mind trying to tempt me to do it or something? Or is it a weird memory/flashback? I don't necessarily feel sad (currently I do) when it happens. The prerequisites appear to be:
1. Be tired.
2. Empty thoughts.
It happens a lot when I'm walking through a particular hallway in school, but I never feel stressed or anxious.

Anyone else had something similar?
I also have psychotic tendencies, but usually they are only visual, auditory or delusions. If it turns out this is a common hallucination though, feel free to move this post to a more appropriate place.

Somewhere between an itch that needs to be scratched and some kind of longing to feel it on your skin? Like mentally I can see myself carrying out the harm on my body and an anticipation of the feeling of it, only, it's all thought out rather than physically acting it out. They've been getting me a lot lately.

I'm not sure where it comes from- whether it's flashbacky or if it's just more self harm thoughts in a different way to what they used to be when I was actively harming.

When I was harming, it wasn't necessarily tied to my mood being low or not- it was more about being overwhelmed by thoughts. Thoughts going too fast and over and over and cutting was a distraction and chance to be in control, if only momentarily.

Could the walking through that particular hallway be triggering other thoughts that lead to you that?

lilyfairy wrote:Somewhere between an itch that needs to be scratched and some kind of longing to feel it on your skin? Like mentally I can see myself carrying out the harm on my body and an anticipation of the feeling of it, only, it's all thought out rather than physically acting it out.

This! Exactly this! Glad I made some sort of sense.

lilyfairy wrote:When I was harming, it wasn't necessarily tied to my mood being low or not- it was more about being overwhelmed by thoughts. Thoughts going too fast and over and over and cutting was a distraction and chance to be in control, if only momentarily.

Could the walking through that particular hallway be triggering other thoughts that lead to you that?

Well, for me it definitely was, and seems to still be, tied to my moods. If I'm energetic and feel good about myself, I never have the urge to harm myself. It's when I'm low on energy and feel either sad, bad about myself, or essentially numb / empty that it seems to play on repeat in my head. I often did it in the past as some sort of punishment or to try and feel anything.

If I think really hard about it, I suspect the hallway resembles the ones from my own time at high-school the most. I don't have very clear memories of high-school, but the things I do remember are things that make me feel insane, stupid, embarrassed, and disgusted with myself. So maybe it's both then. Flashbacky and a mood based urge.

Don't happen to know a good way to deal with it other than grit your teeth and white-knuckle through it?

Triskelion wrote:This! Exactly this! Glad I made some sort of sense.

Glad I could put it into words to relate. Sometimes putting something into words is the hardest thing.

Triskelion wrote:Well, for me it definitely was, and seems to still be, tied to my moods. If I'm energetic and feel good about myself, I never have the urge to harm myself. It's when I'm low on energy and feel either sad, bad about myself, or essentially numb / empty that it seems to play on repeat in my head. I often did it in the past as some sort of punishment or to try and feel anything.

I guess mine was somewhat related to mood, in that I had chronic depression, so my mood would sort of go between low and really low without a lot of feeling good about things at all. Much of mine was about trying to feel something when heavily dissociated, and it would work, sort of. Until I dissociated the pain I'd just caused and I was back at square one.

Triskelion wrote:If I think really hard about it, I suspect the hallway resembles the ones from my own time at high-school the most. I don't have very clear memories of high-school, but the things I do remember are things that make me feel insane, stupid, embarrassed, and disgusted with myself. So maybe it's both then. Flashbacky and a mood based urge.

I've learnt that the effects of triggers don't always show up instantly following an incident. I had a therapist I used to go to, and some days I'd turn up saying "I feel horribly anxious and I don't know why". A bit of probing and we'd often find an event a few days earlier that was the trigger. And I learned to question where and what the trigger was more often. Almost always there was something within about the past 5 days that had been the trigger. Whether it was my dissociation that made me forget or just a delayed reaction to it, I'm not quite sure.

Triskelion wrote:Don't happen to know a good way to deal with it other than grit your teeth and white-knuckle through it?

Not really. Distraction and keeping occupied is about all I can come up with. Learning to understand my own triggers in general has helped a little- doesn't make it go away, but knowing why it's happening and maybe what I can do to get away from the trigger or feel safer from it can help.

Thank you anyway for validating the feeling.

My GP just referred me back to therapy, but I told her not to say it was urgent. I regret that now. I just don't want to have to feel like I'm fighting every day.