When trying to stop cutting...

[TaintedBlood]

do you ever act like a jerk to your friends and family?

I'm having that problem. When I try to stop cutting I become all grouchy and nobody wants to be around me. I have insane mood swings and I tend to not think before I say something.

But when I do cut I'm fine. I don't pick fights, my mood swings aren't as dramatic as they are now, and I can think more clearly.

I want to stop cutting but I don't want to treat everyone like trash and lose all of my best friends in the process.

Please help me? I really appreciate it :blue:

[Kaius]

That's perfectly normal don't worry about it. To some self harming is like an addiction, and with that coming the irritability you would get when breaking other addictions such as smoking. Just try and relax, when not cutting use an alternative like the rubber band technique, it should help ease the mood swings and will not give you the same harm cutting would. Take a hot bath, watch your favourite movie, or read a book and just relax even if its just for one evening a week, it will slowly begin to help you.

[Harley Quinn]

Distractions can be a powerful way of diverting feelings of self harm or finding other ways to express thoughts and feelings such as poetry, art, sport etc. Alternatives to self harm such as ice cubes on the skin, flicking elastic bands or drawing on the skin with a red pen can also help.

Well, when i was very dependent on self harm, i acted like a moron to people even though they had done nothing wrong i just needed the pain and the emotion to go, but when i was doing it i was the same. When you do stop it might be like that but it doesn't mean it'll always be that way, things get harder before they get better and once you go past a certain stage without it, it becomes easier to deal with.

[starbrite5]

I know what you mean, I do that. I also swear a lot more. I think these other two were quite correct in saying that distracting yourself would be the best way to both keep away the urges and avoid being totally irritable to your friends and family.

[delta]

I have that same problem. It's frustrating.

[Antonioc]

I hate that sooo much. I actually thought one of my friends hated me, and it's because "I was being a douchebag for the past week". Lol... I had tried to quit cutting a week before, and I guess I wasn't taking it well? Needless to say, I'm back.