If you hurt yourself you are hurting the wrong person. You are hurting a person, a being, an inner-child that has already hurt, and been hurt, ENOUGH.

You do not have to continue to cycle the patterns of your past. While hurting yourself may feel like a relief, or release for your feelings or a way to avoid your feelings, it is abusive. It is you, abusing you. If you were abused, sexually, physically and/or emotionally as you were growing up -- your hurting yourself is you taking on the role of your abuser and is you turning on yourself. This is abandonment at its most profound. When you abandon and re-abandon your self you will be projecting this out on to anyone else with whom you come into contact or are in relationship with or to. You will then perceive that you are being abandoned by everyone else. This projection is the mirror in which borderlines live their lives, reflections of others and of a self sought after and longed for as they are.

My review of Dr. Moskovitz's 2nd Edition of Lost In The Mirror: An Inside Look at Borderline Personality Disorder

In his book, Lost In The Mirror: An Inside Look At Borderline Personality (2nd Edition), Richard Moskovitz, M.D. writes: "Self-mutilation may be as simple as superficial scratches on the skin with fingernails or a blunt instrument, or as tragic and complicated as the surgical excision of a body part. Some injuries are visible to all while others are well hidden. Some are inflicted with elaborate ritual, while others convey special meaning that can be deciphered by the knowledgeable observer like the hieroglyphics in an ancient tomb. These injuries are often mistaken for suicide attempts."

"Whether burns or cuts or penetrating wounds, these self-inflicted injuries are the products of compulsion. Like other compulsions, a buildup of tension leads to an irresistible urge, and the tension is discharged by the act."

"Self-injury brings horror to the hearts of family members. They may also view it with anger as a form of defiance. Because it presents serious risk to health and life, it may become the occasion for an involuntary hospitalization. Extreme measures, such as constant observation or physical restraint, may be brought to bear to prevent the more serious forms of self-injury. The power struggle that follows may become one of the forces that keeps the compulsion alive."

To the borderline person, self-mutilation may be rich in meaning."

Dr. Moskovitz then outlines 6 interpretations of self- mutilation. They include:

1) "Self-Mutilation as Punishment:"

Here he summarizes that guilt over real or imagined wrong-doings or inappropriate behaviour is punished through self-mutilation. Moskovitz writes: "Self-Mutilation may be a particularly fitting punishment for the crime of forbidden sexuality."

2) "Self-Mutilation as Sacrifice:"

Moskovitz suggests that a body part, through splitting, may take on the symbolic meaning of all that is bad about the self. The body is then punished for the sins of the owner and made a scapegoat.

3) "Self-Mutilation as a Cry for Help:"

Here Moskovitz explains that visible forms of self-mutilation catch the attention of others and invite rescue. He suggests that for many borderlines, feeling out of control, self-mutilation as a cry for help may be an unconscious plea for hospitalizaton, for the kind of structure that can provide the safety that the borderline is unable to provide for him/herself.

4) "Self-Mutilation as Directed Pain:"

Moskovitz explains here that, for many borderlines, emotional pain can often seem unbearable and so the self-inflicted pain can serve as a distraction from emotional distress that feels intolerable. It can also be another way to convey to others that you are hurting. Many borderlines, in the face of emotional pain that they feel is unmanagable, end up in a rather numbed state where they aren't feeling their feelings at all. This state of being then builds up an intolerable situation after a period of time and leads the borderline to injure him/herself as a way of renewing contact with the world of sensation.

5) "Self-Mutilation as Coded Message:"

Moskovitz says that this type of self-mutilation often contains symbolic messages for self or others within it.

6) "Self-Mutilation as Reenactment:"

Moskovitz makes it clear here that most with Borderline Personality Disorder have experienced physical and/or sexual abuse, self-abuse often represents a reenactment of the early injury. This reenactment is a compulsion as well. It is a compulsion to reenact past traumatic events in what are viewed as efforts to create a new, happier ending to what are painful memories. This is seen also as a way of developing some emotional continuity between past and present.

I, myself, went through this for years. I have not, however, had any impulse or desire to harm myself now for about 15 years. For me it is truly a thing of the past. It was not an easy transition though from self-harm to self-care.

As much as there are, as Moskovitz and other professionals will attest, impluses and compulsions behind this behaviour I believe, from my own experience that this behaviour is also a part of choices made. Sometimes, choices made subsconsciously until one understands on a more conscious level what is going on inside and what is driving the choice to self-mutilate.

As one who has been through Borderline Personality Disorder and recovered from it, and who knows that often indescribeable pain and agony I can truly attest to you here and now that continuing to harm yourself, look to others to rescue you and provide you with a safety that you need to learn how to provide for yourself is holding you trapped in the pain of BPD. It is truthfully more painful to stay trapped in those cycles then it is to face the pain that all this self-harming behaviour seeks to defend against, avoid and escape. The truth is that this pain is NOT escapable. It will perpetuate itself in your experience until you decide to face it, to feel it, and to let go of the self-mutilation as a defense. Do you really need to punish, sacrifice, cry for help, give yourself and/or others coded messages, and keep yourself trapped in your past by constantly reenating it? The answer to that question, in my experience, was no. And with that answer, and some determination I made a vow to my inner-child over 15 years ago now that I would never again hurt her because I was still experiencing past pain. After all it is that little one in each and every one of us that has felt, held and carried that pain for years. Your little one needs you today. Just as you need yourself.

Recovering from self-mutilation and indeed, BPD itself, requires that you find that authentic self, that child within that holds both your past pain and that essence of you and connect with him/her in a deep and profound way. This can only happen when you make the choice to stop abusing yourself and to feel the feelings that your inner-child has been holding for you for years. Through grieving this child's pain you will then connect to your authentic self (inner-child) and further integrate your past experiences into your adult life. This is the emotional maturation needed to overcome BPD. When you are much more connected to your true self you will then be able to connect to the world in ways which build relationships in the here and now as opposed to the borderline way of trying to re-live and fix past relationships from the past in your here and now which ruins those present-day relationships, alienates you, leaves you isolated, lonely, and feeling that profound re-abandonment over and over again.

Self-Mutilation is abandonment of the self. It is living in and through your false self. It is not your destiny. It is not what you deserve. It is not the measure of your worth. Your past and any and all abuse suffered in your past is not a reflection on who you really are or the inherent worth that you have because you simply are, you. Believe that. Trust that. Seek to know your real self and you will find your way out of this most painful,trapping and self annihilating behaviour. You deserve so much more. You deserve to feel and to heal the pain that you have lived with for so long. And when you choose to do just that you really can do just that. I won't sugar-coat it, healing that pain is often a long process, it is involved and it takes dedicated determination and the shedding of millions of tears.

What it all comes down to is self-mutilation or releasing your self from the legacy of your past and your most profound pain. You cannot learn to soothe yourself while you are still hurting yourself and perpetuating all the pain that you have had inflicted upon you in your past.

Before I could get to my pain and heal it I had to STOP all my self-harming behaviour. To do anything less would never have been enough to further integrate my inner-child and to gain the trust of this most precious and hurting little one. In order to find new ways of coping and to be able to find and feel your pain you must first make the decision to stop the self-mutilation that, for many borderlines, is running and further ruining their lives.

You can recover from the pain that so haunts you. You can make new choices. You can recover from self-mutilating behaviour. You can let go of your past. You can welcome in the here and now and you can dare to dream about your future.