Content warning: SH

After about a year of being clean from SHing [cutting], I have recently been in quite a bad mental health crisis and relapsed. The issue I am facing is that I feel as though if I don’t cut, then something else really bad will happen. I get awful intrusive thoughts that if I don’t cut myself I’ll end up impulsively killing myself, or even worse - that my younger brother will suddenly get seriously painfully injured. If I don’t absorb that hypothetical pain, then it will make its way to him somehow. And nothing makes me more upset than imagining him in pain.

I have been to the emergency department twice in the last two weeks and I thought I had it under control and told the mental health team that it was just a depression coping mechanism and I was going to stop and leave the stitches and bandage alone. But now it’s the middle of the night and the thoughts are getting really intense again. I’m worried if I don’t create enough pain then it will transfer to my brother. I’ve tried punching and pinching and everything I can think of to do to myself, except cut, but the feeling is still here because I feel like cutting will be the only thing to prevent that pain slowly getting to him.

I really don’t know what to do at this point.

I feel so fucking crazy. If I call a support line they’re going to think I’m insane. I know that there’s no magical pain travelling towards my brother, but WHAT IF, what if there is and it’s all my fault?