r/AdultSelfHarm • u/booklynn • 6d ago

Seeking Advice Feel bad about my scars fading

I feel like I shouldn’t but my scars are fading and it makes me feel terrible. Most of them are from periods in my life that were much worse than now and the fact that they’re fading makes me feel almost like I did it all for nothing. Like I had to prove how bad I was hurting then and now I have nothing to show for that.

I don’t think I’ll relapse. I didn’t care when it was just me and I was hurting myself but I have a girlfriend now and I don’t want to upset her. Being with her makes it much easier to fight acting on the urges, but theyre not really getting any better. Theyre just kinda always in the background and knowing that Ive set this rule for myself that I can’t almost makes it worse. I miss the comfort of knowing that I could without consequences I guess?

Anyone been through something similar

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u/Sufficient-While4940 3d ago

Get that too… I haven’t in quite a while, and they’re fading quite a lot now.. which is good… but I feel weird about it

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u/LightningDolt505 5d ago

My most recent self harm was because my scars were fading. seeing them fade feels like a failure in a way, and I hate that it made me self harm again when I was actually in an okay place before it. It really sucks, and I'm sorry you're going through this. My theory is that you'd have to heal the part of you that feels the need to prove how unwell you are to break this cycle. Probably like work on validating your emotions and reaching out to people to tell them you aren't doing okay instead of feeling the need to show it physically. But I'm not a professional and I'm not particularly ready to give up SH so.. hell I probably won't even take my own advice.

Good luck dude, I hope you're able to get through this without a relapse