poison (tw: sh)

i'm not sure why i'm posting this with a trigger warning. the main reason i like to write on here is because i feel like it's the only space where i can write about all my troubles in life without having to tell anyone about it. when i was 17, my ex boyfriend decided to go through my journal (we had broken up by this point, but still in an extremely toxic and unhealthy on and off cycle with each other) and he found out i had been writing about another man. he got so angry at me. rightfully so i guess. in the moment, i just saw it as me trying to move on from him, but looking back on it now that's definitely not how it seemed.

however, since then i've been unable to write in a notebook. it's been two years since then and i still can't get over the psychological fear that someone will see everything i write. it sounds kind of hypocritical the more i think about it. i'm at a point in my life where i don't really have friends outside of work and an online space, so theoretically no one i know will ever be able to read an entry again. and here, anyone and everyone can look at everything i write. the internet knows me better than i know myself. but despite that, the thought of picking up another pen to write fills me with anxiety. i've tried getting over it, but it's so hard. i can't stop thinking about what happened with him. 

i've been self harm free for so long- and in a way, i don't think i've relapsed. i haven't physically taken any sharp to my skin. i've just been, hitting myself. i'll find anything i can get my hands on when i'm upset and i'll beat myself until i'm bruised and i can't feel my arms or legs anymore. i beat myself until i can feel the pain coursing through my entire nervous system. and i don't stop. i don't stop until it starts to feel good again, until it starts to feel okay. does that really count as self harm? i'm not doing any permanent damage to my body. or at least if i am, you can't really see it. of course you can see bruises, but you won't be able to see the scars on my body like you can with everything else. the more i think about it, the more i realize it's just a cope. i don't want to think i've relapsed. i've spent so long being clean. this can't be a relapse. it's just a phase, i'm not actually doing anything.

i've spent so many years hurting myself, before i ever learned how to cut myself. i would always pull my hair, hit my head, do something to the point of hurting. all i know is pain, all i know is how to put myself in pain. and i don't really know how to stop it. how do i unlearn 18 years of my life? how do i live as a normal human being knowing i'm physically incapable of being a human if i'm not hurting myself? i think i will die with all the scars i carry.