Date:   3/22/2005 1:18:20 PM ( 20 y ago)
Hits:   2,876
URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=411985

I am glad that I am not totally alone.
I, too, am one of those rarities - a male self-mutilator.
Lemme give ya a lil background: my father is Chinese who grew up in Indonesia and British Colonial Malay and my mother is also Chinese but she is from FooChow on the Mainland. My parents met after the Japanese Occupation.
I was born in London, England in 1964, Year of the Dragon. I was born Ceasarean Sectioned and with mild synaethesia (I "see" neon colours when exposed to certain sound frequencies).
When I was about 4 years old we moved to America - Houston, Texas to be highly specific. It was severe culture shock for me.
Another culture shock was going from private Montersorri Pre-Schooling to public school kindergarten. I was a problem kid with what they called back then "hyperactivity", which now is now called A.D.D..
All throughout most of my schooling I was picked on by the "redneck" kids. I had to learn how to fight; it wasn't easy for me. I gradually developed Disassociative Personality Disorder - I had a "space alien spirit in my head" that was both highly mischievious, creative and violent like a Trickster. It was everything I wasn't good at; it is my "better half."
It was in junior high that I "discovered" that the alien could "teach" me to be less afraid of physical pain. Before going into a fight, a "rumble," I and my alien would self-mutilate with any sharp object - like a broken glass bottle shard - or burn myself with a cigarette or match. Then I was ready to fight.
I also started to self-mutilate to elevate boredom, stress or emotional overload. I also got into drinking and using drugs heavily for about 20 years. This created a host of other issuses and made the self-mutilations more habitual. I would self-mutilate over the shame of using, getting "loaded." I had to feel pain to feel human or better than merely human; I "rewarded" myself for feeling pain by getting high.

I am now Clean & Sober for 10 months and in this time I have sought psychological help and medications. I have not seriously self-mutilated in several months. I feel like me and my alien are coming to an agreement on how to be whole. We are getting it together.

That's all I have to say. Thanks for reading this...


--
Hanuman Zhang

"Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told,
'I am with you kid, Let's go!'" - Maya Angelou


 

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