Celebrating and Being Proud of Self-Harm Recovery

The shame of self-harm can make it difficult to celebrate and feeling proud of our self-harm recovery, no matter how long or short we have gone without self-injuring. Others factors, such as self-harm stigma, can also keep us silent and regretful, even when we have every reason to be proud. It is essential to celebrate our self-harm recovery, as it helps prevent relapse and keeps us moving in the right direction.

I have gone six months without cutting. My goal is to make it an entire year and I'm halfway there. One of the things that keeps me from self-harming when I get the urge is the fact that I've gone so long without doing it. With each day that goes by without self-harm, the urge lessens. This isn't to say that the urge goes away, because it never really does. But when we can go days, weeks, months, and years without hurting ourselves, it simply gets easier not to. Since self-injury can turn into an addiction, we have every reason for self-harm recovery celebration and pride.

Stigma Can Keep Us From Feeling Proud and Celebrating Self-Harm Recovery

Unfortunately, stigma can be a big factor when it comes to the pride we feel about self-harm recovery as well as self-harm recovery celebration. There is a cloud of shame that follows us around, and a good chunk of that has to do with the stigma surrounding self-harm. It's often considered attention-seeking behavior, only a teenage phenomenon, or failed attempts at suicide. These are self-injury myths, but they carry major traction. They may keep us from speaking out about our recovery from self-injury and being proud of ourselves in general. Even if we know that these are common misconceptions, we can internalize the stigma and start to believe it ourselves. Am I attention-seeking? Am I just not trying hard enough to stop? I understand how easy it is to give in to the stigma, because I've done it before, but I promise that your addiction is valid and you have a right to be proud when you go any length of time without hurting yourself.

Friends and Family Members Can Help with Pride, Celebration and Self-Harm Recovery

Celebrating our self-harm recovery can also garner the support we may need to keep our
streak going. Even if you don't want to broadcast your self-injury recovery to more than a few close friends and family members, the ones you choose to disclose your recovery to can make all the difference when you feel you are about to relapse. If we reach out, they can help us think clearly through times of significant stress and triggers. They can also share in our self-harm recovery celebration, and it's a great feeling when others are as proud of you as you are of yourself.

Simply put, there are factors that can keep us from being proud of ourselves and celebrating our recovery, but there are also factors that can make our recovery easier. Taking pride in our ability to break the addiction can keep us from going back to it. Recognizing that stigma is just that--stigma--also helps. Having friends and family share in your celebration not only makes us feel great but gives us an outlet for when we are thinking about relapsing. Being in recovery is a great feeling, and we deserve to celebrate even the smallest victories.

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