Anyone else self harming in midlife while successful and no underlying MH conditions?

[HelicopterGunship]

I am 50 and have struggled with self harm since I was 11, mostly cutting. It was bad during my adolescence and 20s but abated in my early 30s when I had children. I honestly thought the impulse was gone forever but then in my late 40s it started to reemerge and in the last year I have cut myself twice and hit myself on a number of occasions, accompanied by all the old feelings of anger, self-loathing, self-criticism. I am a very successful lawyer, have happy children and a loving partner. If my friends or family were aware they would be astonished as I am perceived as being very on top of things and high functioning. I have no other MH conditions and am on HRT for peri symptoms. I have a therapist whom I see occasionally but does not have a lot of expertise in this area. Almost all the books and online sources are aimed at adolescents and young people or adults who have other significant MH or substance use disorders. My partner is aware of it but he finds it very difficult to understand and I don't talk about it with him as his reactions tend to make me feel worse. My children don't know although they can see the scars on me (I told them made up stories when they were little about having a very violent cat who scratched me) so they may realise, especially the elder, who is 16.

I feel very lonely and isolated about it and I don't know how to stop or why it has come back again. I have been able to avoid cutting much because I do not want any more scars but I have no idea how to resolve the underlying emotions or if that is even possible.

Anyone else? Or can anyone suggest some resources?

@HelicopterGunship The last time I was at A&E, the nurse who stitched me up told me that she was a self-harmer too which definitely put me at my ease. I think the ambulance crew thought it was a waste of time for them (which I did too - 111 insisted on sending it and I didn't want to seem like I wasn't complying but I could easily have walked the 10 mins to the hospital!).

I do have an eating disorder too and it's very much part of the same problem about not knowing how to feel/show emotions without being ignored or told to stop being so silly.

Sounds like my childhood @HelicopterGunship - though sometimes I would get "stop that stupid noise" when I was crying. It's developmental trauma, our neural pathways develop in response to our carers, particularly up to 2 years of age, but after this as well. If they don't teach us how to identify tolerate and soothe emotions (they may not be able to do it themselves due to their own traumas ) we don't build the neural structures to do it. When we get to middle age we have often pushed these things down and found ways to cope, but under times of extreme stress old patterns can come back again because our coping mechanisms aren't strong enough to manage everything. This might particularly be the case if we find ourselves taking on more and more, practically and emotionally, because we were the person in our families of origin who appeared to be responsible for everybody else's emotions as well.

I was also "sensitive", which appears to be a function of our genes. If we are sensitive and then experienced adversity, it can have a massive effect on us.

There is obviously a role for examining our lives and trying to remove stresses and also work out what we actually want, but also just hanging around with people who are good at emotional regulation can help us to develop over time. It's not a quick fix as it's happening at a neurological level and outside conscious thought, but things can change.

You might know a lot of this, but for me understanding what was actually going on in my body and also understanding that it wasn't my fault I couldn't think my way out of it was a big lightbulb moment and removed a lot of the shame - well actually not a moment, it probably took a couple of years for it all to settle in and I did a lot of reading, but I don't think I will ever self-harm again however bad I feel.