I guess if it is self harm or not, you could ask yourself. Does it feel like a compulsive need to create this pain? Or does it feel like its coming from a place of conscious choice? People who cut themselves, take dangerous drugs, over eat or do other self harming behaviors often don't do it from a place of conscious choice. It comes from a compulsive drive. Some people might say, yeah, I want a bite of this apple. But if they eat 10000 calories of dessert foods seemingly against their own will, thats more of an issue of compulsion.

So do you feel like you are doing this against your own will? Or are you aware of whats driving you to do this, and consciously choosing? Of course those are the far ends of the spectrum. Maybe it feels like 40% compulsion and 60% your own choice. There is no black and white.

A lot of times a desire to re create trauma comes from a desire to understand it better. Why did the tragedy happen? And what does it mean? And maybe how to help other people who experience it in the future. I have had some really bad trauma myself and I worked through it to gain understanding. Then I found lots of other people who experienced it too and felt the same way, and we help to prevent that trauma from being done to others, as well as help people who newly discover they have been harmed this way.