Live through this.

I resently brought a book, entitled live through this which is a book about 'creativity an self-destruction'  The book, is basically a collection of essays wrote by famous female artists who have struggled with self-destruction, and how they use creativity to servive abuse, incest, madness and depression, cutting, eating disorders and addiction.  Its an inspiring collection of work and leads me to want to include something on self destruction in my work, the most obvious one for me is Cutting and self harm. After all i know how it feels to feel so numb that pains the only thing that can get you through it. to make you feel alive. 
However i dont want to follow the obvious route. i want to focus on symbolism, and maybe insted of showing a narrative making my work more conceptual? making it almost like a weird virsion where you can see inside the mind of someone on self destruct mode? i like the idea of making the audience feeling what you feel, or giving an insight and tryin to explain feelings through imagery. im going to start by