Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is when someone deliberately damages (e.g., cuts, burns, or hits) their own body tissue without suicidal intent. Although distinct from suicide, NSSI often co-occurs with suicidal behaviour and is a strong predictor of future suicide attempts (Klonksy et al., 2013; Ribeiro et al., 2016). Therefore, understanding why people engage in NSSI may have important implications for suicide prevention. Individuals who self-injure often report experiencing difficulties regulating emotions and may use self-injury as a way to manage negative affect (Gratz & Roemer, 2004; Taylor et al., 2018). People who self-injure also report finding it hard to access other effective strategies to deal with aversive negative emotions (Wolff et al., 2019), but we don't fully understand why. Given that personal motives and contexts likely play important but under-appreciated roles in how people regulate emotions (Matthews et al., 2021; Sheppes et al., 2014), we figured it would be crucial to work with and consider the lived experience perspectives of individuals who have self-injured to clarify why and in which contexts they want to regulate their emotions and perceive difficulties or potential strengths in doing so. Therefore, the aim of this qualitative study was to better understand the contextualised lived emotion regulation experiences of individuals with a history of NSSI. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 Australian undergraduate university students (seven female, one non-binary, and four male) between the ages of 18 and 39 (M age = 23.25, SD = 5.64). All participants reported a history of NSSI. The interview transcripts were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Several themes were generated, including: The Worse I Feel, The Worse I Do; Regulatory Roles; Distress with Dealing; Silence is Safety; and Emotions Make You Human. The findings of this study offer a more personalised and nuanced perspective on how emotion regulation is implicated in self-injury which may help to inform new directions for clinical approaches and theoretical perspectives on emotion regulation and NSSI.