What is self-harm all about?
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Self-harm is a coping mechanism, a method of managing with what life throws at us. It is not a behaviour of only young people, or only women, or only white people, or only of those with mental health issues. Self-harm is totally non-discriminatory. It does not care what colour, age, nationality, gender etc. you are, or what physical or mental condition you're in, or what your background is. It does not care if you're successful or a failure, if you're an under or over achiever, if you're a loner or have a vibrant social network. It does not care if your past is troubled and the skeletons in your closet are enormous or if you had a perfect childhood. All it needs is that you're that way inclined.
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Why it works for some and not for others is a mystery. One may try it out of curiosity or because others around do but then decide it's not having any effect. But someone else may come to it totally by themselves and soon discover it works. There are those who only use it because it's a bit of a fashion and they can compare their injuries with their friends (unfortunately common among young people). My advice is if it's not really working for you, stop using it! It's not cool to be covered by self inflicted scars for the rest of your life; they will only remind you that you picked up a habit that you really didn't need and which served no purpose.
But for some it is a genuine coping method. The reasons why it's used can be as varied as the people using it. Self-harm is often used in order to deal with difficult emotions such a fear, anger, despair and frustration. But it's not only negative emotions that might make us want to self-harm. Any emotional extremes (good or bad) can make us turn to self-harm to regulate them. Other reasons may include emotions and memories rising from a traumatic past, experiencing fearful situations, inability to connect with others, high levels of stress, difficulty maintaining own high standards and, of course, mental health disorders. Regarding the latter, not everybody who self-harms suffers from a mental illness and not everybody who has a mental illness self-harms. It goes back to self-harm not discriminating. No matter what is going on in the person's life though, there is one underlying reason that applies across the board: everybody who self harms is trying to regain some control over their life. The only available means is to exert that control on what is truly theirs, their body and/or their mind.
Statistics show that people who self-harm are in greater risk of suicide. Sometimes it's a case of self-harm gone too far while suicide was not the destination. Maybe suicide is not such an abhorrent act because when we self-harm the gap between a "safe" cut and a larger one that results in death or the gap between overdosing to cause injury and taking a fatal dose is smaller. Very often though, people use self-harm in order to avoid committing suicide. It gives them some relief, allows their stress levels to drop, provides a let out of steam and reduces the suicide risk.
Those who self-harm do not do so as attention seeking. Once I had enough of hiding my self-harm and started talking to others about my own issues I was surprised to discover how many other people were dealing with self-harm and kept it to themselves, kept it secret, kept it hidden; felt lost with it; felt comfortable with it, felt sick of it, felt disgusted by it, felt scared by it, felt comforted by it; treated it as a companion, treated it as an enemy, fought with it, surrendered to it. If someone discloses to you that they self-harm be assured that it took an enormous amount of strength and courage to do so. They are reaching out to you about something that is extremely private. Combined with the stigma self-harm has, they are worried sick about how you will react to this disclosure. It's vital you keep your emotions in check. It's one thing to show surprise and another to show disgust. I'm often asked "what should I say?" If you do not know what to say, just don't speak; simply be there and listen. It's far more important that the person feels safe with you than understood. People who do not self-harm themselves are unable to fully understand despite their most sincere efforts. Simply because their brain does not work the same way. There is not enough research done in self-harm to prove or disprove the possibility that some brains are just wired differently therefore finding self-harm to be effective.
It's worth bearing in mind that self-harm is not a 'condition' that needs treating. It's a behaviour that requires managing. We in Battle Scars do NOT promote self-harm or encourage it. But we do promote its management. Successful management can result in instances of self-harm becoming more infrequent, less severe or even result in the person ceasing using it. One of our aims is to remove the stigma so that self-harm users get the support they need. We called this group Battle Scars because these visible or invisible scars are proof that we have struggled but have survived.
Jenny Groves
July 2016
Founder, CEO, trainer, group facilitator and volunteer manager of Battle Scars with over 30 year history of self-harm
But for some it is a genuine coping method. The reasons why it's used can be as varied as the people using it. Self-harm is often used in order to deal with difficult emotions such a fear, anger, despair and frustration. But it's not only negative emotions that might make us want to self-harm. Any emotional extremes (good or bad) can make us turn to self-harm to regulate them. Other reasons may include emotions and memories rising from a traumatic past, experiencing fearful situations, inability to connect with others, high levels of stress, difficulty maintaining own high standards and, of course, mental health disorders. Regarding the latter, not everybody who self-harms suffers from a mental illness and not everybody who has a mental illness self-harms. It goes back to self-harm not discriminating. No matter what is going on in the person's life though, there is one underlying reason that applies across the board: everybody who self harms is trying to regain some control over their life. The only available means is to exert that control on what is truly theirs, their body and/or their mind.
Statistics show that people who self-harm are in greater risk of suicide. Sometimes it's a case of self-harm gone too far while suicide was not the destination. Maybe suicide is not such an abhorrent act because when we self-harm the gap between a "safe" cut and a larger one that results in death or the gap between overdosing to cause injury and taking a fatal dose is smaller. Very often though, people use self-harm in order to avoid committing suicide. It gives them some relief, allows their stress levels to drop, provides a let out of steam and reduces the suicide risk.
Those who self-harm do not do so as attention seeking. Once I had enough of hiding my self-harm and started talking to others about my own issues I was surprised to discover how many other people were dealing with self-harm and kept it to themselves, kept it secret, kept it hidden; felt lost with it; felt comfortable with it, felt sick of it, felt disgusted by it, felt scared by it, felt comforted by it; treated it as a companion, treated it as an enemy, fought with it, surrendered to it. If someone discloses to you that they self-harm be assured that it took an enormous amount of strength and courage to do so. They are reaching out to you about something that is extremely private. Combined with the stigma self-harm has, they are worried sick about how you will react to this disclosure. It's vital you keep your emotions in check. It's one thing to show surprise and another to show disgust. I'm often asked "what should I say?" If you do not know what to say, just don't speak; simply be there and listen. It's far more important that the person feels safe with you than understood. People who do not self-harm themselves are unable to fully understand despite their most sincere efforts. Simply because their brain does not work the same way. There is not enough research done in self-harm to prove or disprove the possibility that some brains are just wired differently therefore finding self-harm to be effective.
It's worth bearing in mind that self-harm is not a 'condition' that needs treating. It's a behaviour that requires managing. We in Battle Scars do NOT promote self-harm or encourage it. But we do promote its management. Successful management can result in instances of self-harm becoming more infrequent, less severe or even result in the person ceasing using it. One of our aims is to remove the stigma so that self-harm users get the support they need. We called this group Battle Scars because these visible or invisible scars are proof that we have struggled but have survived.
Jenny Groves
July 2016
Founder, CEO, trainer, group facilitator and volunteer manager of Battle Scars with over 30 year history of self-harm
