Guest Post - Dr. Kevin Keough

Understand Self Injury- Awareness Video

This is a video on self-harm I made to help those who don't understand. Please check it out and ask any questions if you have any. If there is hate comments, rude or disrespectful I will delete and block you. Below I have posted a lil more details about those who self-harm. Please take a moment to read it. http://www.recoveryourlife.com/ http://www.meetup.com/ http://www.psyke.org

====================== Song: Breathe-Sia ======================

SI is something I go through personally everyday of my life. I think about it all the time. Even tho the thoughts are there, most likely I'll be able to control myself & not hurt my body. Sometimes I slip & hurt myself but it shows how hard I work towards being heathly & safe. DBT is a good source to help the urges & to find safe ways to cope with the feeling.

Self-injury or self-harm is when somebody damages or injures their body on purpose. Self-injury is a way of expressing deep emotional feelings or problems that build up inside.

Cutting the skin is probably the most common form of self-injury. The cuts are not usually deep but in some cases, medical attention is needed to clean, dress or stitch the wounds. The most common places on the body to cut are the wrists, upper arms, inner thighs and upper chest. Less common are the face, breasts, abdomen and genitals.

Often people who cut themselves will use one or two methods, for example, knives, glass or razor blades. The person tends to have a certain area of the body that they prefer to cut, such as the arms.

Burning the skin (usually with cigarettes) is also common. People may also self-harm by scratching, hitting or punching, sometimes using an object. Other forms of self-injury include picking at the skin, pulling out hair, swallowing poisonous substances, taking an overdose of tablets or drugs or deliberately breaking bones.

Although, there is a connection between self-harm and suicide, the majority do not risk their lives. For many people who self-injure, their actions are only an attempt to cope with the stress and difficulties they face; their purpose is not to end their life.

However, there is a possibility that those who self-injure may commit suicide either deliberately or accidentally as the result of their actions.

Self-harm is much more common among girls than boys, often starting in adolescence (between 13 and 18 years of age), although it can affect children from as young as 11 years. Fear of discovery, shame and embarrassment often means that people keep self-injury a secret. Because of this, it is difficult to know how many people self-harm.Some people self-harm only once or a few times while others do it on a regular basis, sometimes throughout their life.

People who self-injure are very careful to hide the damage and scars. They will often injure themselves in places that can be easily hidden by clothing so friends and family members may be unaware of the person self-injuring in private. Another sign that someone could be self-harming is that the person will insist on keeping covered up at all times, even in hot weather.

People self-injure for a variety of reasons and sometimes, the person doesnt actually know why they are doing it. However, it is commonly thought to provide a release for pent-up emotions and feelings. For some people it is their way of coping with a specific problem. Self-injury is a sign of emotional distress and is not an attempt to seek attention.

People who self-harm often describe feelings of numbness or deadness or they may feel detached from reality, as if they are not part of the world. Some may injure themselves to stay separated from reality but others do it to make them feel more real, connected and alive.People who self-harm often describe feelings of numbness or deadness or they may feel detached from reality, as if they are not part of the world. Some may injure themselves to stay separated from reality but others do it to make them feel more real, connected and alive.

People who self-injure risk infections if their wounds are not treated properly. Cuts can become infected if a person uses non-sterile or dirty cutting instruments.

Source:Healing From Addictions

(Some) True Confessions of a Self Harmer

Overcoming the urge to self-inflict has been one of the hardest things I have had to deal with through this tumultuous time suffering from depression.As I said above, IT IS AN ADDICTION. Pure and simple!

And anyone who has tried giving up smoking or gambling or Lindt or badgers will know that overcoming addiction is fucking hard! Not only because of the pure level of addiction, but also because it means having to face up to whatever problem is feeding that addiction in the first place. Whatever buried pain is making us smoke, drink or gamble needs to be faced up to. In essence, we need to become whip-wielding dominatrixies in order to tame and eventually command our problems.

To overcome self-harm we, like with every form of mental illness, we need to start talking about it in order to understand it, in order to help people overcome and control their addiction.

So how can you help? If you know someone who self-harms here are a few pointers:
- Whatever they’re doing DON”T take it personally. It isn’t about YOU!

- Be available and LISTEN to them if they need to talk.

- ACKNOWLEDGE their pain, it won’t make it go away, but it will make it more bearable.

- DON’T avoid the subject or pretend it’s not there.

- ASK THEM “I know you hurt yourself and I would like to understand it a little more, could you maybe explain why you do it? I’d be grateful if you could.”

- DON’T confiscate their “tools” (because I guarantee you this will lose their trust and they will just get more creative anyway)

- BELIEVE in them and BE HOPEFUL

- DON’T push them

- TAKE the initiative and distract them; take them to the cinema, rent a DVD, bake some chocolate brownies, go to a trivia night, go for a walk, have a playful pillow or water pistol fight, hell, if they’re your bf or gf, do a seductive strip tease and get them thinking about that cute butt of yours.

- DO spontaneous acts of kindness

- Be available, and willing, to LISTEN if they need to talk.

- EDUCATE yourself

– slip on your Willow hat and hop on the net for some research.

- SUPPORT them physically; call them up and tell them you’re worried about them and invite them over for a game of scrabble or a blueberry muffin.

- SUPPORT them emotionally; go to the Doctor/Psychologist with them.And please, please…whatever you do…

- DO NOT TRY TO MAKE/ORDER THEM TO STOP!!!!!!!!!

If you make them feel guilty, or punish them in any way, this will just add fuel to their addiction.
And please, please, please, please…whatever you do…remember to…

- Take TIME OUT and recuperate, caring/loving someone who suffers from any form of mental illness is exhausting and you need to look after yourself.

Although it’s confronting, brutal and painful to think that people you care about are inflicting this pain on themselves remember that to them it is merely an addiction. A symptom of a larger, possibly unknown illness or condition, and they just need some help and support in order to get them through it.

As we’ve all experienced from time to time: the over-riding feeling of loneliness and emptiness is a powerful influence. It’s time to stop judging people who self harm, and start understanding what they are feeling; it’s the only way to understand their pain.

by Addy


[Eliminate The Stigma]

Self harm prejudice - Guest Post

Article by Tony White

Sunday, 28 September 2008

Self harm prejudice

There was an article in today’s Sunday Times newspaper by Dr Cindy Pan on self harming. It is just a short piece and quite a good statement of what the literature says in general and it does in particular highlight a prejudice that is commonly, if not very regularly found in the writings on self harm.

There are a number of reasons why people self harm and I have listed four below

1. Cutting self to release stress and tension
2. Cutting self to get a sense of feeling real
3. Cutting self to manipulate others
4. Cutting self to get attention

Some self harm for these reasons

For some reason numbers 3 and 4 are seen in a most derogatory light by the general public and indeed in the technical literature as well. For instance Cindy Pan states, “While some have mistakenly viewed SIB (Self-injurious behaviour) as a “call for help” or a type of attention seeking behaviour, it is generally a highly secret activity, with self injurers usually going to extensive lengths to conceal and wounds”.

Why has she used the word ‘mistakenly’, what’s wrong with self harming to get attention?

Number 1 cuts self to release tension and number 4 cuts self to get attention. Both engage in self harm for a clear psychological gain, the first to release tension and the second to get attention. What’s the difference?

There is a belief out there, sometimes stated and sometimes not that when a person does attention seeking behaviour then they are considered pathetic, amoral, inferior or words to that effect. One is viewed in quite a poor light. This is for self harmers and otherwise.

Of course the support groups for self harmers have been quite vigourous in downplaying those who self harm to manipulate or seek attention. Understandably so, as they are wanting the public to view self harmers in a better light not a worse light. Some groups try to deny that there is any who self harm for attention seeking or grossly play down the numbers. Dr Cindy Pan seems to be doing the same. In some ways it has now become sort of politically incorrect to say that a person cuts self so as to get attention.

It took me five minutes to find this on the internet. There are thousands and thousands who are willing to put their self harming and their faces onto the internet for the whole world to see. Yes some do self harm very privately and there are others who are public about it. Obviously different motives are in play.

Whilst all this is good and well there is just one problem. There are people who do self harm to get attention and to manipulate others into certain actions. For instance the woman who cuts self because she knows that will get her placed in hospital for a couple of days. Or the person who self harms because they know that their suicidal statements will then be taken more seriously. What about these people? Not only do the general public look down on them but the self harm support groups deny that they even exist!

So these people:

3. Cutting self to manipulate others
4. Cutting self to get attention

have become the lepers of the leper colonies. They are at the bottom of the bottom of the pile.

One consequence of this shows up in Cindy Pan’s article. At the end she writes about what can be done to help self harmers. The focus is very much on those who self harm for reasons such as tension release or to get a sense of ‘realness’. There is little or none written on what you do for those who self harm to manipulate others. Why would one write about them when they have just stated that they kind of don’t really exist anyway.

In this way what she has written is representative of the clinical literature as well. There is very little written on what treatment one uses for those who self harm to manipulate others or to get attention. Again, how can there be as it is seen as politically incorrect to make such an assertion in the first place!

One treatment strategy that I have used with such people is working with their stroke filters in conjunction with an adaptation of the no-suicide contract which in essence is a no-self harm contract.

[Link: Graffiti]