Three out of 10 students in study intentionally harm themselves

Three out of 10 students surveyed for a York University study acknowledged engaging in acts of deliberate self-harm, such as skin cutting, burning and using drugs or alcohol to excess.

The study evaluates the responses of 319 first-year university students who volunteered to answer a questionnaire that assessed their personality and personal history, and that asked whether they had ever intentionally engaged in 22 self-harm behaviours.

Of the 94 students who indicated they had, women were no more likely to self-harm than men, contrary to previous studies which suggest it is a predominantly female phenomenon.

There were, however, some clear differences in the type of self-harm acts engaged in by women and men.

Right: Cutting is one form of self-harm as seen in this photo of a person's arm

Among those who engaged in self-harm, the women surveyed (45 per cent) were more likely to report cutting the wrists, arms or other areas of the body, while men (23 per cent) were more likely to report engaging in gang activity or other forms of physical violence with the intention to harm themselves. The most frequent forms of self-harm were cutting, entering into risky situations, carving, scratching and the use of substances with the intent to self-harm.

The life circumstances of the participants are relevant to the study’s findings, says Gordon Flett, Canada Research Chair in Personality & Health at York, who co-authored the study with Abby Goldstein, (MA '00, PhD '05) now an assistant professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

The average age of the participants was 19 years old and the majority (68 per cent) had just finished high school and were living with their parents (64 per cent). The sample was evenly split between Canadian-born students and those born outside of Canada.

“In many cases, these young people are throwing themselves into the student role as a way of overcompensating for some other emotional and relationship issue,” Flett says. “If they do well in university, that might get them over the hump, but if they don’t, they may be at risk for some more extreme behaviours.”

The latest clinical research suggests that self-harm may be a response to emotional pain that cannot be resolved in a more functional way. Goldstein hopes this information will begin to remove some of the secrecy often associated with self-harm.

“These findings suggest that a significant percentage of college students have engaged in an act of deliberate self-harm at some point in their lifetime,” Goldstein says. “Unfortunately, many people hide these acts or their intentions from others, which can often lead to isolation and greater suffering.”

By assessing the personality traits and personal history of the participants, the study was also able to identify factors which may help predict which students may be vulnerable to deliberately harming themselves.

“Some of these kids come from middle-class or affluent families but that’s no protection when the issue at hand is self-image,” Flett says.

"Personality, Child Maltreatment and Substance Use in Deliberate Self-Harm Among College Students" will be published in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science in October.

The study was supported by funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Source: York files

Cutting and other self-harm- part 1

In the 1990s an epidemic spread throughout many American homes as a new fad erupted. With the emergence of the “Goth” scene, it was suddenly popular to be miserable. (How many of you can remember back to SNL’s famous “Goth Talk” skit?) You weren’t “cool” unless you had some kind of abuse at home to deal with…and one of the most popular ways to show-boat this was self-mutilation.

Unlike most fads, this one piggy-backed on a real problem, and while the fad may have faded, the problem still exists. Teens are still mutilating themselves, only now-a-days they are doing it in secret.

The most common reason, one that this writer cannot disclaim, is that the physical pain the mutilation provides masks the emotional pain the teenager cannot deal with. Even deeper, the teen has no control over the deliverance and intensity of the emotional pain, but is in control over the extent to which they inflict the physical pain on themselves.

Unfortunately, to what extent the emotional pain would have to be in order to cause this reaction can not be measured. There are too many factors to be able to give parents of this issue a clean-cut answer:

Whatever the initial emotional trigger, the Cutting is a tell-tale sign of what your teen needs in order to recover from whatever ails them.

1. Cutting and self-mutilation is a cry for help. Whatever it is that is plaguing your adolescent is too much for him or her to handle on their own. It is time for you to step in and go against their wishes of “leaving them alone”.
2. Cutting and self-mutilation can also be a method of attention seeking. While closely related to a cry for help, this is the one that many people ignore. You’ve heard the advice when your children were younger and threw a temper tantrum: “ignore them, when they realize you are not paying attention, they’ll stop”.

While cutting and self-mutilation may be a grandiose “temper-tantrum”, this one will not stop when ignored. If ignored, what may have started out as an attention-seeking tactic, will grow into a deep despair, and could transform into suicidal thoughts and tendencies.

To be continued…
Source
August 3, 9:35 AMHouston Teen Issues ExaminerJennifer Korenek

Violent cry for help all too common

For many years, the wounds she inflicted on herself were her only way of communicating the pain she felt on the inside. Jess Senior talks about how she stopped self-harming.

The first time it happened, she was 13.

"I was in a lot of distress and everything just felt overwhelming ... I didn't remember doing it but became aware I was bleeding. I guess I was still in shock, I thought, 'How the hell did that happen?' "

For the next few years, self-harming became her main coping strategy for dealing with distress and depression. Even in summer, she would wear long sleeves, trousers and tights to hide the cuts.

It's hard to understand how someone could feel "helped" by such self-destructive behaviour, but Jess felt she had no other way to communicate what was happening to her inside.

"There's pain and with that you get a certain amount of adrenaline and endorphins, which is quite addictive and why people turn to it again and again.

"For a long time, I didn't have the language to articulate what was happening for me . . . I felt so out of control."

Despite the involvement of mental health services in her life from birth - because of her mother's serious mental illness - the pattern of hurting herself started very early. Her father remembers that as a preschooler, Jess would scratch herself in her sleep till she bled.

Her mother took her own life when Jess was 9, and for many years, she felt fated to follow the same tragic path. Admitted to hospital at 14 after a suicide attempt, she came under the formal care of mental health services, for better - and occasionally - worse.

Her father, who had won custody of her when she was four, has been a great source of strength and stability throughout her life. "It must have been really confusing and frightening for him . . . He once told me he had thought I would die by suicide. I thought that myself for a long time, but to hear your dad say that was really scary."

She tried to cover up the self-harm, telling "ludicrous stories" to her father and stepmother. "Of course they knew, parents aren't stupid. I made up lame excuses to friends about why I couldn't go swimming and why I dressed for winter year round."

However, chronic self-harming like Jess' would not show up on any of the official statistics. She never sought medical help, though she "probably should have".

"I know heaps of people who go into the emergency department or their GP, get stitched up and sent home in well under 48 hours, so they don't get recorded.

Despite failing seventh form "pretty miserably", she managed to get into university with a provisional pass. "I did pass one psychology paper. I loved it, and it was all pretty familiar territory to me . . . but I couldn't cope and dropped out."

After a couple of psychotic episodes, she was admitted to the regional Rangatahi (adolescent) inpatient unit. She had not been self-harming for some time, but within two days of being admitted, she started again.

"There were some benefits [to being an inpatient] - I stayed alive - and some of the other people in there are now my best friends . . . But for me, it was not a good place to be. While I was there, another patient suicided, which brought me massive secondary or cumulative trauma."

Thanks to her having a supportive family and psychiatrist, she was discharged relatively quickly.

The turning point for her on self-harm was being "told off" by a community psychiatric nurse. "I was outraged at the time and got all righteous, 'How dare she speak to me like that?' etc.

"But gradually I came to accept that she was right when she said it was in my power to do something about it . . . rather than me falling back on the excuse that I was dissociated, I didn't mean to.

"She wouldn't even let me off the hook when I was psychotic. She said, 'You know when your anxieties are getting bad and you can choose to do something about it before you get to that point. She put the responsibility back in my hands."

It took some time to be able to give up completely, but the clincher was when her favourite "coping strategy" stopped working. "On the few occasions where I thought 'F. . . it, I'm just going to do it', it didn't work for me because my headspace had changed. I just felt, 'What was the point of that? I don't feel any better'."

Then there was the moment when she threw out all her disposable razors. "A bit like an alcoholic tipping the whisky down the sink. It felt great."

Another big factor in her recovery was meeting her partner. They have been together seven years. "It's harder to hide what's going on when someone can see you."

It hasn't been easy for him either. "For both him and my dad, it must be really, really hard to see someone you love hurt themselves. They have both got frustrated and angry at times, but I know they are always there for me."

Her partner also lost his mother at a young age, which made it particularly difficult for him to understand her suicidal behaviour. One day, he came home to find her bleeding and distraught. "He got really mad and said, 'How can you do this to yourself? My mother wanted to live and she couldn't. You are perfectly healthy and you're throwing it away'.

"I felt really guilty, but at the same time I felt he didn't know what it was like."

Another turning point for her was becoming involved with Wellink's peer support helpline Warmline five years ago.

"It was fantastic to meet all these people who shared similar experiences. I didn't want my life to turn out like my mother's, but I thought I had no choice. Then I met all these amazing people living really great lives and doing amazing work and it opened my eyes to the possibilities. Instead of feeling like I was a big burden on society and my family, I felt empowered."

Now 24, she works as a peer development co-ordinator with Wellink, consulting for a range of organisations providing mental health services.

She is deeply disappointed by Capital and Coast District Health Board's recent decision to defer plans for an innovative community-based crisis treatment service in partnership with Wellink.

For people in crisis, Te Whetu Marama - New Zealand's first Short Term Assessment and Recovery Service (Stars) - was to be an alternative to staying at home or being admitted to an acute admissions unit.

Instead, ward 27 has been enlarged and the new service is set to open next April - though Jess points out this is the fourth firm date they have been given since the first one of May 2007.

She feels an opportunity has been missed. Self-harm and suicidal behaviour are symptoms of deep psychological distress and can't be fixed with a quick visit to ED for stitches or a stomach-pump.

"We're lucky to have HeadSpace [youth crisis respite] in Wellington, which operates on the same principle with no lockdown and no seclusion and has stopped many people being admitted repeatedly to the inpatient unit.

"But we need more flexibility in services. It's still the case that young people with severe levels of self-harm are shipped out of Wellington to Ashburn Hall in Christchurch, away from their support networks.

"People need to feel comfortable and safe and have their whanau and friends around them."

SELF-HARM DATA TIP OF ICEBERG, MENTAL HEALTH WORKERS SAY

Fewer people are being admitted to hospit for intentional self-harm, but critics say the official figures fail to show the true scale of suicidal behaviour.

The Health Ministry's latest data on intentional self-harm cases in hospitals, issued in the past fortnight, shows teenagers aged 15 to 19 had the highest rates of intentional self-harm and females were twice as likely to need hospital care.

In 2007, 2678 people were admitted to hospital for more than 48 hours for intentional self-harm, compared with 3030 in 1996, a drop of more than 25 per cent.

However, an Auckland University study covering four district health boards, including Capital and Coast, has found the official figures, based on narrow definitions and "flawed" data collection, "substantially underestimate the size of the problem".

The ACC-funded study, the first to use direct observation, found the number of people treated at Waitemata for self-harm increased 31 per cent over four years.

Writing in The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Simon Hatcher, from the Department of Psychological Medicine, and his team described how suicide attempts often went unrecorded.

For example, overdoses of paracetamol were sometimes logged as "abdominal pain". Furthermore, some hospitals recorded patients seen in emergency departments, but others counted them only if they were admitted to a ward.

In the four health boards - Capital and Coast, Waitemata, Counties Manukau and Northland - 1600 people were treated for self-harm incidents 2000 times over a year, which suggested about 6200 self-harm episodes involving 4900 people nationally.

Researchers said even this was likely to be an underestimate.

According to the New Zealand Mental Health Survey, 0.4 per cent of the population, or 16,000 people, attempt suicide in a year, but less than one-third go to hospital. The group wants monitoring sites in representative health boards to track the true rate of suicidal behaviour.

Mental health director David Chaplow agreed official figures were likely to be an underestimate. "Hospitalisations are a crude indicator, but you have to start somewhere and it does indicate a trend."

From July 1, health boards have been required to report every person discharged from emergency departments after receiving treatment for three hours or more, removing the major cause of inconsistency in the reporting of intentional self-harm.

Dr Chaplow said hospitals were trialling new ways of reaching people who may have slipped between the cracks, including visits, phone calls and postcards. "[When] people feel they have no value, that no-one cares about them, something as simple as a postcard asking if they are OK is sometimes enough to make a difference."

Under the 10-year suicide prevention action plan, several measures are under way to improve care and follow-up, increasing understanding about depression and targeted programmes for Maori and youth.

"New Zealand is right up there with prevention, but any suicide is a tragedy, and while we can celebrate the trend, we can't stop working until there are no more suicides."

Source: NZ Dominion Post

By RUTH HILL - The Dominion Post

Last updated 14:45 31/08/2009

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

About Self Injury

Self harm is when someone deliberately hurts or injures themselves. Self injury can take a number of forms including:

• cutting or burning - the most common forms of self-harm

• taking overdoses of tablets or medicines
• punching themselves
• throwing their bodies against something
• pulling out their hair or eyelashes
• scratching, picking or tearing at their skin causing sores and scarring
• inhaling or sniffing harmful substances
• swallowing things that are not edible
• inserting objects into their bodies

Why Do People Self Injure?

Psychological motivations: What self-injurers say SI does for them.

Many papers on self-harm (Miller, 1994; Favazza 1986, 1996; Connors, 1996a, 2000; Solomon & Farrand, 1996; Ousch et al., 1999; Suyemoto, 1998; and others), have uncovered possible motivations for self-injurious behaviours:

• Escape from emptiness, depression, and feelings of unreality.
• Easing tension.
• Providing relief: when intense feelings build, self-injurers are overwhelmed and unable to cope. By causing pain, they reduce the level of emotional and physiological arousal to a bearable one.
• Relieving anger: many self-injurers have enormous amounts of rage within. Afraid to express it outwardly, they injure themselves as a way of venting these feelings.
• Escaping numbness: many of those who self-injure say they do it in order to feel something, to know that they're still alive.
• Grounding in reality, as a way of dealing with feelings of depersonalisation and dissociation
• Maintaining a sense of security or feeling of uniqueness
• Obtaining a feeling of euphoria
• Preventing suicide
• Expressing emotional pain they feel they cannot bear
• Obtaining or maintaining influence over the behaviours of others
• Communicating to others the extent of their inner turmoil
• Communicating a need for support
• Expressing or repressing sexuality
• Expressing or coping with feelings of alienation
• Validating their emotional pain -- the wounds can serve as evidence that those feelings are real
• Continuing abusive patterns: self-injurers tend to have been abused as children.
• Punishing oneself for being "bad"
• Obtaining biochemical relief: there is some thought that adults who were repeatedly traumatized as children have a hard time returning to a "normal" baseline level of arousal and are, in some sense, addicted to crisis behaviour. Self-harm can perpetuate this kind of crisis state
• Diverting attention (inner or outer) from issues that are too painful to examine
• Exerting a sense of control over one's body
• Preventing something worse from happening

The assumption is that the alternative to self injury is acting normal but on the contrary…the alternative to self injury is total loss of control and possibly suicide.

Hence the need to carefully manage a young person’s self harm is crucial to enable them to remain safe. Ensuring that they are empowered to minimise the harm that they do to themselves and maximise their potential to gain positive control over their lives.

[taken from Newcombe House UK]

Cutting and Self-Injury

By John M. Grohol, Psy.D.

January 5, 2009

This entry may be triggering or difficult to read for some people.

Self-injury behavior is something that is more common than many people realize. (In one study by researchers at Brown University of high school students, 46 percent had injured themselves in the past year on multiple occasions.) It is often misunderstood, not just by the lay public, but also by the mental health professionals who ostensibly should know what self-injury it is and how best to treat it.

Self-injury is used by people as over-drinking is used by others — to drown out emotional pain with something else. In the case of self-injury, that something else is physical pain. It focuses your attention and takes your mind off of your emotional pain, if only for a little while.

Cutting is the most common form of self-injury — making skin-deep cuts on one’s arms, wrists, or less noticeable areas on one’s body. The cuts are not meant to cause permanent damage or harm, nor are they meant as a suicidal gesture. The cuts are the means to an end themselves — they provide a source of immediate but non-serious physical pain (as long as they are allowed to heal cleanly). Other forms of self-injury include burning, or keeping old wounds open or inviting infection in them to keep them painful.

The people with the most severe self-injury behavior often can think of little else as they go through their day — it becomes something more than just a way to deal with emotional pain, it becomes its own obsession, as it did with Becki, a person who self-injured and is profiled in an article that appeared online in Newsweek last week:

Becki describes it as an obsessive battle, and one she often lost. At her worst, she says she spent every hour living and breathing self-injury. She dreamed about it. She’d think about it at school. She bought every book published on it. She searched for self-injury Websites, and compiled what she found into a 13-page Website of her own. “I was cutting 10-plus times a day, and still, if I didn’t do it, I would feel like I was missing something,” she says.

Newsweek’s article is a fairly good read on self-injury and self-harm, describing what self-injury is, using Becki as a case study, and brings us up-to-date on treatment options and the latest research into self-injury. If nothing else, it helps bring this behavior out into the open more, helping people understand that it is not something that one should be ashamed of and that it can be treated.

As the article notes, self-injury isn’t recognized as a mental disorder by itself. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be treated. Treatment usually is done through psychotherapy, and focuses on helping the person identify their own triggers for self-injurious behavior, and find alternative methods for helping them deal with the emotional pain in their life.

Read the full article: Why She Cuts (Potentially Triggering)

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central and has been writing about mental health and psychology issues online since 1992.

The Uncomfortable Reality of Self-Injury

October 19th, 2008

By Rachel Keranen

Angelina Jolie did it—so did Johnny Depp and Princess Diana. According to recent research studies, between 10-20 percent of college students do it too. Self-injury is an increasing phenomenon in today’s young adult culture, but it’s often misunderstood.

According to the Mayo Clinic, the majority of those who self-injure are adolescents. Risk factors include depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse disorders, eating disorders, and other mental health conditions. Victims of childhood trauma are especially likely to self-injure—those haunted by neglect or abuse often have an impaired ability to control their emotions and behavior.

A common misperception of self-injury is that those who commit it are suicidal. In reality, those who harm themselves are usually not trying to kill themselves, but instead trying to hold their lives together. Everyone has coping mechanisms to let out feelings of hurt, anger, and frustration: some go for a run, some write in their journal, and some throw a temper tantrum. Others, in silent secrecy, choose to take a blade to their skin. The sight of blood swirling down the drain can be as therapeutic to a cutter as a deep tissue massage; and the phrase, “it hurts so good” takes on a new, much more disturbing meaning.

There are many reasons that those who self-injure choose to hurt themselves. In her book A Bright Red Scream, Marilyn Strong writes that self-injury often occurs when the perpetrator feels abandoned or alone. The feelings build until they are unmanageable, and then the act is committed and dissociation is attained. Dissociation is commonly described as a feeling of numbness, a sensation of separation from one’s body. Unable to cope with the chaotic emotions they are experiencing, self-injurers use dissociation to distance themselves from the pain of reality.

A completely opposite motive for self-injury is the feeling of life it brings. Some who cut themselves report that the sight and sensation of bleeding is the only way to prove that they are still alive. For those who are depressed, the pulsating red release can be the sole sign of life in an otherwise gray existence. Some cutters feel that the blood is a symbol of the negative feelings or impurities inside their bodies. By cutting, they are letting the bad blood escape. This idea echoes the historical method of using leeches and bloodletting to cure ailments: once the evil has been evicted, the body can be pure and healthy.

Self-injury can also grant a feeling of power or control. People who have had many of their freedoms and choices taken away turn to the one thing they can control—their bodies. It is interesting, though not surprising, that many women who suffer from eating disorders also self-injure. Both disorders can stem from the need to maintain whatever control they can in a world of perceived powerlessness. In a study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry by Drs. Winchel and Stanley, 35 percent of anorexics and 39 percent of bulimics reported self-injuring.

In the end, self-injury can be a cry for help. While most self-injurer hide their wounds, some are also hoping that someone notices their silent suffrage. Scars, usually on the arms, legs, and torso, may casually flicker in and out of sight. Unable to express emotion in conventional ways, some resort to their bodies as their medium of communication.

The scars left from self-injury can be viewed as burdens or battle wounds. Some self-injurers try to erase their scars with creams or surgical procedures so they can forget their bloody past. Others view their scars as life markers too important to disregard.

While cutting is one of the most well known modes of self-injury, numerous others exist. Other methods include carving, burning, hitting, pulling out hair, biting, and many more. According to the Mayo Clinic, scars, injuries, bruises, frequent “accidents”, the constant carrying of sharp objects (knives and razors, but also paper clips, pins, or pieces of jagged metal), and wearing long sleeves and pants even in hot weather are signs of self-injury.

If someone reveals that they self-injure, or have done so in the past, it’s important to remain supportive. If they are willing to talk, be willing to listen without judgment. Self-injury is unsettlingly common –it occurs in somewhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 5 college students, and some studies suggest it’s even more frequent than that. By increasing awareness and understanding of the phenomenon, society can give a voice to those who carry silvery secrets and facilitate outward expression rather than inward aggression.

[taken from The Wake]

University of Minnesota Student Magazine

Fridays Readers Story

Anonymous said...
I have been self harming for 4 years now. i began because i couldnt cope wih my parents divorce but then stress from other things influenced it too such as exams and family problems.

I met this boy when i was 14 and i managed to stop cutting for 4 months. i thought i was 'in love' but then the relationship got really violent and i started again because i couldnt tell anyone he was hitting me. i was ashamed in what i was doing but got made to feel that i deserved it. in my mind i wasnt good enough for anybody and deserved all i got including self inflicted scars.i saw a support worker for a while and with her help i managed to finish with this boy and eventually get my life back.

i have had many other things going on within the last year such as putting up with my mums drinking and her abusive boyfriend but i blocked this out of my life when i moved to a boarding school in the summer. i thought this allowed me to disconnect myself from my family and start fresh. in january we started a new term and i began to disconnect myself from my life at boarding school too. i would skip meals, and just lock myself in my bedroom, often doing nothing. thinking. cutting.

eventually i cried for help but i was treated as if i wanted attention. all i wanted was help because i knew i needed it. within the last month i have taken 6 overdoses and constantly cut myself.

i dont want to die, i want to stop feeling the way i do. i want to be able to socialise but i cant bring myself to it.all i can think about is harming mysle and alhtough i dont want to, i lose the strength and willpower. i managed to get an appointment with the gp, they want to put me on medication to sort the way im feeling but i just feel as if its too late.

Fridays Readers Story

Tasha + Kay said...

Hello..
We Are Natasha + Kayleigh
We Have Both Had Very Bad Life Experiences And People Seam To Class Us As Emos..Like People Who Slit Their Wrists And Consantly Go On About How Hard Life Is Which Is Total Shit!

Natasha..
1.When I First Moved House I Started To Get Abused By A Family Member.
I Never Told My Parents Because I Felt Lonly, Guilty + Used.
But Thats Life.

2.The Reason Being That I Couldnt Tell My Parents Is Because When Thought The Time Was Right It Was Really The Worst Time Of All.
My Mum Had Cancer And On Her Recovery The Disk In Bottom Of Her Back Slipped.
If You Are A Doctor You Will Know How Bad It Is.
She Was On Omophine(Substitute To Heroine) Every 4 Hours Which Made Her Very Sleepy + Even More Ill.

3.It Was Bad Enough Knowing That My Farther Cheated On My Mum A Number Of Times And Gave Her A STD.
But Knowing That The Corse Of My Mums Back Was Because He Beat Her All The Time Made Me Feel Down.
But Then I Accidently Found Out That Before My Mother Was Pregnant With Me My Farther Cheated On Her So She Cheated On Him Back, Which Ment That The Person I Used To Call Farther Was Probly Not Even My Real Dad.

4.Brothers + Sisters.
My Little Brother Gets Bullyed At School Alot.
My Oldest Sister Bullys Me + Gets Very Obssested Over Small Matters.
My Middle Sister Is Beautiful But Dose Not Agree + She Gets Very Down Over How She Looks.

All That Has Happend In My Life I Have Turned To Self Harming.
Doing This Makes Me Feel Safer, Stable + Very Relaxed In My Soul.

Kayleigh..

I Feel That Natasha Has Had A Worse Life Then Me +I Feel So Sad For Her Most Of The Time. Yet, When I Was A Child I Had No Friends And The Only Person Really Trusted Was My Granny. I Told Her Every Thing And She Would Listen And Help Me Afterwards. When My Granny Died After Having A Heart Attack I Felt All Alone And Like I Had No One To Talk To.
It Took Me A Very Long Time To Get Over Her Death..This Meaning A Few Years. Because Of This I Didnt Talk To Many Of The Other Children In My School Because I Felt Like No One Cared. When I Started To Make A Few Friends I Started To Become A More Happy Child, Until I Found The Horrible Bunch Of Children. They Would Think Of The Meanest Things To Say To Bring Me Down. The Few People I Thought Were My Friends Then Changed And Used Things I Told Them Agenst Me..Even Things About My Granny.

I Learnt How To Deal With All The Immature Lil Gits And Move On, But I Guess Some People Never Change As I Still Got Bullied Alot And In The End I Started To Self Harm But Not As Bad As It Has Turned Out.

I Have Recently Found Out A Auntie Of Mine Has Cancer And Its One Of The Worst Things In The World. She Hardly Knows Me + I Hardly Know Her But Thats Not The Point. If She Dies Then Thats One More Death To Add To A Long List Of Family Members That Have Died And Some How I Dont Think Im Gonna Be Able To Handle It.

Natasha + Kay..
We Have Both Had Very Bad Experiences That Have Led Us To Self Harming. We Both Feel That Life + Love Are A Form Of Death!
Love Is A Word That Is Miss-used Because Love Never Last But It Never Ends Like Life + Death.
If You Want To Share Experiences Or Critisize Our Views Please Do So As We Are Very Keen To Homologate (Accept) What Ever You May Think.x

Natasha + Kay were unique, two friends that chose to write to me together and seperately. I havnt heard from them since April, but I choose to believe that is because they are doing fine.... I will try to include all their past posts ....abz

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]

Friday Readers Story

Anonymous said...

i started cutting when i was 11 at first it would be the once a month or longer at first it was only with glass then when i went secondary skool people picked on me i felt like i didn't want to live and i tried to commit suicide not by cutting at the time i didn't no it could kill u if u went deep enough i tried to kill myself by wrapping my dads ties around my neck and pulling but removing it at the last minute it felt great tho sometimes i took pills sometimes i would lay under the bath water so i couldn't breath hold pillows on my head.

Then when i was 13 my nan died and cutting seemed to make everything disappear so i did it more often then the buzz stopped so i cut hard and deeper into my arms i regret cuttin but am also addicted just like others

I'm now 17 and trying so hard to stop when i get the need to cut i sit in front of my family because i cant do anything if they are there they don't no about any of this its never gone too far i am good at hiding my secrets and have been hiding them for years now i seem to be good at it.

i haven't cut for about a week now its not long to u but it seems like a life time to me i am proud of myself because of how long iv gone without but when i look at my arms i hate myself even tho I'm stopping cutting the odd one i do now seems to be more serious to me because I'm not only cutting my arms or legs anymore I'm cutting at my wrists I'm scared i will cut deep like some of the cuts on arms and legs because i don't want to die i never have i just want some one to see my pain but they never do.

i want to stop this but its so hard iv been doing it nearly all my teenage life

from t x

Living On Their Edge

“I really want it all to just be over…all the torture and pain I feel right now I want to just leave behind and never think about again. But I can’t, I’m trapped inside myself and I’ve got no choice but to endure…to cry alone every night with no other shoulder to lean on and nobody to wipe away my tears. I’m screaming inside with the fear that I won’t make it through tomorrow…*SLASH* *SLASH*…ohhhhh. Physical pain over this emotional torture any day of the week for me. In a way I almost feel like Jesus watching myself bleed, the wounds and sorrow I’ve built up streaming down my arms and legs. I feel ALIVE…confirmed! ..........

..........For some reason, society is shocked and often disgusted when presented to an individual with these extreme feelings of shame, low self-worth, and anxiety. The response that follows this shock is a desire to quickly categorize and socially compartmentalize the individual. In order to avoid dealing with the issue of self-injury in our society, we have made attempts to justify the issue by citing probability and genetics as root causes of the problem. In a sample of billions of people, there are bound to be a few screw-ups right? Unfortunately this ridiculous attempt at rationalization is extremely impersonal and ends up creating a shroud of disgust and shame that suffocates the issue of self-injury in our society. "

So begins an 8 page essay available here [pdf]

written by Jimmy

Let me know what you think of it, it is long but I definitely thought it worth the read ...

Fridays Readers Story

Anonymous said...

Hi
I'm 14 yrs old and have cut myself since I was 10 years old this wont be helpful in the slightest because I can't help others understand this as I don't even understand it myself. I think the reason I started doing it was because I felt I deserved it, I thought I was worthless. But then it progressed into an addiction, it sounds pathetic, I'm addicted to cutting myself.

I have stopped cutting for about three months before, and I started to feel bad about everything, stuff happened with my friends and I just got back into the routine of hurting myself again. Last year it got really and I couldn't think of anything other than cutting, even when I was happy I didn't feel I deserved to be so I'd cut myself. I have stopped pretty much now, not completely, I am trying to. The last time I hurt myself was last night, but before then it was about two weeks ago. It doesn't sound long I know. But as I was doing it around three times a day not that long ago I think I'm dong alright.

I don't go to a councilor although I have considered it before. I also suffer from problems with eating, not an eating disorder I just have a strange relationship with food and I have since I was young. My parents recently found out about the self injury. They told me that I could go and talk to someone if I thought it would help. I said no, as I didn't want to talk to them about it, I was ashamed, and I felt terrible. I'm sorry for this as it isn't helpful in the slightest.

xx

Fridays Readers Story

Tranquilium (anonymous) said...

Dear Abbey,

I am currently sixteen, nearly seventeen. Up until somewhat recently, I'd been self-harming in various different ways since I was seven years old. It started out as bruising, slamming my arms in drawers, punching myself, etc. ("banging" as it's most commonly referred to. or, more specifically, "wrist-banging." That began due to loss of family members, and bulling in school. I remember thinking that "there must be something wrong with me, nobody wants to be around me." I was trying to fix myself through beating myself up. That went on for awhile.

When I was eleven, I began cutting, as my depression worsened and there were many more deaths and painful events happening in my life as well. Then, two weeks after my thirteenth birthday - my older sister died. I blamed myself for a very long time.

Later on, the same year (I was thirteen) I began burning myself. with lighters, cigarettes, whatever I could get a hold of. (salt and ice was always a favorite of mine as well)

Things just escalated from there. I attempted suicide 8 times before being hospitalized. then 9 times before I was finally sent to a long term psychiatric hospital for six months. That was May of '07 through November of '07.

The time at that hospital (Havenwyck RTC) was a HUGE turning point in my life. I've made an amazing recovery, and while I'm still dealing with severe anxiety, my depression is under control, as are my other issues that aren't entirely related to this specific topic.

If you or anybody, want any details or information on stopping self-harm, getting help, or just.. needing any advice. Anyone can email me at tranquilium@live.com
Or you can go to my website and leave me a message - I'll get back to you. :)

~ You're truely,
Tranquilium

Fridays Readers Story

Anonymous said...
I'm 19, i started cutting when i was about 14. it started as a peer pressure thing, it was 'cool' within my group of friends. My parents then moved me from America to Scotland, at 16 so my schooling was interrupted, I had to leave all my friends and relationships behind. This plunged me into a state of depression and I started to cut as a way to 'feel' the mental pain I was going to. every day, all up and down my legs.

My guidance counsellor at school found out when my well meaning friend found out and went to find my help. Instead of helping me my guidance counsellor thought it would be much more fun to black mail me into psychiatric help, and letting the entire school know and making things even worse. as I spoke to my shrink I learnt different ways to cope (I have since stopped cutting and live with my boyfriend and attend university, after getting my life back on track) but my guidance counsellor got bored hearing how well I was improving, and told my parents i was mentally deranged. they were hurt and confused, I took me a while to get back their trust, and it damaged my relationships with my siblings dramatically, setting me back in my recovery.

I just wanted to let people know, that even with people trying to set you back, when your ready to stop, you will. but only you can make that choice, no one can make you stop, eventually you just will, some thing else will take its place. don't let any one drag u down.

Friday Readers Story

Tiarra said...

Hi

I have self harmed once in the past. I have a history of sexual abuse and the first time I self harmed was because I allowed a stranger to be sexually intimate with me - some crazy way of me proving to myself that I wasn't afraid of sex, that I was capable of engaging and enjoying sexual relationships. Needless to say I was terrified, and wasn't ready that at all, and I self-harmed to deal with all the emotions. But recently stuff has been building up and the urge to go back to that place of cutting is becoming stronger and stronger as more and more crap compounds itself into the already limited space of what I can handle.

But to speak to the post, there is also stigma that comes with self-harming - that people do it for attention, they do it because they want to die, etc. And I believe the first step to effectively helping the people that use this coping mechanism is to erase the stigma and stereotypes and realize that it is a cry for help, often times the only way of expressing a pain so great, a pain for which there are no words.

Just Listen

Listen with not just your ears,

Listen with your eyes, your mind, your emotions but most importantly LISTEN WITH YOUR HEART
to the silent cries of those who need you the most.

[Feb 27, 2008: Taken from Random1]

Friday Readers Story

Anonymous said...

Ive been cutting since I was 11 and I'm now 17, at first it was the one in a month then as I got older it got worse. It all started because I lost 2 of the most precious things in my life and now I do it because I get upset and don't how to deal with it.

I tried to stop I last about 3 months without cutting but then everything just kept building up and I cut again.

I hate what I do it looks horrible but I have no way stopping.

I just think last one but then after that"last one" it happens again and again I'm scared to tell my parents if I told people it would affect everything my job my relationships with sisters and brothers.

I don't really have friends or go out because I'm an outsider people at work thing I have a great social life but iI lie to cover up how alone I actually am.

I don't know what to do or how to help myself.

Friday Readers Story

Hi my name is Jay Jay,

I started cutting at the end of 7th grade and now am in 8th. I did it off and on. I did it really bad on night when i was so mad. then it wouldn't stop bleeding. I told my dad and I showed him. He said it didn't need medical treatment. But then he started crying. That hurt me a lot more than anything.

But then he asked why. At that point I was like ' Well because i am sad and I wish i had my mom.' she has been locked up for like 5 years. I get really sad and don't know how to handle it. Then now I go to counseling and I am doing better. I still think about it so much but then I look at the scars and just break down. So that stops me a lot of times.

Friday Readers Story

Anonymous said...

Cutting is something that happens alot to young people and adults. It's a habit I too had and still deal with it after 30 years. It started as a way to relieve myself from the abuse I was receiving from my father. Then when bad things or failure was part of my life I would continue to cut. I cant tell you why but I can tell you it's a feeling like no other. In a sick twisted way you feel better and in control of something for once in your own life and with your own body. It's not anyone's fault why people struggle with this- it's just a way people cope. Other people have other ways like eating disorders etc.. It's dangerous, when you start you find its hard to stop- please get help if you are struggling, but know your not a bad person. Start to love who you are, I have found for me that is the best way to cope with cutting.
January 2, 2008

Friday Readers Story

Daisy said...
Hey,I'm 16 years old and I cut myself - mainly because its the only way I can feel pain. Sounds weird, I know, but because I have so much mental pain in my head I can't feel it, I feel that the only way I can feel it is by having physical pain inflicted on me.I stopped cutting for over 6 months, and then about a month ago, things at school got so bad that I couldn't stop myself from cutting myself. I feel so weak and dumb now. Does the fact that I gave into temptation make me a weak, stupid person??? I think it does. I've tried to kill myself once, and all I can thing about is myself hanging from a tree. I get images and they scare me.

Daisy xxx
December 5, 2007