Fluffy said:
Yeah that makes sense. Just as long as they are engaged in why they are cutting then I'd be happy though I agree with you that such discourse should not be done in a "poor you" kind of way.
I agreed with this to a small extent but I did not know there was a theory that self harm was addictive. Do you have any sources or studies to back this up?
I didn't realize it was, but it makes sense - it becomes a compulsion, according to:-
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/self_injury.htm
Self-injury (SI) also known as self-harm or self-mutilation is defined as any intentional injury to one's own body. It usually either leaves marks or causes tissue damage. It is hard for most people to understand why someone would want to cut or burn himself/herself). The mere idea of intentionally inflicting wounds to oneself makes people cringe. Yet there are growing numbers of young people who do intentionally hurt themselves. Understanding the phenomenon is the first step in changing it.
Who engages in self-injury?
There is no simple portrait of a person who intentionally injures him/herself. This behavior is not limited by gender, race, education, age, sexual orientation, socio-economics, or religion. However, there are some commonly seen factors:
- Self-injury more commonly occurs in adolescent females.
- Many self-injurers have a history of physical, emotional or sexual abuse.
- Many self-injurers have co-existing problems of substance abuse, obsessive-compulsive disorder (or compulsive alone), or eating disorders.
- Self-injuring individuals were often raised in families that discouraged expression of anger, and tend to lack skills to express their emotions.
- Self-injurers often lack a good social support network.
What are the types of self-injury?
The most common ways that people self-injure are:
- cutting
- burning (or branding with hot objects)
- picking at skin or re-opening wounds
- hair-pulling (trichotillomania)
- hitting (with hammer or other object)
- bone-breaking
- head-banging (more often seen in autistic, severely retarded or psychotic people)
- multiple piercing or multiple tattooing
Throughout history, various cultures have intentionally created marks on the body for cultural or religious purposes. Some adolescents, especially if they are with a group engaging in such practices, may see this as a ritual or rite of passage into the group. However, beyond a first experiment in such behavior, continued bodily harm is self-abusive. Most self-injuring adolescents act alone, not in groups, and hide their behavior. There are also some more extreme types of self-mutilation, such as castration or amputation, which are rare and are associated with psychosis.
How does self-injury become addictive?
A person who becomes a habitual self-injurer usually follows a common progression:
- the first incident may occur by accident, or after seeing or hearing of others who engage in self-injury
- the person has strong feelings such as anger, fear, anxiety, or dread before an injuring event
- these feelings build, and the person has no way to express or address them directly
- cutting or other self-injury provides a sense of relief, a release of the mounting tension
- a feeling of guilt and shame usually follows the event
- the person hides the tools used to injure, and covers up the evidence, often by wearing long sleeves
- the next time a similar strong feeling arises, the person has been conditioned to seek relief in the same way
- the feelings of shame paradoxically lead to continued self-injurious behavior
- the person feels compelled to repeat self-harm, which is likely to increase in frequency and degree
Why do people engage in self-injury?
Even though there is the possibility that a self-inflicted injury may result in life-threatening damage, self injury is
not suicidal behavior. Although the person may not recognize the connection, SI usually occurs when facing what seems like overwhelming or distressing feelings. The reasons self-injurers give for this behavior vary:
- self-injury temporarily relieves intense feelings, pressure or anxiety
- self-injury provides a sense of being real, being alive of feeling something
- injuring oneself is a way to externalize emotional internal pain to feel pain on the outside instead of the inside
- self-injury is a way to control and manage pain unlike the pain experienced through physical or sexual abuse
- self-injury is a way to break emotional numbness (the self-anesthesia that allows someone to cut without feeling pain)
- self-abuse is self-soothing behavior for someone who does not have other means to calm intense emotions
- self-loathing some self-injurers are punishing themselves for having strong feelings (which they were usually not allowed to express as children), or for a sense that somehow they are bad and undeserving (an outgrowth of abuse and a belief that it was deserved)
- self-injury followed by tending to wounds is a way to express self-care, to be self-nurturing, for someone who never learned how to do that in a more direct way
- harming oneself can be a way to draw attention to the need for help, to ask for assistance in an indirect way
- sometimes self-injury is an attempt to affect others to manipulate them, make them feel guilty or bad, make them care, or make them go away
