What Is Self-Injury or Self-Mutilation?
Self-injury
is not something people talk about very often, but for an estimated
2 to 3 million Americans it is a serious problem. The majority of people
who self-injure are women between the ages of 13 and 30, but there are
"cutters" of every age, gender, and economic group.
People who
"self-injure" are not usually suicidal. They do however, intentionally
inflict injuries upon themselves, usually in response to stress or trauma.
Their injuries may vary from minor cuts that heal quickly to very serious
wounds that leave permanent scars. This is also known as "Deliberate
Self-Harm Syndrome".
If you or
someone you know self-injures, please get professional help right away.
This is just an overview of a very complex myriad of syndromes.
Self-injury usually
indicates that somewhere during development that person didn't learn
good ways of coping with overwhelming feelings or stress. They’re
not sick or insane; they just never learned positive ways to deal with
feelings and emotions for various reasons. Positive coping skills can
be learned at any point in life. People who self-injure can learn to
use new and healthier coping mechanisms. This process may take years
to develop with the help of a skilled therapist familiar with this condition.
Cutting
seems to be the most common type of self-injury. "Cutters" often use
razors, utility knives, scissors, needles, broken glass, or whatever
they find to make repetitive slices on their arms, legs or other body
parts. Some people burn themselves with cigarettes or lighters, others
pull out their own hair. Many people who self-injure say they do it
because they normally feel "numb" and cutting helps them to "feel alive."
Others talk about the "sense of control" they may get from self-injury.
This may be the first time or thing that they have felt a sense of control
in their lives. Most agree that incidents of self-injury are triggered
by stress and anxiety.
Self-injury is usually kept secret, and the "cutter" often feels deep
shame and guilt from this ritual. People who self-injure are at risk
for infections if their wounds are not treated properly. Permanent scarring
can also result from self-injury and often does. Many people who self-injure
wear long pants, long-sleeved shirts, and turtlenecks even in warm weather
to conceal the marks they've left on their own bodies.
Why
Do People Self-Injure?
This problem is
not completely understood by health care professionals or psychologists.
It seems to be most common among people who have been sexually abused
as children, molested as children, or by survivors of incest.
Whatever the context
or reason, self-injury seems to function as a coping mechanism. "Cutters"
use self-harm to feel calm, "in control," or just to "feel something."
However, self-injury is not a healthy coping mechanism - it is a self-destructive
behavior that probably reflects deeper, more complicated mental health
or personal problems. (See the end of this article for some quotes and
"stories" of people who self-injure).
Some
Common Factors of Self-Injury
Age of onset between 10 - 16 years old
There was
a major change in the teen's life -- parents divorce or death
There is
a history of family violence, abuse or sexual abuse
Intense
feelings of fear, hurt, anger, rejection or abandonment
Feelings
of loss and or need for control
Some Common Reasons Why People Cut Themselves
These are
some of the reasons our readers who "cut" shared with us.
They find it soothing:
To feel
pain on the outside instead of the inside
To cope
with feelings
To express
anger towards themselves
To feel
alive and real
A way of communicating what they can't say with words:
To tell
people they need help
To get
people's attention
To tell
people they should be in hospital
An attempt to get people to react to their actions:
To get
people to care for them
To make
other people feel guilty
To drive
people away
To get
away from stress and responsibility
To manipulate
situations or people
Triggering
Events Reported by Young Adults Who Self-Injure:
Being rejected by someone who is important to them
Being blamed
for something over which they had no control
Feeling
inadequate
Being "wrong"
in some way
RECOVERY
People who self-injure
can learn to use new and healthier coping mechanisms. This process
may take years to develop. It also is important to get help from a
therapist who specialized in self-injury. He or she can help the person
figure out what lies behind the urge to cut or injure. New coping
mechanisms may include exercising, painting, writing, yoga or dancing
instead of hurting oneself. A process that involves self-expression
is often helpful. Whatever works as an alternative method of coping
with the feelings of anxiety or stress or "numbness" is often a good
start toward recovery.
If
you hurt yourself intentionally, remember you are not alone. You might
think that this behavior makes you a "weird," but you can see from
the statistics that it is more common than you thought. Talk to a
counselor, therapist or your health care provider, chances are they've
helped others with this same problem. Whatever pain or bad experiences
underlie your urge to self-injure, a professional can help you to
heal, both inside and out.
See: The
Benefits of Anger
Management and Anger Control
The following
was sent to us from a teen who wanted to share her "story"
of self-mutilation with Cool Nurse readers. Kandy is a bright, articulate,
creative teenager, "normal" teenager, except for this one
"thing" in her life. She sent this to us so that more people
might understand self-mutilation and self-injury. Thank you Kandy!
You were the first person to write to Cool Nurse to share your experience
with others.
The next 2 pages
of self-injury quotes were sent to us after this article was originally
one of the "Topics of The Month" for November 2000. We continue
to get letters from teens & adults who want to share the experiences
of self-injury. Thank you to all for being so brave and for helping
with awareness.
My
Story - from " Kandy" (Age 16)
I started self-mutilating when I was five years old. I'm not sure
how it started, but I was consistently pulled my eyelashes out all
through the years. My mother would tell me “Stop that or your
eyelashes will be bald someday”. I laughed at the thought, until
one day it came true.
In elementary
school, I used to get so stressed out about school and none of my
friends being in the same school (I was a social reject in my school)
I would come home and hit my head against the wall and stab myself
with my pencil.
When I was in
6th grade, my father died, and things got much worse. My mother was
too depressed to really notice my depression, and the rest of my family
never really noticed either. Emotions you wouldn't believe built up
inside me as that same year my Grandmother died. Also, my 2 dogs died
(one being only a puppy).
The following
year, two good family friends died of car accidents and cancer, and
my friend I had just met committed suicide. Things got even worse.
My biggest mistake?
I never cried and after a while, I wasn't able to cry.
In 7th grade,
I experimented with hanging myself, but used a cheap piece of string
from my ceiling fan. Needless to say; it broke.
Eighth grade,
the cutting started. I started cutting my left wrist (the top, not
the bottom, so people wouldn't get suspicious) with a Swiss army knife.
One day, I cut too deep. I probably could have fit my index finger
into the laceration. I was taken to the clinic in the worst blizzard
in years by my mom (She is so great to me, I love her).
The only thing
that kept me from a mental hospital was that I lied and told them
(and mom, who found out the real story later) that I had cut my wrist
on the bathroom counter. You know what they said at the clinic? "Sharp
Counter." Right.
I didn't get stitches,
but I did get a large bandage on my wrist for a while. I told the
lie to everyone, and they believed it. After that, I found my knife
had disappeared mysteriously from my drawer and so then I played with
a pin, making boat designs and smiley faces on ...my arms. I played
with death too, putting a belt on the rail in my closet and putting
my neck through, letting myself get close enough to dying in that
my heart pounded in my head and I heard voices.
Finally, in 9th
grade, I made the mistake of cutting myself with a razor and telling
the school counselor what had happened. Well, my mom was told, and
that was the end of that. She and I and my brother had a family meeting,
and I have to stay clear of razors, etc. or else. I am in counseling
once every two weeks now. I was on Prozac (I quit .. didn't help me
much) but I am now trying to keep away from anything self-destructive.
So now... my eyelashes
have started growing back and I can cry sometimes.
Kandy,
Age 16 - (Somewhere in the USA, 2000)
More Quotes From Readers:
"I hurt
myself for different reasons, depending on my state of mind. I do
it sometimes as a way to get relief from the pain I am feeling inside.
Other times I do because at the time I feel I deserve to be punished,
or I am angry at myself, but really I think someone else. Other times
I do it to "shout out" to the world that I need help and here is the
proof. I am a incest survivor, so I think that it's some of the pain
that I have had to live with trying to escape my body. (Dianne,
Age 30, Canada)
"I cut myself
because I feel so much pain inside that I need a way to release it
all. So by cutting myself, it acts as an outlet for that l pain, I
guess, somehow. It feels like it's all running out of me when I see
myself bleeding. I know that probably sounds gross to most people
who don't do this. Yes, I am in group therapy for people who self-injure".
(Chrissy, Age 17, USA)
The late Princess Diana's word's shocked the world when she admitted
in a television interview that she intentionally cut her arms and legs
and had thrown herself down a flight of stairs on more than one occasion.
FINALLY, self-injury -- the practice of deliberately cutting, scratching,
burning, or otherwise injuring one's own body -- was about to come out
of the closet. After that interview thousands of self-injury survivors
called or wrote the media in response to that interview in just the
United States alone. 
1-800
DON'T-CUT (800-366-8288)
Cutting
The Pain Away
Women
Who Hurt Themselves, A Book of Hope and Understanding 
Women
Living with Self-Injury
Skin
Game
Bodies
Under Siege
Healing
The Hurt Within
Cut
The
Scarred Soul : Understanding & Ending Self-Inflicted Violence
Bodily
Harm : The Breakthrough Healing Program for Self-Injurers
Girl,
Interrupted