Your opinion about Self Injury

by yumbby 43 Replies latest watchtower medical

• 

  jgnat

  Off on a tangent here. Maybe cutting is a symptom of a society where the "acceptable risk" bar is rising. That is, people will go up to the line of immenent death, testing the limits. But people are harder to kill these days. Doctors are getting better and better at bringing people back from the brink. Thanks to GPS, we also have the ability to extract people from the most remote and compromising situations. Thanks to antibiotics, a simple cut rarely kills.

  We have heavy cross-checking in hockey resulting in more serious injuries (thanks to better protection, ironically). This was predicted by an instructor of mine over ten years who specialized in "acceptable risk". Think about it. Before the heavy padding and the helmets, those guys on the ice were a little more careful how they hit their buddy in to the boards.

  We have extreme sports.

  Where once mount Everest was the ultimate human challenge, we have had the blind and the paraplegic safely make it to the top.
• 

  fifi40

  Yumbby

  I had a friend who self harmed by cutting herself. I never actually saw her doing it but I saw the evidence. She did it when she was hurt or angry. She has done it since she was young and she was abused as a child.

  With her and when I hear of others doing it I am gutted that somone is in such emotional pain that they need to harm themselves. For people who dont self harm in this way, I think the idea is so alien that it can cause a knee jerk reaction of WTF.......why would you do that. Not all are able to have compassion or are able to understand that for some, self harm is a coping mechanism, albeit a harmful one. And also there is a sense of helplessness for an onlooker........you dont want someone you care about to harm themselves and you dont understand why anyone would do this.

  We all see the world as we personally see it and often it is difficult to accept the ways in which others choose to cope with stress, anxiety, grief or sadness. I am not a big drinker, but I know of people who use drink as medication to cope with life........whilst I do not choose to drink excessively to cope with my problems myself, I undertsand that people do..........if someone I care for used drink as a crutch and it was harmful to them I may well point this out to them and encourage them to seek appropriate help to learn different coping strategies.

  Ultimately it comes down to the person who uses a harmful method of 'coping' to accept that there are healthier alternative's to managing life's problems and doing their best to learn these and use them in their lives.

  Fi
• 

  Low-Key Lysmith

  Personally, I prefer drugs. But hey, that's just me. Who am I to judge?
• 

  Maddie

  From what I know of self-harm it is in most cases definitely a coping mechanism from severe emotional pain. As an alcoholic takes a drink to self-medicate, a person injures themselves for the same effect. I knew someone who was trying to give up cocaine but started self-harming when they went through a very traumatic event. This person said they did this rather than use cocaine again.

  Maddie
• 

  metatron

  Here's an experiment to do: Get some Naltrexone and have the self injurer take it. If the behavior goes away, you've proved that it's all

  endorphin/natural opiate release.

  metatron
• 

  chickpea

  my opinion is that as a coping mechanism, self-injury is not a good choice

  the reality is, regardless of it being a poor coping choice, if it werent effective, no one would be doing it....

  i have dealt with it as an observer because my daughter has SI'd and several of the people i have met thru my work with survivors of ch!ldhood s*xual @buse bear the physical scars as testament of their emotional and psychological scars .....

  they cut, they burn, they pick at their flesh until it bleeds.... and they hate themselves for it

  the physical pain they seek is an attempt to escape the emotional and psychological pain that threatens to overwhelm them..... sometimes it is about feeling too much, and sometimes it is about feeling nothing at all..... "yeah, you bleed to know you're alive" ( iris-goo goo dolls)

  my opinion on self-injury is laced with deep compassionate empathy with a desire to understand.....

  ((((((((aeja))))))) (((((((snicks))))))) ((((((((boo)))))))) ((((((((squek))))))) (((((((hetty)))))))) (((((((cc))))))))
• 

  only me

  My daughter has been self harming since she was 12 years old. She has been hospitalized several times for suicidal ideations. The hospitalizations led us to a series of therapists which were mostly wastes of time until we were hooked up with a therapy group that did DBT-Dialectical Behavior Therapy. It made an amazing difference to all of us. It recognizes that life is painful as the self injurer sees it and eeaches how to recognize what triggers the behavior and gives solid alternatives to cope with the feelings as well as skills for getting along with people.

  She found that her behavior was the result of sexual abuse by an older neighbor boy and her father's rejection of her as a "worthy" daughter. He attended all the sessions with us but it never sank into his head that he's part of the problem. She is 21 now and married to a wonderful Catholic man who was also abused as a child and is dealing with some issues of his own.

  She still occasionally cuts but only rarely now. She has made it through some severely stressful situations without cutting. I recommend DBT to anyone that's dealing with this type of problem.

  I
• 

  jgnat

  That is very neat, only me. It sounds like you fought through to genuine help. I can relate to that. Oh, the determination of a mother! Good for you.
• 

  R.Crusoe

  It is the pain of the heart!

  It is in its relentlessness!

  It is in the apathy of others who foist rejection and crushings on hearts of gold!

  It is in such places of despair that some let their own blood pour as their souls have done for years!

  It is this pain which feels the next layer of pain come along as others look and ask why.

  As others look with cold eyes and dead hearts.

  As others who cant love, watch as loves bereft and slaughtered drips splash dying on their altars of belief!
• 

  Crumpet

  I started self harming when i was about 5 or 6. I can rembering using en holders to scratch the skin of my thighs under my dress and on my arms because I was just so bored until i bled during those long meetings we I had to sit still and be silent. It was a release and a distractioin from the boredom and frustration.

  I started doing it seriously when I was 20. I hate the scars it leaves on my arms, legs, torso and even worse the disgust and horror that leaps to the eyes of people who see it. My last boyfriend said it just repelled him. The after effects of doing it are utter shame, but at the time I just can't see past how good it will feel to escape the mental torture. When I take the razor to my skin and watch the blood its hypnotic, it stops me thinking of anything else and this will sound insane but it looks beautiful to me at the time.

  Of course afterwards, it looks vile as the cuts slowly heal and I have to spend hours sanding them and massaging oil in to try and lessen the starkness of the scars.

  (Thanks PEC for sending me the link to this thread)