A Way Of Coping

Self-harm can seem very hard to understand, I've been doing it for 40 odd years and even now it's not always easy to understand. So the next question - Why do it?

Believe it or not this is a question I ask myself practically everyday, I don't often give myself a good explanation for it. The one thing I do know and can seriously relate to, is that if someone Self-Harms there will be a powerful reason to why they do it. Self-destructive as it may seem, self-harm is a way of helping oneself to go on living, usually in the face of great emotional pain.

The reasons for self -injury are complex and subtle and differ from person to person. Learning this way of coping almost always begins in response to painful and difficult events or circumstances in a person's life, often starting while still very young, although a person can start hurting themselves in response to distressing adult experiences. (One of the first things that I remember doing was banging my head against the wall after being pushed around while in the infants at school. That same person has haunted me twice more since then. Four more years at secondary school and then eight years while working).

Some people who self-harm come from families where there was little communication, physical and sexual abuse, as well as witnessing family violence, chaos or alcohol problems. A history of serious illness or major surgery, the loss of family and friends are common, as is the experience of being taken in to care, experiencing racist abuse, prejudice, bullying or ostracism.

Experiences such as being trapped in a unhappy relationships, being mugged, raped and sexually harassed often lead to feelings of guilt, 'dirtiness' and anger which may be turned in on oneself as self injury. One of the most important ways in which self-injury helps someone to cope is by giving them some way, however painful, of dealing with their feelings. I know that I get driven to self-harm by feeling unbearable emotional distress, the pain of unresolved past as well as current experiences haunts me. "I feel as if it's like a volcano and I'm going to explode with the tension inside me, so I need to cut myself to let it out".

Shame, fear and humiliation quite often lead to self-harm and then you are forced to keep the self-injury a secret for many years. This means that the true nature and extent of the problem is unknown.

The price of gaining a sense of safety or control through self-blame is guilt and self-hatred. Self-injury can be a means of atonement and relief from guilt. Someone who has been hurt may also be very afraid, and by punishing themselves they may feel as if they are doing as they are told and therefore relieving some of their fear. After suffering sexual or physical abuse, self-injury will serve some very specific functions.

Abuse can leave you feeling shameful, contaminated and loathsome, as though you were at fault, or there were some evil or poison inside you. You may then think that you can gain relief by cutting out this badness.

Traumatic events are often re-experienced through intrusive and terrifying thoughts or flashbacks, which some people find they can stop by hurting themselves.