ALEX'S PAGE ON SELF-INJURY
**DISCLAIMER**I am not a doctor. If you think you may need medical treatment, please go to the nearest urgent care facility.
I have tried to mke this page as non-triggering as possible. However, if you feel the need to harm yourself, try scrolling down to the suggestions part of this page.
My name is Alex. I'm 20 years old and first started hurting myself when I was 12. It started with making a tiny scratch down my arm with a safety pin. One of the last times I've cut, it was 7 cm long, a half inch wide and required 9 stitches. There was (and still is) painful nerve damage as well as numbness throughout my forearm. I created this page to try and help others who struggle with the same problem as I do. I do not condone self-injury; I recognize it as a coping mechanism that no longer serves me. It has stopped making me feel better. So even though I still get the urges sometimes, I know how to use the tools I have to deal with my feelings in constructive ways.
I am also an active member in a 12 step program that deals with all types of drug addictions. If you think you may be a drug addict, please click here to go the
Narcotics Anonymous Homepage. Or you could take this self-evaluation. I see self-injury and drugs as ways to not feel my feelings and to escape from reality when I don't want to deal with it.
I do, however, take psychiatric medications as they are prescribed to me from my doctor. I find them helpful and do not feel that they get in the way of my recovery. For more information on various psych meds, please click here.
To read some of my poetry, click here. BE CAREFUL, SOME OF IT MAY BE TRIGGERING. Or you could read some really meaningful Nine Inch Nails lyrics. Books I've read on self-injury.
When I feel like I have to hurt myself, I try to answer some questions. Personally, it helps me to write them out, but you can also do it in your head.
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Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?
- Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
- What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
- How do I feel right now?
- How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
- How will I feel after hurting myself?
How will I feel tomorrow morning?
- Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
- Do I need to hurt myself?
Often I'm asked why I cut, what exactly goes through my brain when I pick up the blade or what ever. Although these aren't all reasons for me personally, some are, and some may be for other.
Miller (1994) and Favazza (1986, 1996)
- *Escape from emptiness, depression, and feelings of unreality.
In order to ease tension.
- *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.
- Expression of emotional pain
- *Escaping numbness: many of those who self-injure say they do it in order to feel something, to know that they're still alive.
- *Obtaining a feeling of euphoria
- *Continuing abusive patterns: self-injurers tend to have been abused as children. Sometimes self-mutilation is a way of punishing oneself for being "bad."
- *Relief of anger: many self-abusers have enormous amounts of rage within. Afraid to express it outwardly, they injure themselves as a way of venting these feelings.
- 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 behavior.
- Obtaining or maintaining influence over the behavior of others
- **Exerting a sense of control over one's body
- *Grounding in reality, as a way of dealing with feelings of depersonalization and dissociation
- Maintaining a sense of security or feeling of uniqueness
- Expressing or repressing sexuality
- Expressing or coping with feeling of alienation
Myths about self-injury: (Taken from the Self-Injury- Info and Resources Page)
- Self-injury is a failed suicide attempt
Self injury is a way of carrying on with life, not of dying. Injuries are seldom life-threatening. It is important to distinguish self-injury from a suicide attempt, so that its true meanings can be understood.
- Self-injury is "just attention seeking"
Self-injury is primarily about helping oneself cope with great pain. For some, it is a desparate attempt to show that something is really wrong, and attention should be paid to their distress.
- Self-injury is a sign of madness
Self-injury is a sign of distress, not madness; a sign of someone trying to cope with her life as best she can.
- A person who self-injures is a danger to others
Someone who self-injures is directing her hurt and anger at herself, not at others. Most would be appalled at the idea of hurting someone else.
Other ways to deal with urges:
