Self harm - the facts, support and my experiences

[Emy]

This is actually an fragile psycological situation which has to be dealt with care. Conselling is very effective in helping you out.

[Emy]

Through my time on Gayspeak I have seen a lot of threads regarding depression, suicide and occasionally the odd self harm thread. Although I think the advice on depression and suicide threads have been brilliant at times, I have thought the advice in the self harm threads has often been well a bit disappointing in terms of the fact they have been rather vague, perhaps grouping self harm in one particular niche and sometimes even sounding a bit cliche without getting down to the nitty gritty. I don't know if this is because posters find this difficult, find it embarrassing to talk about their experiences or just can't put it into words. Today, I set myself the task of writing this thread, I'm going to be brave and put it out there, write this comprehensive guide to self harm, talk about about my experience and if this helps someone in the process it's all good.

So really what is self harm?


Self-harm includes anything you do to intentionally injure yourself. Typically I think most people seem to think that most self harmers slit their wrists or basically just cut themselves, this seems to be what I call "The self harm stigma". But there are other ways in which self harmers can achieve their goal. Some of the more common ways include;

cutting or severely scratching your skin

burning or scalding yourself

hitting yourself or banging your head

punching things or throwing your body against walls and hard objects
sticking objects into your skin

intentionally preventing wounds from healing

swallowing poisonous substances or objects

Self-harm can also include less obvious ways of hurting yourself or putting yourself in danger, such as driving recklessly, binge drinking, taking too many drugs, and having unsafe sex. (I would say the unsafe sex one may actually be more typical in the gay community but I don't have statistics.)

Out of those in the list in the past I have probably done four of them some of them have been spur of the moment, some of them have been thought about and some of them have been planned. What you will tend to find those who have self harmed for a while can often progress into more serious forms, for example something as simple as scratching oneself with a pin may progress onto a razor, then a razor onto a kitchen knife and so forth.

So why do people actually self harm?

There are a hell of lot of psychological motives for carrying out self harm and no two self harmers are a like from my experience, we aren't all the same we are individuals and the different things that make us tick make self harm different. Here is a comprehensive list of the reasons individuals self harm, I had a friend help me come up with all the different reasons why an individual may start to self harm and there are a lot of them.


Escape from emptiness and depression
Easing tension

Providing relief when intense feeling build, being overwhelmed unable to cope, by causing physical pain they remove their emotional pain.

Removing anger - A lot of self harmers feel a lot of rage within and need to express this however they are unable to express this normally resulting in destructive feelings.

Escape numbness - Self harmers can self harm in order to feel something, so that they can feel and know they are alive.

Obtaining a sense of euphoria - Yes this may sound strange but a self harmer can actually get a thrill out of harming themselves again taking the pain away.

Expressing emotional feelings they cannot bear.

Expressing or repressing their sexuality - very poignant in terms of the gay community and the coming out process. Although not all gay people have done this it can be relatively common.

Punishing yourself for being "bad".

Exercising control over your own life - a lot of self harmers feel out of control, by harming they have control over their own body whereas in their life they have no control.Despite all these possible reasons It is actually very important to remember self harm doesn't necessarily mean you have had a particularly traumatic life or have experienced something extremely negative; what it can mean though is the fact that somewhere along the lines you haven't learned good ways of coping with overwhelming and negative feelings. You aren't disgusting or sick you just need to learn new more constructive ways of coping with and venting your feelings without causing damage to yourself.

From my personal experience myself harm probably began when I was 16, back then I was a very angry teen, I didn't particularly know I was gay at the time but I felt something was missing in my life, I felt incomplete it was alway out of my reach but I didn't know what it was. I would say my self harm began with punching walls, I didn't express anger, I held it in probably over the course of a week or so and then something would happen, it could have been the littlest thing and I would flip, I'd smash something up so I felt like I could exert some control and release all of the pent up aggression. Then as I got older, I discovered I was gay, I would say maybe a bit later on than some guys and this got me really down in the dumps because I felt like it wasn't the norm, I didn't know any gay people, I didn't have a role model and I thought it was the end of the world. That's when I progressed onto more destructive behaviours, I just used to get so frustrated that I'd hit myself, I'd hit myself in the head and just go completely nuts and play things over in my head again and again. I'd say at about this time I started cutting after the punching walls didn't do it for me anymore, I'd use those Gillette razor blades at first and it progressed onto knives. I would say in my case I have been relatively lucky, I haven't scarred particularly badly compared to others I know although I do have a scar on my fore arm which is quite visible and a scar on my leg and three small ones on my upper arm which are barely visible and unless you really look. But saying that I've been quite lucky. I have gotten an awkward stare or two with the scar on my fore arm. Even had a kid say to his mum in a shop "that man has a poorly arm". But you just have to smile through it and move on.

How to cope and move on?

Coping with self harm and overcoming it can be one of the hardest things to do. Just like drugs and alcohol it can become addictive and somewhat hard to overcome, because you can use all manner of things to harm with and even use your own body to hurt yourself. Like any addiction you have to put things into place so that you can minimise the possibility of a relapse and with self harm, you have to improve your mental state as well as not self harming. Firstly you need to learn to recognise and accept your emotions. Understanding why you cut or self-harm is a vital first step toward your recovery. If you can figure out what function your self-injury serves, you can learn other ways to get those needs met—which in turn can reduce your desire to hurt yourself. You must also identify your self harm triggers the things that set you off.What feelings make you want to cut or hurt yourself? Sadness? Anger? Shame? Loneliness? Guilt? Emptiness? Once you learn to recognise the feelings that trigger your need to self-injure, you can start developing healthier alternatives.

Coping strategies

Self-harm is your way of dealing with feelings and difficult situations. So if you’re going to stop, you need to have alternative ways of coping in place so you can respond differently when you start to feel like cutting or hurting yourself.If you self harm to express anger exercising can help get rid of the angry energy you have take up something like martial arts. Myself coping with these feelings was my reason for doing martial arts, it helps me vent, it helps me maintain in control and gives me a sense of security. I have used these principles in lessons and have applied them in my life, so even if I don't go to the gym for a session I am fine and I can move on with life. Other strategies for other types of self harmers such as those who want to express their feelings can benefit from painting, drawing or even writing down your feelings then tearing the piece of paper up. I have also done this and it may sound silly but it does help. Other forms of 'therapy' can include talking to friends although it may be very hard to do so. To me telling someone was like coming out as gay again but once it was done it was over and I moved on with life. On some sites they may recognise snapping an elastic band against your skin or holding an ice cube but to me this is kind of self harm, I don't know why but it seems you are trading more serious self harm for a lesser form.

Everyone is different

If there is a final thing I can say about self harm is the fact that everyone and I mean everyone who experiences it has their own stories. Some people do it once or a few times and then it is forgotten but others don't it can linger. They have their own reasons, their own triggers and they overcome it in their own way. I can honestly say this chapter of my life has been shut for quite a while now and I haven't self harmed for ages because I outlined my problems, I accepted them and I moved on to make a better life for myself. I did seek medical help at one point but it wasn't for me, I didn't want to rely on antidepressants and make me a complete zombie, I did this myself and it has been hard. I can say my experience of self harm has been a journey and somewhat of a love hate relationship, I loved it because it made me feel good, it made me feel better, but I also hated and how it made me feel. So on to the future, the aftermath. Some guys have commented on the scars I have, some haven't been bothered and accepted it but you always get a few who aren't as accepting and make a big deal of it and are complete dick heads. But for anybody who experiences "self harm prejudice", there are perfectly nice guys out there who will accept it and there will be no problems.

Well it's took me half a day to write this and try to get it perfect as a "comprehensive guide to self harm" and get down to the facts and to those details which may be found a bit difficult to talk about. I hope this thread is somewhat of use and it may educate those who have experienced self harm and those who have no idea about it. I'm sure there is loads I haven't mentioned but these are my experiences and all the knowledge I have on this subject and to an extent I found it therapeutic.

Hope this helps

mrk2010

Thank you so much for the detailed study on this subject. Very informative