Self-Injury Myths and Common Sense
From the National Self-Harm Network
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L.R. Pembroke |
National Self-Harm Network |
"Whether others see the injury or not, a person who self injures is in extreme distress." A. Smith |
Is self-injury attempted suicide?
No, self-injury and suicide have an intimate relationship, but are different. Each individual has their own motivations and mix of self-injuring and suicidal feelings.
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Self-injury often represents the prevention of a suicidal period | |
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Self-injury is one way of averting suicide | |
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Self-injury may be a survival strategy | |
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Self-injury is frequently the least possible amount of damage and represents extreme self restraint. |
A diminishing sense of worth may culminate in suicide as its ultimate expression. People who self-injure are statistically at a greater risk of going on to commit suicide.
Diagnostic Oversights
Accident and Emergency staff may assume that the severity of the injury represents the severity of the condition. This leads to some common misperceptions:
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"If it's not an artery, they don't mean it, it's acting out." |
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"Minor injuries are attention seeking and aren't serious." |
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"Serious injuries mean psychosis." |
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"It's masochism." |
Sound Familiar?
The current treatment of people who self-injure is based on inaccurate psychiatric stereotypes. Thee reality is different. The following responses to these treatments are based on the experiences of self-injurers.
| It's attention seeking.
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If attention was the motivation for self-injury, it's not an efficient way of getting it. There are many easier, less painful, and less degrading ways of attracting it. |
| It's a Borderline Personality Disorder.
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Self-injury is NOT a diagnosis. What is true for one person is not necessarily true for another. Commonly, self-injury is a dialogue with yourself, an expression of inexpressible emotion, or an absence of self-value. |
| They're manipulative.
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Self-harm is a private activity, Accident and Emergency Departments will only see a few of the injuries before healing. It's not about its effect on others. |
| Self-harmers are usually hysterical women under thirty who grow out of it.
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Traditionally this has been the assumption. Recent research shows the difference in rate of self-injury in men and women is less marked. There is no evidence to show that people "grow out" of it. It is not a behavior or development "disorder". |
| It's self-inflicted so it's not serious.
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How severe staff member think the wound is won't tell them how bad the person feels. |
| If you won't see the psychiatrist, you can't want to get better.
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Psychiatry has had little or no success in helping individuals who self-injure. Neither drug nor behavioral treatments can address the issue of self worth. |
| Either they enjoy pain or they can't feel it.
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Each person has a different pain threshold; commonly the loss of sensation some people experience during injury returns soon after. By the time the person is receiving treatment, it is common for the sense of pain to be amplified. |
| Don't waste your time with her, we've been treating her for years.
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A long history of injury often results in being considered a "hopeless case". No attempt is made to offer support, and it's assumed you're incurable. |
| It's tension relieving.
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This is rarely the sole pressure on an individual to injure - each person has his or her own pressures and triggers to injure. |
You may not witness all the forms of injury. Individuals have many ways of expressing their distress, often substituting one for another. your perception of the seriousness of the injury may not indicate the extreme distress that the injury represents.
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