FEELINGS IN MADNESS...a Journey In Song

Self injury

Self-Injury: a journey down the rabbit hole.

The Mayo clinic defines self injury this way "No-suicidal self injury often simply called self injury, is the act of deliberately harming the surface of your own body such as by cutting, burning, digging your nails into the skin, biting, hitting yourself. It is typically not meant as a suicide attempt. Rather, this type of self injury is an unhealthy way to cope with emotional pain, intense anger and frustration, let downs, overwhelming sadness due to an event.

First I would like to tell everyone that I was a cutter for many years. So, this a
rticle is written from both personal experience and research. I came across several lists of personality traits that of the self- injurer. I disagree with them, but I am going to list them anyway. The personality traits make the person that self harms mentally unstable. A person that self harms is in no way mentally unstable. They may be unstable in their ability to cope, their family life may be unstable, they are bullied and have immense emotional distress. There are many reasons that lead to self injury in a person.
Here is the list of personality traits that I found, they are:
Strongly dislike and invalidate themselves.
Are overly sensitive to rejection.
Are chronically angry usually at themselves.
Tend to suppress their anger or do not know how to "get angry"
Have high level of aggressive feelings, which they disapprove of strongly and often suppress or turn inward.
Are more impulsive and lacking in impulse control.
Tend to act in accordance with their mood of the moment, basing actions on inappropriate emotions.
Tend not to plan for the future.
Are depressed and can be suicidal/self destructive.
Suffer from chronic anxiety, social anxiety and can have frequent bouts of crying and panic attacks.
Tend toward irritability.
Do not see themselves as skilled at coping. They do not know how to generally handle strong emotions.
They have a very low self -esteem, low opinion of themselves, consider themselves a failure.
Do not think they have much control over how/wither they can cope with things in their daily lives. They are usually bullied, feel alone, have few friends, are failing in school, feel abandoned by their family and feel nobody loves them.
Tend to be avoidant. They avoid situations that are anxiety producing like giving an oral report in front of the class. Situations that might be embarrassing, that they aren't very good at like when talking with authority, that are anxiety producing for them because of the possibility that they won't do good at it and will be ridiculed.
Do not see themselves as empowered; they see themselves as a victim. They see themselves in a way that is very belittling to them, they are a failure, and will fail if they try, somebody will laugh at them they just know it, etc.
There are other traits threat can be developed due to overwhelming stress such as from chronic bullying, Abuse, Drugs, sexual assault, performance anxiety that doesn't go away, unreasonable expectations placed on them from their parents, being a middle childand having a "perfect" sister or brother and having to live up to and follow in their "perfect" footsteps. There are many different causes of the emotional and mental turmoil that lead to a person's decision to self injure. This can include having friends that do and they just want to "try" it to see why their what their friends get from the act. It can also be done, at first, as a way of "getting back" or punishing their parents. Please Do Not ever think that a person is "doing it for attention" as that kind of attention is negative and seldom wanted. That kind of attention is far more detrimental to ones perception of themselves then just about any other kind. And a person that self injures in a way is doing it for attention...the kind that's needed!!
There are some things about self injury that I would like to point out. One it is very addictive and can lead to a dependence on it just like any drug. The person cannot "get by" a day without it and must perform the act several times a day even when they have no reason to. There is also the need to cut, burn, scratch, bite, dig their nails into their skin, at ever-increasing rates and a need to cause more and more damage to their skin. This goes hand in hand with the addictiveness of the act. Then there is the improper wound care. Using dirty razor blades, second and third degree burns that are not cared for, unintentional suicide, punishment, mental hospitalization, being stigmatized or labeled, peers avoiding them as they are seen as 'defective' now, visit to the hospital from infection, parental scorn, being bullied worse, and so many other really negative things can happen. Mainly because people cannot understand the rationality behind self injury. They consider it gross, unacceptable in today's society. They cannot understand someone that would intentionally harm themselves. They view this behavior as "sick", "mental", they label you "bad" because you chose to give yourself a kind of first aide that most people wouldn't even consider. I'm going to give my view on self injury by putting it in a question. "You wouldn't ask a drowning person to give up their life preserver would you? Then why do you ask a person that self- harms to give up theirs?" I have a different opinion on self harm, mainly cutting or burning,then most people. As you could probably tell I actually believe in self harm as a viable alternative to psychotropic medication that you get from a psychiatrist. I call it a "first aide" for internal struggle and pain. You have a headache you take an aspirin, You have a cold you go to your local drug store and get some OTC cold medication, you have an infection you got to the doctor and he gives you an antibiotic medication, your into eastern alternative medication then you get acupuncture and do yoga or Ti-Chi and meditate. So what do you do if you have this increasingly painful and at times overwhelming internal pain that you cannot cope with? You either have to go to a psychiatrist and get put on psychotropic medication, the worst medication one can take. As Itchanges your brains chemical makeup, the electrical impulses and processes. In my opinion, it makes you more depressed and more mentally unstable and can easily cause worsening depression, worsening forms of anxiety, and can lead to suicide. There is a black box warning on most anti depressant medications that warns the medication can lead to suicidal ideation or attempts in children under 18. At a time when the brain isn't even fully grown this type of medication should never be used.( sorry for the rant) You either go to a therapist who you see for an hour a week, and since he really isn't involved in your daily life, he only knows about the things causing you so much internal pain and dysfunction. But he really cannot help you with these issues so you continue on your daily routine scared, in pain, not being able to cope, anxious and just getting more and more depressed and possibly you've already thought about suicide. Or you can try dealing with the situation in a strictly alternative way. You can self injure. I do not tell anyone that they should start. In fact If there is any other way to cope with the stresses and anxiety producing things on your life I would highly recommend that. I will never tell anyone who self injures that they should stop or promise me that they will throw away their form of "medicine". One of the hardest things for a person that self injures is to trust or depend on anyone. They see themselves as flawed already and you telling them "that's just sick", "please for me stop", "promise me that you wont do it anymore". The self injurer already blame themselves for so many things, they think they are flawed and bad. I have found from talking with many people that are self injurer's that they had tried everything they could think of, from talking to school counselors, to their parents, to friends and NOTHING they did worked. The pain was still just as real. I would ask them if they had considered self- injury and if they have maybe they should try just to see, that self injury very well may be the thing that works to calm those monsters in your head that keep screaming at you and quiet them for awhile.
Self- injury is a way to cope with overwhelming internal pain. I call it suicide prevention. The act of harming oneself causes many biologic changes in the body. It releases endorphins, slows many of the body's autonomic functions, it calms and clears the mind, for a short time it can have a very real calming effect on the person. I've heard it said like this from one person "Everything seems in place. Like it is right just for a short time and the pain is gone..and I can smile instead of cry."
The thing that I always get hung up on is self injury is nothing more then a symptom of a greater disease. If you heal the disease ie bullying, inability to cope with today's stresses, overly anxious about most things, the internal buildup of the pain etc then the symptom , self injury, will no longer be need and the behavior will stop. It will no longer be needed. That's the one thing about self injury that most people don't understand. When the internal pain subsides, when you are better able to cope in a non-dysfunctionalway with the daily stresses that caused you to turn to self- injury, self injury will no longer be turned to.
Now I would like to share with you some of my reasons for turning to self- injury, they are:
I hate myself.
I cant do anything right, I'm such a failure.
I'm so fat and ugly.
Everyone hates me.
My parents hate me they tell me all the time.
Abuse
"Why can't you be more like your sister Adalaine? God, you can't do anything right.'
Don't touch that you'll just break it"
Your so stupid. Why didn't you die at birth?
Your such a waist
Nobody loves me.
I am bullied so bad. I've been bullied since kindergarten.
I wish I was dead. But the family needs me to continue in hell.
I never told anyone. I kept it "his little secret"
I cant do anything right. I fail at everything. I'll never be anything.
I had dreams. they have all dried up and flown away.
I'm so fucking depressed.
I have no friends, the only time anyone pays attention to me is to bully me, beat me up, make fun of me.
I hate my life. Why can't anything good ever happen? This same feeling that I've been blamed for a horrible sin that I didn't commit has been there since first grade
Mom and Dad say that I'm evil and they wish I would die..
I hate my stepdad. He does horrible things to me, he beats me up constantly for no reason, He makes me sleep with his friends I'm only in fucking 6th grade, I know why he hates me...because I'm so stupid.