What is self-harm?
Self-harming is also known as self-injury or self-mutilation. It’s one way teenagers cope with really overwhelming feelings, such as sadness, worry and anger. Some ways that teenagers might harm themselves on purpose include:
- Scratching or cutting their skin
- Burning themselves
- Hitting parts of their body, bruising themselves, punching walls
- Pulling hair
- Picking skin
Are a lot of people affected by self-harm?
Yes, it is a lot more common than people think. However, it’s really hard to know exactly how many teenagers self-harm because, first of all, self-harm is often a secret problem. Many teenagers who hurt themselves do it in private for a long time before letting anyone know about it. Secondly, sometimes when people do seek help, the self-harm is seen as a suicide attempt, which it is not.
What causes teenagers to deliberately hurt themselves?
There are lots of reasons why a person might hurt themselves:
- To distract themselves from emotional pain
- To release tension or angry feelings
- To feel “real”
- To stop lashing out at others
- To stop a panic attack
- Self hatred
- To escape problems
People don’t usually self- harm to kill themselves. Most people who self-harm see it as a way of coping with intense emotional pain. Sometimes, people don’t even know why they do it. But usually, if they talk to someone, they can start to figure it out.
Why would someone want to stop self-harming.
Even though self-harming can be a way to deal with stress, it can have a lot of negative consequences, too. Here a just a few reasons why teenagers might want to stop self-harming:
- They might accidentally kill themselves (accidental death is actually very common among people who self-harm).
- They might be afraid the self-harm is escalating and getting out of their control. Even if they want to stop, they may no be able to stop.
- They might get ugly scars, which means they can’t wear certain clothes or go swimming without people staring.
- Their friends and family get really upset or angry or worried about them.
- As long as they use self-harm as a coping mechanism, they will never learn how to cope with problems in a healthy way.
When self-harm becomes a way of coping, it is a sure sign that problems need sorting out. Help or support might be needed from family or friends or someone outside your circle.
The important thing to remember is that it is not your fault and you can do something about it.
So, what can you do if you have a problem with self-harm?
If you self-harm and are worried about how it is affecting your life, you might be thinking about changing your self-harm behavior. Stopping self-harm is a lot easier if you can come up with other ways of coping. So it’s important to figure out ahead of time what helps you cope when you feel stressed out or upset. Some things might be:
- Talking to a friend or a family member
- Writing in a diary or writing poetry
- Art, drawing, painting
- Listening to music
- Playing with a pet
- Watching TV, videos, movies
- Cooking food
- Exercising, going for a walk, swimming
But sometimes, no matter how hard you try to stop hurting yourself, you can’t. If that’s how you feel, it probably means you need to talk to someone. This needs to be someone whom you trust and who will listen to you, and lets you talk about how you feel. It’s great if your friends are supportive, but this can be quite overwhelming for them to manage all on their own. Remember, the first person you talk to might not be able to help. It’s not their fault - or yours - self-harm can be a difficult thing to understand. Don’t give up. There will be someone who will understand and be able to help, so, try again.
If you feel there is nobody you can trust at the moment, you can call the Teen Link telephone helpline. Teen Link is a program of the Crisis Center. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who doesn't know you and is trained to help.
