Bringing Awareness to Self-injury in the Month of March
The month of March is self-injury awareness month. While this topic can be a very sensitive one to discuss, it is still a very important one. If you may be triggered by the discussion of self-injury, you are more than welcome to stop here and skip reading the rest of this post.
Self-injury is clinically referred as Non-Suicidal Self Injury or NSSI. While self-injury is not typically a suicide attempt, it can increase the risk of suicide. Emotional distress can trigger self-injury due to the resulting endorphin rush when self-harming. Habitual self-injury during times of emotional distress can leave one more susceptible to suicide.
Self-injury vs Suicide:
Self-injury is the harming of one’s own body on purpose with no intentions of killing oneself
Suicide can be thoughts, intentions, plans, or actions/attempts to kill oneself
Why do people engage in self-injury?
There are many factors that can lead to self-injury. Most boil down to difficulty managing or expressing emotions and using self-injury as a coping skill. It is often used as a way to deal with psychological pain. Some examples of self-injury use include:
- Regulate emotions
- Express emotions
- Suppress emotions
- Distract from difficult emotions
- To feel something or anything
- To feel in control
- Manage or reduce distress
- To punish oneself for “faults”
Self-injury may be used as a way to externalize internal feelings. Individuals who may have difficulty expressing or sharing their emotions may even use self-injury as a way to visually show others their mental struggle.
Forms of Self-injury
Self-injury is typically done in private in a controlled space or manner. While arms, legs, and torso are common locations of self-injury, any area of the body can be subject to harm. Examples of self-injury include:
- Cutting
- Scratching
- Burning
- Carving
- Hitting
- Punching
- Head banging
- Piercing/inserting objects in or under the skin
- Excessive rubbing behaviors that create a burn
Signs of Self-injury
Since self-injury is typically performed in private or kept secret, it can be difficult to know when someone you know or love is self-harming. Some signs to watch for may include:
- Scars
- Frequent “accidental” injuries
- Fresh cuts or wounds
- Bruises
- Bite marks
- Excessive rubbing or scratching behaviors
- Keeping of sharp objects readily available
- Wearing long sleeves or pants even when it’s hot
- Statements of worthlessness or helplessness
- Difficulties with emotional or behavioral stability
Self-injury Prevention
Unfortunately, there is no full way to prevent self-injury. However, being aware and checking in on those who are having difficulties with mental health can help. While restoring health is a personal journey for every individual, it can be drastically influenced by the help of loved ones, mental health professionals or teams, and community.
Helping Someone Who Uses Self-injury
Showing your support for someone you love can be vital to their growth or healing. It is important to create a safe space, express your concerns or emotions with “I” statements, allow the individual to talk and express emotions, and encourage them to seek professional help or resources. Read more examples on how to help a loved one on my blog post, “How to Support Someone Who is Struggling with Mental Health”.
If you are aware that someone you know is using self-injury as a coping skill, you can reach out to the individual and ask if there is anything you can do to help encourage other more positive and safe coping skills. If you live in a shared space, you can discuss with the individual and/or their team about potentially removing certain triggers or self-harm objects from the environment.
It is important to know that individuals who self-harm can be creative with what objects they use to harm themselves or where they get them. It is also important to note that the individual may be resistant to change or help. Removing harmful objects or triggers takes away the control that the individual may feel they have with self-injury.
Including the individual on changes that may need to take place will help facilitate a more positive outcome. Inclusion can help reinforce relationships by showing that you care and are concerned for their well-being. It can also reinforce change by allowing the individual be an active role in their healing rather than feeling that things are being done for them. These decisions can be mentored or discussed with mental health professionals to aid in the conversation around those changes.
When to Seek External Help When it Comes to Self-injury
Self-injury should always be taken seriously. After any engagement of self-injury it is encouraged to seek a mental health professional or resource. One can also seek assistance from a nurse, counselor, teacher, doctor, or other health care provider.
If you or someone you know has become severely injured or in a life-threatening situation, call 911. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call the suicide and crisis lifeline at 988.
Raising awareness about self-injury is important to help break the stigma around all mental health. As a society, we easily recognize struggle and injury when it is physical, but we tend to ignore it or put it aside if it is mental. Creating discussions about mental health can help society to become more accepting, helpful, and healing towards those with mental health struggles. Discussions about mental health can potentially decrease feelings or need of physical injury to feel worth or seen. Mental health is health, and it matters.
No matter what you are going through or how you chose to deal with it, I am happy that you are still here. You matter. You are worthy. And I see you. Remember that I love you, and you should love you too.
Very insightful. Its hard to get older people to talk, freely, (as they have the mantra of keeping it secret ingrained ) so now I’ll go back to the other blog post ( supporting someone) for a re-read. Thanks Chels.