| Self Harm
Posted: 2/8/2008 10:58:12 AM | No one would feel happy to know someone feels so low that they harm themselves.....people hurt by others is bad enougth but people hurting themselves is clearly upsetting
10/10 .. so why attack those that are brave enough to contribute an honest answer..
No-one knows what makes another be what they are, but to judge and to answer in such away seems to me to be a rather sadistic trait to ones nature..
There are many things that we do not understand about other's behaviour, listening to the experiences of those that are going through this particular point of debate is an education, and should not be dismissed as self pity ..
You never stop learning, and knowledge provides an understanding, although not necessarily an agreement, of said actions..
Edit............................
You wouldnt ask a person on the verge of suicide to list all the things they want to live for...........
Wrong so wrong ..
Actually that is exactly what is done..
It puts things and situations for the VICTIM into perspective, thus leading to a far more rationalised way of thought ..
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| Self Harm
Posted: 2/8/2008 11:15:20 AM |
You wouldnt ask a person on the verge of suicide to list all the things they want to live for
I'm suprised...... no really... i am.
because thats exactly what the treatment is in "some" cases.
nor would you ask a person with the so called multiple personality disorder which was their favourite colour...
why not? it may change from day to day but they would pick one.
another one for you....... definition of a psychopath. someone who is self opinionated and self prasing. text from a psychology book.
in the The Mask of Sanity Cleckley introduced behavioral characteristics of a psychopath that he derived from clinical interviews and other corroborating sources.[5]
Superficial charm and good intelligence
Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking
Unreliability
Untruthfulness and insincerity
Lack of remorse and shame
Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience
Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love
General poverty in major affective reactions
Specific loss of insight
Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations
Fantastic and uninviting behavior with drink and sometimes without
Suicide rarely carried out
Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated
Failure to follow any life plan
normal is with the majority of people who either abuse themselves or dont..
a little bit of history for you......
are you left handed? i am, in my early school years i was branded abnormal. because confrmity was the in thing. its been seen since that left handed people are possibly more intelligent because they use the right side(logic) side of the brain.
another bit......
do you masturbate? well in times gone by masturbation was seen as self abuse.
as for the rest..... all i can say really as a qualified person. you want other people to conform to YOUR normalcy. isn't that a little ummmm..... weird?
shouldn't people just be allowed to "be"? otherwise we'd all be selfish arrogant pigs and think that we're the only person on this planet that matters.
you can (believe it or not) push people over the edge on matters such as this with the words you've used.
would you desire that on your conscience? | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 2/8/2008 11:39:58 AM | My understanding of self harm (and I am not a self harmer) and I am certainly no expert, is that when there is an overload of pressure due to problems at the time … the mind needs some form of release.
For example … why do men or women put their fist through a door or throw a dish or two at the wall. It’s their way of coping !! Temper yes, but still a form of release.
Maybe self harmers are blaming THEMSELVES for the problems in the present, probably because of the abuse that has happened in the past.
In the past they always thought, (or were conditioned into thinking) that it was all their fault and so they HAVE to be punished. Take away the abuser … the punishment still has to happen.
It’s not easy to get away from that kind of conditioning.
Am I wrong ? | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 2/8/2008 12:20:49 PM | | its a physical expression of emotional pain basically | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 2/8/2008 12:37:29 PM |
Dont rise to it Leigh :(
Some people are very ignorant about things they don't understand.
cough cough... do I have to??? ok.... am doing as I am told... BUT.... shyte... no do as your told leigh..... Frankie.... leave it now... you have no idea.... but hay.... Leigh..... ignore it.. .hard but yeap ... the best advise...
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| Self Harm
Posted: 2/9/2008 2:38:48 AM | Judging from the reports I type at work for the Psychologists, I would say most people do it for a release from problems. For some it has been for punishment to themself for something they feel they are responsible for and for others it has been pressure that has built up that only when they have cut or hurt themself they can feel it is lifted.
Everyone has ways of coping with things. It doesn't make someone a 'bad' person, it is just about how they can cope.
I am not a self harmer but I can only imagine what pain and build up of problems can make people feel like doing.
I don't believe anyone has the right to judge how anyone else can be feeling and what they need to do to feel better in themselves. | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 2/9/2008 3:33:19 AM | I've met 2 types of self harmers - both young females.
One was a highly intelligent girl who worked in our shop on Saturdays. She was a straight A's student and appearance-wise, quite odd to look at ( this bit has relevance). She was into heavy metal and grungey clothing and had friends of that 'ilk'. I can't remember how it came about that she showed me her stomach one day in the staff room. She was quite irritated, so I took her to the staff room to find out what was wrong. She lifted her shirt, suddenly and said ' what do you think about that then?... she had countless lacerations across her stomach !.
I asked her why she'd done it and all she could say, with anger, was ' well you'd do something like that if you'd had a dad like mine' . I asked if she meant her step-dad, but she said no, her real dad had had sex with her from the age of 4 years. She was 16 when she told me this, and deeply 'disturbed' . Over the following few weeks she became more argumentative and stroppy in the shop until she handed her notice in and last I heard she was off to Uni.
The other girl was a 'service user' in my care ( I've mentioned her in previous threads). She had behaviour problems, a degree of learning disability ( never defined ) and a shocking family history ( raised by utterly moronic parents and witnessing all manner of inhuman behaviour). She was sharp and canny, but got things out of context. She was jealous of attention I gave other service users and latched on to me as a surrugate mother. What she didn't do to gain attention !. Shortly before they transferred her away from our unit she once agian pretended she'd taken an overdose, so they put her in hospital for a few weeks. When she came back she'd learned a new 'skill' : self harming.
She called me up to her room one day and put on a humble expression. I asked her what was wrong, so she proudly pushed her sleeves up and showed me about 100 tiny scratches from the tops of her arms to the wrists. The bleeding was minimal but hell, so many lacerations must have been an agony !
Who can say which of these girls were hurting themselves for gain or pain?
Self-harming is an emotion I can't identify with, BUT, because I can't, doesn't mean to say that the people who do feel the need to 'exorcise internal emotional pain' but physically causing themselves to lose blood aren't of lesser value than those who choose to block out pain by drug or food or alcohol abuse.
I'm far too chicken to hurt myself ( and believe me, I've been through some traumatic experiences which could have - should have - pushed me over the edge) and I don't know what my 'coping mechanism' is ..... but for many, 'self-abuse' is the only release from pain that they have.
The human mind eh?  | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 2/9/2008 4:34:30 AM | | Nobody who self harms is crazy. This is a way to release tension, frustration, anger, anxiety, etc. Sure there are other ways to release these feelings (some turn to drink and alcohol, otheres turn to food). But this is also an expression of how someone is hurting inside and by cutting themselves they feel relieved from all of their negative feelings. Some self harmers even find it therapeutic. | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 2/11/2008 2:21:20 AM | MSG 51, i actually feel sorry for you, you have closed your mind. try opening it and you will find all the more joy and understanding out of life!
Mind you this could be your way of coping and who can blame you for it is a cruel world after all!
Lets look at it like this, it appears from your post that you generalise self harmers as people who "cut" themselves or inflict physical pain upon thier bodies.
This just accounts for a small proportion of the extent of the self harming human emotion!
Self harming can be something as little as being to hard on yourself, continuing to be unhealthy, over eating, inability to let go of emotions, continuing in a unhealthy relationship.
They are all dealt with the same way. It is the inability to see ones own self worth. | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 2/11/2008 3:09:34 AM | Well I agree with Steph, most of the self harming people I find are those with troubled, disfunctional lives.
People self harm for different reasons, control, attention, self hate, relief....
At the end of the day, someone who self harms, is someone with issues that need to be sorted, just like drug users and alcoholics.
Its a little infantile to assume we should all deal with life's trauma's in the same way. | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 2/12/2008 3:53:21 PM | clearly the majority of the population dont self harm...so therefor and its quite clear, those that do abuse themselves through self harming are not normal...they are abnormal
Err, which planet do you live on? I would say that the majority of the population self harm in some way or another, be it through excessive/binge drinking, over or undereating, drug misuse, smoking, the list goes on and on, we all do what ever works for us to get us through life | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 2/13/2008 1:06:33 AM | "It's a medical condition for sure but im not sure its depression orientated"
^^ well most of the people I come across all suffer with a kind of depression.
"In my experience it isnt anything to do with hate or even wanting to feel hate - its about escapism"
^^^ not all self harmer's do it for the same reason, so you cant really say this^^^ | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 6/2/2009 2:26:53 PM | Self harm as attention seeking is such a boring statement. I have self harmed since my teenage years, feelings of unreality, frustration and self loathing usually set me off. My scars are hidden and there are no more than 2 people in the world that know about them, so attention seeking? I don't think so...
I am ashamed of my scars and would never think of entering another relationship mostly because of them. How hard is it to explain that you are mildly normal even though you have deep cuts to your upper arms and shoulders!!!
I know it's a bit weird to cut yourself but as someone already said, it's just like going out when you are pissed off and drinking til you throw up. | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 6/2/2009 2:57:56 PM | | Im probably one of the best people to talk to about this subject and its very close to my heart. For a start its not attention seeking, so unless youve ever done it and have full on knowledge on the subject shut your mouths. Its pretty much about self loathing and you carry on the abuse to live a life of ignorant bigots over scars. I got sexually abused by 3 different people over 8 years from aged 4 to 12. It send me fecking mental when I fancied girls at school and the hate for myself was intense, so I self harmed. Men will never admit that they were abused, but believe me im better for being open than rotting. | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 6/2/2009 3:12:20 PM | I self harm sometimes without realising it - my nipple clamps are sometimes a little tight.
I don't understand this but will do soon as I'm going on a self-harm course so will be much more enlightened then.
I agree with GC perhaps its like when we get angry, sad or tense some of us eat, some of us become violent, some of us withdraw, some of us drink or take drugs, some of us scream and cry and for self harmers this is their way of letting out their rage. I don't know but I imagine that could be a bit of the story. | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 6/2/2009 3:13:24 PM | How can you teach people to be good parents if they will not be taught. Most spent x years in one of the best education systems in the world and came out without any qualifications and/or a bad attitude.
They wont be listening to anyone... | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 6/3/2009 6:51:09 PM | i dont think there is a general answer. each self-harmer has their own story and their own reasons, and gets something different from it.
i agree with a previous comment that self harm manifests its self in many ways. such as people who destroy every relationship by cheating. people who eat and eat even though they hate being fat. people who drink them selves to sleep everynight. all these can be a manifestation of self-harm tendancies.
for me, when i was younger, i cut my self so that i could block out emotions that i couln't cope with at the time. the physical pain was easyer than the pain i felt inside. also, i chose the physical pain so it gave me a feeling of having control, compared not having control over my emotions. | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 6/4/2009 4:10:36 AM | | 9 pm BBC2 - 04.06.09 - programme about self-harm if anyone would like to educate themselves further on the topic. | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 6/4/2009 6:15:47 AM | | Theres alot of reasons why self harm comes about. They are definatly not crazy and it does not mean they necesarrily they want to want to die . I'd also suggest almost everyone knows a self harmer... there are alot of different ways to mutilate yourself...some even acepted sociatal forms of behaviour. I know several self harmers and i don't judge them based on this..as it's often a very small part of who they. | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 6/4/2009 7:28:36 AM | i personally have self harmed, at the time i was in a very fragile state of mind, through bullying, harrasment from people and other personal problems. to me the reason i self harmed was to see if i could still feel anything, im not sure if that go's for other people who have but thats how it was for me. and no befor anyone thinks it im not askin 4 attention lol, ive got passed those days and moved on with my life. it was a very hard thing to get over, it mainly comes down to self confidence and self value, if you dont think highly of yourself and dont have much confidence it easily leads to depression and ofcourse self harming.
i have had quite a few friends who have been through the same things and as ive been through the same thing i can see where they are coming from and i find it easier to help them through it.
the best way to cope and help someone through it is to try to boost their confidence, show them how much they are loved (family, friends things like that) and sometimes it can just be as much as sitting down with them and listening to their problems, as once its out in the open people find it easier to deal with it, spesh if u can give good advice and help them to move on.
hope my experiences and views were helpful :) | |
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| Self Harm
Posted: 6/4/2009 8:12:21 AM | lets face it self harming is a worrying and disturbing practice very hard for me to comprehend its benefits and not something ive felt compelled to try...
I have however come in close contact with harming my closest friend self harmed and has now taken his own life I tried to understand and empathise but unless your the one going through it you cant feel all someone elses emotions....Before you conjure up an image of a pale self harming manic depressive he was miles from that ....he was a legend amongst his peers and a recognised professional in his career Giant of a man and still the funniest human being i have met or probably will meet.....
I miss him every day but comfort myself with the knowledge he must of hated this life so bad to wanna take himself out of it so brutally....if someone close to you is harming depressed or just down on life , do what you can for them listen and act .....If its not in you to acknowledge or help out question your humanitarian side .... | |
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