Self Injury Awareness Day
March first is known to many as a day to recognize self-injury and for some it is a day to try and dispel the stigmas and misconceptions associated with an issue that is becoming increasingly prevalent in modern society. These misconceptions often lead to hate and fear towards those who use it as means for coping with life.
Self-harm is the attempt to alter the mental state of oneself through means of inflicting physical harm serious enough to damage body tissue and leave marks that do not disappear within several hours time. It is utilized by people from all backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. In America more than 2.8% percent of the population admits to self injuring.1 Usually it is done to provide relief when the amount of emotional strain becomes to great or to escape from a feeling of numbness or unreality.
The most widely spread misconception is that self-injury is related to or is a sign of a failed suicide attempt. In numerous studies this has been shown to be untrue in that the act of injuring oneself commonly stems from either the attempt to be able to “feel something” or deal with events that are unable to be coped with through alternative means. The next is that the injury is done with the intent to seek attention. While this is sometimes the case it is much more rarely so than is thought. On average, those who self injure take great lengths to avoid revealing their scars through practices such as continual wearing of long sleeves during summer time.
The stigmas attached to this issue extend so far as even hospitals. It is sometimes necessary for a person to seek medical treatment due to complications from injuries, such as cuts and burns, though often in Emergency Rooms these people are met with disgust or prejudice by the medical staff. There are a myriad of documented cases of doctors not only being verbally demeaning but also refusing to provide the patient with treatment without a promise that the behavior will stop immediately or not providing them with local anesthetics when stitches are required. This sort of mistreatment has led to the creation of the Self Injurer’s Bill of Rights in a way to try and promote equal treatment for all people seeking medical care.
With self-injury becoming increasingly prevalent in society it is important to dispel misconceptions and help aid those who harm themselves instead of the continual ostracization that has been commonplace in the past. Through knowledge and understanding the maltreatment and stigmas can be overcome to help aid those that are in need, but for now have to hide away their actions under long sleeves and excuses.
<sup1 Marilee Strong, A Bright Red Scream: Self-Mutilation and the Language of Pain (New York: Penguin, 1998), 25.
2 http://www.palace.net/~llama/psych/brights.html
Mr. Cynic
That’s a well written article. Hopefully if will go some way to dispel the fear and stigma surrounding this issue for the people who read your school paper.
Take care,
Differently
I posted a link to this post in my blog entry about SIAD
http://bpdokc.blogspot.com/2009/03/today-is-self-injury-awareness-day.html
@DifferentlySane:Thank you, my hope with the slowly expanding post count on this issue is to help someone better understand the issue better. I am sure you shall hear from me in the future
@BPD:Thank you for the link, the more exposure the better for this issue, in my opinion.
–Mr. Cynic
I can’t figure out this post…are you condoning this behaviour? That is not healthy by any means.
I am not condoning this behavior, though I am not condemning it either. The problem is that it is often mistreated and has a cultural stigma surrounding it causing abuse to befall people who engage in self-injury. I am far from saying “self-injury is great, you should try it”, because it…well it isn’t, I have had to watch as it ruins lives and harms not only people I care about, but then others around them as well. The goal of this post is to try and propagate the fact that self-injury is not a suicide attempt, it is not psychosis, it is not usually a cry for attention. I am trying to show that it is a crude method to cope with life and people should not be ostracized from society because of it. People should also not have their rights stripped from them or maltreated by hospitals when they go to seek aid. Right now the world is a place that makes it nearly impossible for people with this “unhealthy behavior” to try and seek help for when they do they often are met with ignorance and contempt…I hope that clears things up a bit, but if not feel free to ask further questions.
When we talk about our personal experiences with self-harm publicly, there’s bound to be at least one person who’s naive enough to think we’re condoning it.
Self-harm isn’t a suicide attempt, but the majority of people don’t get that and they refuse to accept that. People don’t want to accept that someone would cut themselves to deal with problems.
It’s an addiction like alcoholism. If I talk about how I struggle with alcoholism every day of my life, I’m not telling someone to go out and become an alcoholic. It’s all the same kind of deal.