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Self-Injury AwarenessDo you know someone who does? There's a reasonable chance that the answer to one of these questions will be "yes". Self-injury (also called SI, self-harm, deliberate self-harm or DSH, self-mutilation, or cutting) is more common than most people think. If you are one of the estimate 1% of the population that self-harms, you most definitely are not alone. While there are extreme forms of self-injury, most self-injury is of a superficial or moderate nature. It involves deliberate physical harm to oneself without a conscious intent to commit suicide. Self-injury is deliberate. It does not include acts of self-harm that are done without intent to hurt oneself such as smoking, excessive drinking, or accidents. Self-injury involves physical harm to oneself. Typically, the skin is broken, such as when there is cutting with a knife, razor or other sharp instrument. Or, there is a bruise, such as when the person punches himself or herself. Or, there is a mark that lasts for more than an hour, such as burning which results in a blister. Self-injury does not involve a conscious intent to commit suicide. A lot of people believe that people who harm themselves are suicidal. According to MHF Briefing No. 2: Bristol Crisis Service - Training on Self Harm, research findings indicate that, for the women who were surveyed about self harm, it is about trying to cope with life on a daily basis rather than trying to commit suicide. According to Why do people deliberately injure themselves?, there is evidence that people who harm themselves do so because it quickly and dramatically calms the body when faced with strong emotions or overwhelming situations. For survivors of abuse, some possible motivations may also include continuing abusive patterns and punishing oneself for being "bad", an addiction to crisis behavior resulting from repeated traumatization as a child, escaping numbness (a common problem for survivors), or grounding in reality to ward off feelings of depersonalization or dissociation. Most people who self-harm are women who have been abused. However there are self-injurers who were never abused and there are men who self-harm. There are also a lot of women and a lot of survivors of abuse who never self-harm. Being a woman who was abused does not necessarily mean you will harm yourself. According to Diagnoses associated with self-injury, self-harm is seen in a number of psychological disorders including Borderline Personality Disorder, Eating Disorders, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Dissociative Disorders, and Anxiety and/or Panic. Self-injury is often misunderstood. Self-injurers trying to seek medical or mental health treatment frequently report being treated badly by emergency room doctors and nurses, counselors, police officers and others. To dispel the myths associated with self-injury and help professionals learn how to appropriately respond to self-injury, Self-Injury: Help, Outreach, and Public Education (Self-Injury: HOPE) has designated March 1st as National Self-Injury Awareness Day. On this date, people whose lives have been affected by self-injury will distribute information to medical and mental health organizations and professionals. The goal is to dispel common misconceptions about self-injury and increase awareness. Readers who want to help are invited to send a letter to mayors, governors and the like asking that they proclaim March 1st to be Self-Injury Awareness Day and include Self-Injury: Beyond the Myths and the SI Bill of Rights with the request.
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