Self Harm Research Paper

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Recommended: Effects Of Social Media On Teenagers

The topics of depression, anxiety, and self harm are not new topics to today's society but what is new is the ignorance of the teenagers and children to how harmful these things can be. All over social media, depressed people are seen by many as beautiful boys and girls crying into their sweaters or drinking tea as they look out a window. Those with anxiety are “saved” by a special person who can calm them and panic attacks are cute, not the terrifying state that those attacks are. Self harm is known as “art” and is beautiful. Those who self harm or commit suicide are angels that just want to go home. Despite popular belief, none of these things are true.
Many people are not aware that there are multiple forms of depression and anxiety. Clinical …show more content…

Many teens and even adults who have been diagnosed with depression also struggle with self harm. Self harm by definition is the act of purposely harming the outside of one’s own body by means such as cutting or burning oneself as a way of coping with intense negative feelings. The behavior is not meant be be suicidal but can lead to accidental suicide if the injury is severe. However, there are many teens and adults who do self harm but are not depressed or have any mental illness. Instead they see self harm as a form of art. As stated in the article “Non-suicidal self-injury v. attempted suicide,”
“Recent developments in terminology have occurred in the context of a growing recognition that … young people in particular, were injuring themselves but did not meet the criteria for borderline personality disorder or psychiatric illness” (Kapur et …show more content…

There are also thousand upon thousands of pictures of blood stained tears or scarred wrists and legs with captions stating that self harm is beautiful art. One picture of a cartoon drawing of a cut wrist says, “Her eyes ran out of tears to shed, so she made her skin cry instead” (Appendix D). Whoever wrote this completely missed the point behind self harm. It is actually a coping skill, but a negative one (drinking and smoking are also negative coping skills).The biggest misconception with self harm is that it is meant to kill you. This is not true. Based on a study in England in 2013, out of 1,234 patients hospitalized for self harm, 75% of them claimed to not have suicidal thoughts. Out of this 75%, only 24% were previously or at this point were diagnosed with a form of mental illness. This would mean that 51% of patients were mentally stable. One of these patients even admitted that he wanted to feel special, stating, “...it was definitely more a cry for attention really. I saw others do it and thought, ‘Why not me?’” (Kapur et

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