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Explaining self harm
Cause and effects of self hatred
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“To those on the outside looking in, slicing your own arm with a razor blade is the stuff of horror movies,” writes Michelle Galley in Student Self-Harm: Silent School Crisis. People that self harm do it to help ease the pain of all the bad things going on in their lives. But, why do people choose to hurt themselves? People who self harm are rarely just looking for attention, as many people seem to believe. Self harmers cut places on their bodies that no one will see such as their thighs, stomachs, ankles, and even the underside of their breasts. “…they may be more ashamed and disgusted by themselves,” Miller says in The Urge to Injure. Almost every person who self harms would be devastated if anyone ever found out the horrific things they are doing to themselves and would probably feel the urge to cut/harm themselves more out of guilt and self hatred. When someone gets an injury, their body releases endorphins with affects much like those of morphine. This is why self harm, in most cases, provides a form of pain relief. “You don’t feel like you’re hurting yourself when you’re cu...
First, some people harm themselves simply because they can. A friend of Callie’s, Amanda, cuts herself and said to Callie, “Listen, I don’t see how what I do is so different from people who get their tongues pierced. Or their lips. Or their ears, for Chrissakes. It’s my body” (McCormick 37). She doesn’t see the harm in hurting herself which is why teaching this book could tell teenagers that this isn’t the path to go down and that there are other alternatives. She thinks that this is normal and a way to cope with her problems on a day-to-day basis. Amanda is one of the 1,400 out of 100,000, and growing, people who admitted to self-injury (Kennedy). Secondly, some people self-injure to cope with their feelings and tensions. Callie explains to her therapist about her father’s job situation and said, “’Now he just sells to companies nearby.’ I don’t tell you [her therapist] about how it seems like all the companies nearby already have computers, that for a while he took people out hoping they’d become customers and that now he mostly just goes out. ‘He has to work a lot’” (McCormick 111). Callie explained how her fathers situation seemed to cause her a lot of stress and how she seemed worried for him. To add, “some reasons why teens self-injure include: release of tension and feeling overwhelmed” (Styer). This is a lesson that could be taught in
The main argument in this article is that there needs to be more ways to help people that are suicidal. The main point of this article is that they want to people to be more aware of how to help someone, and it is also full of information. The topics that are covered in the article are the issues at hand, the background with suicide in teens, and the next step that society needs to take. This article is about helping people that are suicidal and how to help them and let us know the next step that we need to take.
Self-harm is not a crazy, attention seeking, or shameful act. It only is a way of coping with stress and pressure in life that one has. To some people, it is a way to keep them living. They release their emotional pain by causing physical pain on their body. Kendra cuts to run away from her fear. Demi Lovato stopped eating and started cutting because she get judged on her appearance and weakness. However, self-harm is just a bandage to a wound that needs stitches. It may bring temporary relieve yet worse long term effects. Having wrong conceptions and making self-harm an embarrassing topic when discuss only push people in deeper pain. People deserve to feel better and they definitely can get there without hurting themselves.
Murphy, E., Kapur, N., Webb, R., & Cooper, J. (2011). Risk assessment following self-harm: comparison of mental health nurses and psychiatrists. Journal Of Advanced Nursing, 67(1), 127-139. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2648.2010.05484.x
Most often, the cause of people self harming is depression, PTSD, or other serious medical conditions. These people feel like they are going nowhere in life and that they cannot find any relief, so they cut themselves. Cutting may seem pointless to some, but to these people who self harm, its not, its what keeps them alive. They are addicted to it, and without it, they don't feel any relief.... ...
Self-injury is a term which describes a variety of behaviours in which there are two critical elements: the damage is acute and the damage is intentional. Self injury is generally an unhealthy effort to cope with overwhelming emotions, such as intense anger, rage, terror or shame. There is often a distinction made by psychiatrists between attempted suicide and self-injury as these acts are most often done without suicidal intent. The damage caused is generally severe enough to leave a bruise, scar or other mark, or cause health issues.
So begin the episodes of anguished soul-searching, of horrific "if-onlys" experienced by the family members of countless suicides. Anyone who has faced what Mr. and Mrs. A now grapple with knows that the girl is wrong: they will not be better off, not feel happier, without her. Yet each year, thousands of suicide victims express similar convictions: I am killing myself, they reassure us, for your own good. This thinking – this appeal for selflessness that our society cannot condone – where does it come from? Why, in truth, do people kill themselves?
It can often be used as a distraction from emotional distress and a way to release feelings the person has help in for so long. They often feel relief and a sense of calmness after performing the act. This is known as cutting or self-mutilation. Some forms of self-mutilation are cutting, burning, hair-pulling, pinching, scratching, picking at scars, and head-banging. People who self-mutilate often have a history of abuse, whether it be sexual, emotional, or physical. Self-mutilation often piggy backs onto other mental health problems such as eating disorders, substance abuse, schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and many other mental illnesses. Most people who self-harm often have low self-esteem and are perfectionists. They are often very impulsive and have poor problem-solving
My purpose for writing this essay has been to examine the standard approaches to understanding self-injury and then apply a semiotic approach to the self-injury. The teenagers that I give as examples are individuals whose behavior has defied explanation and treatment through the conventional means. I find some freedom and hope in viewing their behaviors as being more symbolic.
Self-harm, or self-mutilation, is the intentional action of harming oneself, generally without the intent to kill. It is estimated that over two million people self-harm in the United States alone (Pomere). When involved with depression, self-harm is generally used as a method of coping with stress and various feelings that they may be having. If depression manifests with feelings of inadequacies, one could feel like they deserve to be injured (Bartha). Over time, the act of self-injury could become an addiction. It could become an obsession (Pomere).
This occurs because when you are in this sense of fake security you are releasing endogenous opiates which are our body’s natural pain killers.
The patient’s efforts to avoid abandonment may include the next criterion of participation in repetitive suicidal behaviors such as cutting or suicide threats. Self-mutilation, often being the reason ...
Self injury can take on many forms ranging from the littlest and minor to the major and obscure. There are three categories for self injury: major self-injury, stereotyp...
Physical pain doesn’t have much of a trigger for a repeat, while emotional pain leaves numerous amounts of reminders and triggers. When we have a cut we apply medicine for it to feel better and help your body heal-(positive).As physical pain can also be used as a distraction from emotional pain. Some of you may know teens and or adults have used ‘cutting’ their skin with a sharp object causing physical pain, to distract the emotional pain. In the long run that’s not going to fix your problem-the pain can tend to get worse the more you decide not to deal with the issue. Emotional pain we do little to protect our self- esteem when it's low. A Lot of the time people do not use positive results for distraction in the long run. We’ve grown into a world where others begin to ignore the situation, smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and or use drugs. In the long run that’s not going to fix your problem-the pain can tend to get worse the more you decide not to deal with the issue. Positive ways to deal with emotional pain and or problems with the connection of physical pain would be- therapy, focusing on your strengths, apologizing and or forgiving yourself in times of guilt, and don’t forget to remind yourself that you are more aware of your mistakes than someone else
Committing suicide probably sounds like a foreign idea to most people, but to the people who think about it, they deal with it every day. More importantly, the question is what leads people to kill themselves? In general, most people do not want to actually kill themselves, even though many people joke about it on a daily basis. Being a human, we all have a certain amount of will to live. Depression is the major cause for suicidal thoughts and ideas. After a long enough period of time, people become worn down and become less and less happy.