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i hate this:

A person who self-harms is likely to have gone through very difficult, painful experiences as a child or young adult. At the time, they probably had no one they could confide in, so didn't receive the support and the emotional outlet they needed to deal with it. The experience might have involved physical violence, emotional abuse, or sexual abuse. They might have been neglected, separated from someone they loved, been bullied, harassed, assaulted, isolated, put under intolerable pressure, made homeless, sent into care, into hospital or to other institutions.

Experiences like these erode self-esteem. Emotions that have no outlet may be buried and blocked completely out of awareness. If a trusted adult betrays or abuses them, and there are no other witnesses, children will often blame themselves. They turn their anger inwards. By the time they become adults, self-injury can be a way of expressing their pain, punishing themselves, and keeping memories at bay.

There is often an absence of pain during the act of self-injury, rather like the absence of sensation that often occurs during abuse or trauma. The body produces natural opiates, which numb it and mask the emotions, so that little is felt or realised consciously.

A badly traumatised person may end up feeling quite detached from their feelings and their body. Some may injure themselves to maintain that sense of being separate, and to convince themselves that they aren't vulnerable. Others may injure themselves in order to feel something and know that they are real and alive.

Healthcare professionals have been criticised for assuming that people who self-harm require no anaesthetic for stitching wounds. This is just one of the myths exploded in new guidelines on self-harm, developed by NICE (the National Institute for Clinical Excellence). Similarly, professionals sometimes make assumptions about why someone has injured themselves, particularly if they have done it before. But the meaning is different for each person, each time they self-harm. It is not a sign, in itself, that someone has a mental health problem. (See Useful organisations.)

- i self harm, and think about self harm, and none of this applies to me, i am so confused and hate myself, for being such a fuck up. Oct 17 6:11 AM MST