People have different ways of coping with strong feelings and emotional pain. Some use diversion tactics, relaxation techniques, medications, drugs, alcohol, or physical activity. Other people deal with emotional pain by inflicting harm and pain on themselves. The act of harming one’s own body is called self-injury. The reasons for self-injury are varied. I have listed eight common reasons that lead people to resort to self-injurious practices.
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People injure themselves to escape from feelings of numbness. They want to feel something, anything, so they inflict physical pain on themselves. The pain reminds them that they are still alive despite the absence of emotion and any sort of sensation.
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Some people ease their tension and stress through exercise, food, or sleep. But some people choose to injure themselves to ease the tension, anxiety and stress that they feel inside. The feeling of physical pain and sometimes the sight of blood can be cathartic to these people.
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Instead of taking out their anger on other people, people who self-injure turn their anger on themselves. Self-injury becomes a way of venting anger, self-loathing, and even guilt. The negative emotions that make their hearts and souls weary are released with the infliction of pain.
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For some people, self-injury becomes a way of expressing their emotional pain. Even if they don’t choose to let other people see, they, themselves can still see the wounds. The wounds and scars serve as a reminder of their inner pain. Self-injury for them is like writing for other people.
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Many people use self-injurious rituals to cope with the overwhelming emotional pain. They can easily wrap their heads around something as concrete and visible as physical pain. This is better than trying to deal with the abstract and sometimes unidentifiable negative emotions they feel.
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Self-injurers use physical pain to punish themselves. They feel like deserve punishment for feeling certain emotions, for doing some things, for acting a certain ways, and for wanting stuff. They can even punish themselves for just being themselves.
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Many self-injurers feel like they have no control over their emotions and their lives. So they turn to their rituals to establish control even just over their physical bodies. This mentality is similar to those of people with eating disorders.
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Believe it or not, but self-injury can actually cause some people to feel euphoric. There is a sense of short-lived relief and happiness that can be likened to the high that drug users get. Many people get hooked on this feeling and it can be hard for them to stop hurting themselves.
Self-injury is more than just a mere act of drawing blood and eliciting physical pain. It is not something that “emo kids” do as part of their culture. Self-injury is an actual coping mechanism, albeit dangerous, that people use to deal with depression, self-loathing, anger, shame, guilt, and other painful emotions. The act of harming themselves is a cry for help and not a conscious suicide attempt. People who self-injure are not pathetic or psychotic; they are not attention-whores. We need to spread the right information about the causes for self-injury so we can help those who suffer from overwhelming pain.
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