As part of Her Campus Exeter’s Mental & Physical Health Awareness Campaign we will be exploring the dangers of Self-Harm. This campaign hopes to raise awareness of mental & physical illnesses within the student population and break the misconception that if you can’t see it then it’s not there.
The image of self-harm presented by the media is of miserable teenage girls slicing into their wrists in frustration and self-loathing. In most presentations of self-harm there is always blood and razors involved. But this does not demonstrate the whole picture of self-harm. Self-harm goes beyond cutting and burning yourself. It is usually caused due to self-loathing, anxiety, depression and the need for the individual to express their internal pain. It is not for attention (although it can sometimes be a cry for help) it is about individually expressing and trying to ‘mute’ the pain in one’s head.
Self-harm is also more complex than simply cutting yourself. I have seen it being refusing to shower for days on end, by not eating, by eating until you are sick, by obsessively exercising or by simply punishing yourself. Others do cut themselves, burn or scratch at their skin until it bleeds. But all self-harm is as severe as others. Yes, cutting yourself has severe long term impacts and can result in over-bleeding, cutting an artery and even death but all self-harm is severe and negative.
Many forms of self-harm also have social impacts. You cannot hide the scars and you cannot hide the lack of sleep or showering. The short term release you might think you get once you find a way of expressing your mental pain through cutting turns into long term agony of having the scars. Every time I see my scars I remember the terrible state I was in. Although I am now able to wear short sleeves, the scars on my thighs and legs will probably never heal. No bikini modelling for me. I am not ashamed of the scars, they are a part of me and a representation of what I have been through. For many, however, the scars cause severe social problems such as having to wear uncomfortably long clothing all year around.
The main misconception about self-harm is that it automatically leads to suicidal attempts. Self-harm can occur for many reasons and is not always about wanting to die or being unable to live. It is mostly about not being able to cope and needing to find a way to ‘help’ you manage with the emotions.
However, self-harm does not solve anything. Slicing yourself or hurting yourself in any form does not change the mental anguish in your head, and it does not change your mental illness. It is not a cure and it never ever is a solution. The people that self-harm also often become very addicted to it. There were times I did not get through a day without expressing self-harming tendencies because I thought it helped me cope.
Now I realise that that was my mental illnesses talking and in reality all the self-harm did was physically hurt me as I failed to lessen the mental anguish.
The stigma of people who self-harming as crying for attention is also severely inaccurate. The thousands of girls who posted pictures of themselves cutting themselves with the hashtag ‘#cutforzayn’ after the One Direction breakup added to the stigma and misconception of self-harming being about crying for help and attention. This is not the case, it is an isolating and lonely secretive act. I would hurt myself alone at night in my room and feared people discovering my ‘secret’. However, when my parents noticed the blood from the cuts one day they finally saw the physical representation of my mental pain and this meant they would see how much I was struggling so were able to support me until I was able to stop the harming.
If you have any self-harming tendencies – from not letting yourself sleep to not letting you shower – then you must seek help. Humans are not supposed to hate themselves and self-destruct and self-harming never solved anything for anyone.
So next time you see someone pulling down their sleeves to hide their cuts. Do not judge them, smile at them and try to acknowledge that their self-loathing and punishment is not for attention but is about them trying to find a way to survive.
If you want to find out more about self-harm please visit these sites: