What is your view on self-harming?

[Irako of the Desert]

Try watching the film Archie's Final Project and see what new thoughts pop up.  

[bandaidd]

Wow. A lot of you have no idea what self-injurer's actually have gone through. Perhaps you would be a little more compassionate.
Sure, some are just emo and attention whores, just like some panhandlers have plenty of money and are just asking for pity money and living off the charity of others. Does that mean it's wrong and stupid to give them money/compassion? Of course not.
The psychology behind self-mutilation is generally that the child is abused and in horrible ways before the age of 2, when they can't understand anything except they are being hurt.
They often aren't fed or dressed or changed or even held like you were and don't know what it is like to be loved. They grow up feeling somehow unloveable and this creates a psychic pain that is so intense as to be unbearable. For some the only relief from the pain is physical pain, i.e. cutting.
Of course that sounds sick and wrong to you and me who have never felt like that and have grown up with people who care enough to teach us that we should avoid pain. We hate getting hurt and seldom have to endure pain, so that even a sore throat makes us completely miserable.... so miserable that some of us are idiots enough to stop drinking just to avoid the pain of swallowing with a sore throat, which by the way can endanger your life. I have had patients end up in comas that way.
I am familiar with the bible and christian teachings which tell people to take care of their bodies, but wouldn't a followers of Jesus or Buddha or Krishna or Brahma or Avalokitesvara or the Goddess have a lot more compassion on those who resort to extreme measures to escape extreme pain than I have seen in this thread?  

[angelfromdown-under]

Ugh i HATE people that generalize self-harm as "emos" and "attention seekers" or "cutters"
Self harming is NOT just cutting. Self harm can be something as simple as binge drinking/drug abuse, to pinching yourself/hitting walls, to anorexia/bulimia , to suicide and everything in between.

I self harmed for a good 3 years through high school (and i now have to live with the consequences years later.)
For me personally, it was a coping mechanism...my entire life was spinning out of control (details don't matter), that...that was the ONE thing i could control...

I decided how much pain to inflict. It was MY choice to go and get blind drunk so i didn't have to remember or think about how s**t my life was...about just how much i didn't want to be at home...to keep myself away from home and my family...

But you are right in one respect. You can't stop someone from self harming short of institutionalizing them (and even that doesn't work most of the time.)

THEY need to want to stop. THEY need to be in the right mind frame to accept help. YOU can't do it for them.  

[Lady Kira X]

Irako of the Desert

Try watching the film Archie's Final Project and see what new thoughts pop up.

Such a strange movie.  

[death on dark wings]

it's very hard to give up once you start  

[moyduruh]

I've self-harmed and I think it was one of the dumbest things I've done. I don't want to come off as insensitive to others that do this but there are better ways of dealing with your problems. I understand social anxiety and the feel of isolation. I also know what it's like to be victimized and to suffer from severe depression but self-harming is just counter productive in many ways. I came out of depression through other means and I'm sure others can too. It's initially thought to be a way of relief but I feel like that outer influence has a larger role of influencing a victim of self-harm to think it's an actual coping mechanism. They're psyche is then altered into thinking it's justified and reasonable but in reality, it's not.

Off-note: I self-harmed in HS.
We all know how retarded HS can be and how confusing it is for us when we're teens. It just has to do with being naive at that point in time. I think that's the time we're very vulnerable to such things.