Self-harm can be a way of dealing with deep distress and emotional pain. It may help you express feelings you can’t put into words, distract you from your life, or release emotional pain. Afterwards, you probably feel better—at least for a little while. But then the painful feelings return, and you feel the urge to hurt yourself again.
Self-harm includes anything you do to intentionally injure yourself. Some of the more common ways include:
Cutting or severely scratching your skin
Burning or scalding yourself
Hitting yourself or banging your head
Punching things or throwing your body against walls and hard objects
Sticking objects into your skin
Intentionally preventing wounds from healing
Swallowing poisonous substances or inappropriate objects
Self-harm can also include less obvious ways of hurting yourself or putting yourself in danger, such as driving recklessly, binge drinking, taking too many drugs, or having unsafe sex. Regardless of how you self-harm, injuring yourself is often the only way you know how to:
Cope with feelings like sadness, self-loathing, emptiness, guilt, and rage
Express feelings you can’t put into words or release the pain and tension you feel inside
Feel in control, relieve guilt, or punish yourself
Distract yourself from overwhelming emotions or difficult life circumstances
Make you feel alive, or simply feel something, instead of feeling numb
But it’s important to know that there is help available if you want to stop. You can learn other ways to cope with everything that’s going on inside without having to hurt yourself.
Relief from cutting or self-harm is short lived, and is quickly followed by other feelings like shame and guilt. Meanwhile, it keeps you from learning more effective strategies for feeling better.
Keeping the secret of self-harm is difficult and lonely. Maybe you feel ashamed or maybe you just think that no one would understand. But hiding who you are and what you feel is a heavy burden. Ultimately, the secrecy and guilt affects your relationships with friends and family members and how you feel about yourself.
You can hurt yourself badly, even if you don’t mean to. It’s easy to end up with an infected wound or misjudge the depth of a cut, especially if you’re also using drugs or alcohol.
You’re at risk for bigger problems down the line. If you don’t learn other ways to deal with emotional pain, you increase your risk of major depression, drug and alcohol addiction, and suicide.
Self-harm can become addictive. It may start off as an impulse or something you do to feel more in control, but soon it feels like the cutting or self-harming is controlling you. It often turns into a compulsive behavior that seems impossible to stop.
The bottom line is that cutting and self-harm won’t help you with the issues that made you want to hurt yourself in the first place. No matter how lonely, worthless, or trapped you may be feeling right now, there are many other, more effective ways to overcome the underlying issues that drive your self-harm.