Why do people self-harm?
Why do people self-harm?
I don't really understand why people do it. Not like "they're doing it because they are depressed and feel bad", I had depression myself but never had a call to injure myself. I hate pain, and doing something painful to myself while I'm already feeling bad doesn't really sound appealing. So I don't quite get what self-harm gives people so they keep doing it.
Like, is it a way to "ground" yourself and stop dissociating, or is it "just to feel anything at all", or as a "punishment", or something else?
From a medical point of view, self-harming, or "cutting", releases endorphins. It can be a very powerful and addictive habit that is hard to break.
yep. i practiced self-harming as a teen.
it felt good. it was a way to cope with extremely negative and suicidal emotions, vs drugs.
there isn't much more to it than that.
To quote Trent Reznor, "I hurt myself today to see if I still feel."
I don't do "typical" self-harm. When my depression really gets me in it's grips, I be fine myself banging my head against the wall.
When the internal pain gets so bad, the external pain can be a distraction from it.
One important thing to note is that for many it hurts a lot less than you'd think, basically feeling like a light scratch.
Wikipedia has more detailed information and sources:
Those who engage in self-harm face the contradictory reality of harming themselves while at the same time obtaining relief from this act. It may even be hard for some to actually initiate cutting, but they often do because they know the relief that will follow. For some self-harmers this relief is primarily psychological while for others this feeling of relief comes from the beta endorphins released in the brain.
Endorphins are endogenous opioids that are released in response to physical injury, acting as natural painkillers and inducing pleasant feelings, and in response to self-harm would act to reduce tension and emotional distress. Many self-harmers report feeling very little to no pain while self-harming and, for some, deliberate self-harm may become a means of seeking pleasure.
the reasoning varies from person to person but one thing it does do is make your body release dopamine which makes you feel good for a bit
A lot of reasons. Some include (but obviously are not limited to):
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To distract from severe emotional pain
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"Testing the waters" for suicide
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Out of curiosity
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To fit in with others
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For attention
I myself have never done this, but I used to know people that did. Typically people who don't do it for attention try to hide it and generally do a pretty good job at keeping it hidden. People that make it obvious generally are doing it for attention, or they are at such a desperate time in their life that they are screaming for help.
Mental issues are incredibly varied and widely misunderstood. Every human brain is different and thats why it is very difficult for even health experts to explain why they happen, or even to come up with an exhaustive, definitive list of reasons.
I'll add a variant on 1 & 2, to distract yourself from the suicidal ideation. Sometimes when you really want to unalive yourself, a little self harm scratches the itch without most of the consequences.
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For everyone it's different, for myself it started off as "I wonder what that would feel like". Obviously any mentally balanced person would never have that kind of thought occur, but it was curiosity that started it. Then I became more interested in the sensation and it almost started to become addictive.
So yes, I think the want to feel anything at all plays a big part for most people, and a lot do tend to find it addictive too.
I'm not sure you're going to find universal causes or justifications. It's been a few decades since I've fallen into those habits. For me, it was that my health really sucked and it was a way to exercise some minor control. I was in a fuckton of pain because I was sick and fuck me, right? But this pain right there? I chose that pain. That kind of stupidity. There's better ways to go about that than what I was doing.
For me a sharp pains snaps me out of a panic attack or spiral sometimes
No one has mentioned sensory overload, but it’s the main reason I see it.
Coping mechanics. It's a hard and fast distraction technique. It's grounding at its most base level. Feeling the skin rip stops some of the brains abilities to think.
Great weapon for keeping people alive.
Why not just Google the question
Why not just Google the question
To be fair, Googling anything relating to suicide or self-harm can be pretty tough unless you add the right terms to your search. If your search seems desperate, Google will flood you with self-help resources and suicide hotlines. But if your search is a bit more clinical, it can give you some very informative results.
For clarity I don't self harm but I've fought the urge to several times....
For me it's often immense frustration. It seems to be that most people take out their frustrations on the people around them. Not everyone is frustrated enough to, and not everyone does it, but there's a nontrivial number of people who take it out on whomever they can, IMO, this is what leads to things like physical and emotional abuse but spouses, in some cases. IMO, bluntly, if you take out your frustrations on those you supposedly love, then you're in desperate need of either therapy, or a percussive rearrangement of your neurons....
For me, I silo things. If I'm frustrated at a situation, then that's what I take things out on, if I'm frustrated at a person, that's where that frustration is focused. Only when I'm in the midst of incredible stress/burnout do any of these lines ever get crossed and it signals to me that I need to take some time to rest and recover.
However, even frustrations are happening quickly and intensely, I get the urge to harm something. If my mind is properly siloing my feelings as I've tried to do, and I'm not frustrated to the point of uncontrollable (or nearly uncontrollable) anger at a person, instead being frustrated by a situation or circumstance or thing.... Then either I beat the crap out of an inanimate object to release that tension, or..... Well.... Take it out on myself.
There's a line in an obscure episode of the TV show scrubs, where doctor Cox says to JD that sometimes JD makes him so angry he's afraid he might hurt himself.... When I first saw that, I didn't comprehend what he meant... After being out in the world as a working adult for as long as I have been since first hearing that line, I get it. Sometimes the frustration needs to vent off, in some way or another, and sometimes the machine (me) that holds the pressure of that frustration starts to get damaged from holding the pressure.
It's fairly rare for me, I'm usually very calm and disciplined. Though, when it happens, it can be very intense.
Everyone's reasons are different, these are mine. I'm almost never in a situation where I feel like self harm is a good idea or something I am compelled to do. For me it's simply the failed containment of extreme emotion.
i also have never really self harmed (sometimes i used to bite the flesh under my thumb really hard but otherwise nothing) but for me, it was to provide a distraction. it's difficult to think about everything else being shit when you're focused on physical pain.
I use to do it because I was so frustrated that I felt it was the only thing that I could use to channel that it was s boiling hate to my self hard to express in words, at that time I was hoping with some bad decisions that ruined my life and they have consecuences still to this day. I was heavily depressed luckily I went for help and stopped doing it. Depression like that is like it never goes away just only gets better with the time.
This is the only answer here that speaks to me. I didn't cut habitually though, it was the occasional result of boiling over with sadness and frustration and rage turned inward over and over and over and over because there were zero external actions I could take that wouldn't make everything even worse. I was a trapped animal starting to chew my own leg off to escape. This ended when I found a community and moved out, though the depression remained strong until was able to finally get treatment. Treatment worked for me.
For anyone reading stuck in that particular cycle of self destruction right now you have heard it gets better until it became a bitter joke. Maybe it does but my perspective is fucked. In my experience you get stronger, and learn that change is a constant; good times die out but so do the bad times. I feel like I can endure just about anything now which makes it hard to relate with people's struggles sometimes, but at least that's more of a social issue than an existential one.
Being unwell and hating themselves a lot.
or being hated by your peers and loved ones.
I can answer for myself, it helps a lot when I'm stressed. When I'm stressed I tend to feel very shit about myself to begin with, and that coupled with the stress itself makes me do it to feel better. It works as well, although I wish it didn't.
It is a sad thing, but some people just don't feel like their worth the oxygen. Some do it as a "help me" sign, some genuinely want to just die, but it mostly comes down to loneliness, lack of self worth, and belief that people don't like you. In extreme cases, it's as a way to recive attention other than for help, as some people just want to be noticed at all.
I think others have covered most of it, but wanted to add that self-harm is often a coping mechanism for sexual assault.
Once, I've had thoughts of doing that. Never actually did, but I was in a bad enough state to want to, just to make a message of how my pain isn't something I can just 'suck up because others have had worse'. Kind of to say that my mental health was deteriorating so much that I would be willing to.
Hey OP, I know you mean well and are genuinely curious, but once you have your answer you should consider deleting this post.
Discussion of most things in most formats is good, but discussing suicide and self harm is tricky. It can trigger suicidal thoughts, it can make sufferers feel ostracised, it can discourage people from seeking help.
It's great that you don't feel a compulsion to harm yourself, but try to imagine how it would feel for someone trying to resist that compulsion for weeks on end to read anecdotes from dozens of people about the just don't get it.
Deleting it goes against the premise of "No stupid questions". Hiding information in a place literally made to give out information without judging the question, is literally the opposite of the intent.
Many questions posted here are easily answer through wikipedia, and people might ask them in a place like this for a multitude of reasons. One of them being that they avoid looking it up directly as a way to limit themselves getting triggered from the pictures or text that might be there, and just want a more summarized answer to their question.
There are plenty of subjects inappropriate for this sub.
I'm sure I don't need to enumerate them for you.
I think a discussion around whether this type of question is appropriate is entirely healthy, as there may be ramifications which are not immediately clear.
We are all responsible for our own mental health. The OP is not responsible for anyone's mental health but his own.
Saying some discussion needs to be hidden away because someone somewhere may react negatively is patently ridiculous and damaging to society.
I have a trigger, and just like my self-harm it is atypical, I am triggered by parents showing pride in their children. Doesn't matter if it's real life, or film, or book. It always turns me into a wreck, and sometimes has me believing I'm worthless in dangerous ways.
Should my expectation be that those around me not show pride in their children? Should I demand warnings on all material that depicts parents showing pride in their children? It's ridiculous. My trigger is MY responsibility.
Media doesn't report on suicide or self harm except in cases where it's justified by public interest. (Interest as in "needs to know" not interest as in "curious"). Is that patently ridiculous?
Or maybe seeing this habit be discussed openly and without prejudice will help some people to feel less like a freak for doing it when they realize that others do too, or will encourage them to seek help.
I know it's a horse of a different color, but the last time my depression got really bad I started smoking. I felt awfully guilty about it for months until my therapist said that it was natural for me to seek out endorphins however I could when I was failing to get them the natural way. That relieved the guilt, which in turn made me less psychologically dependent on cigarettes. Accepting that I smoked and that it was not ideal but still okay actually helped me to quit smoking later on, coupled with my regular therapy. Why would you deny that to people with other unhealthy habits? Or maybe you think that inhaling cancer smoke several times per day isn't a form of self-harm?
I think teens do it to feel edgy.
I'm not saying that's the ONLY reason they do it, but they hear about it and see others doing it and it's a case of monkey see, monkey do.
I believe you’re referring to the way some teenagers will brag about it covertly to their friends. Make no mistake, while on the surface it may appear as you say, that’s just the veneer of confidence they’re wearing that belies deeper inner turmoil. I won’t try to unpack what those turmoils are as they are different for everyone and I speak not as a psychological professional but as a professional educator.
What I encourage you to consider is the level of complexity people are burdened by and that when people with awful turmoil enter into your life, even just for a brief moment, that they should be first met with authentic empathy and care before cynicism as the stakes of treating these subjects with anything less are far too severe.
they do that as a cover.
nobody wants to hear a teen say they want to die and and suffering form incredibly emotional pain.