YOUTH & SELF-INJURY
“ And you cant fight the tears that ain’ t coming, Or the moment of the truth in your lies. When everything feels like the movies, Yeah you bleed just to know you’ re alive.”
--Iris by Goo Goo Dolls
This popular song lyric gives a glimpse of a growing and difficult problem that many youth are faced with today, self-injury. Self-injury is a behavior that is often misunderstood for not only those who struggle with it, but for those who are connected with them. Self-injury has been reported as the fastest growing adolescent problem. With this said, it is important to note that the actual prevalence of self-injury is hard to determine because statistics are often done in a clinical setting where those who are self-injuring are being seen for something else. There is a general consensus, however, that this phenomenon is becoming increasing popular( Whitlock, Purington, & Gershkovich, 2009).
So what is self-injury? Self-injury is intentional carving or cutting of the skin and subdermal tissue, scratching, burning, ripping or pulling skin or hair, bruising or breaking of bones( Purington & Whitlock, 2004). Cutting is the most common of the self-injurious behaviors but a majority use multiple methods as found by Favazza & Conterio( 1989).
There are many reasons why people self-injure. Common triggers include overwhelming emotion or emotional numbness. Some rather feel physical pain rather than the emotional pain or self-injure as away of feeling something. Other reasons include to feel control over one’ s body and mind, express feelings, distract from other problems, to communicate needs, create visible and noticeable wounds, to purify oneself, re-enact trauma in an attempt to resolve it, and to protect others from one’ s emotional pain( DiLazzero, 2003).
“ My main goal in self-injury has just been to feel something … anything.”
– Jenny( Ray, 2008)
Self-injury is most commonly a private behavior with a significant amount of shame and guilt attached to it. Due to this,
46 | Iowa Fall / Winter 2013-2014 | abusemagazine. org
Source: Andrew Eastwood