Women Matter April-May 2014 | Page 16

One in ten people are victims of self-harm this shows it’s a problem which is overlooked when it should be addressed and victims should receive the help they urgently require. There are many reasons why people self-harm. A young girl tells her story online where she says she started to self-harm when her grandmother began to drink and then she did it for a number of other reasons after. She states: “Ever since that day, I was (12) by the way, I have cut myself when I am in pain, any kind of pain.” Self-Harm: The Reasons Behind It By Mahri Carmichael Why do people self-harm? Why would anyone want to physically hurt themselves? Self-harming has become such a huge problem that we can no longer ignore it. Some people think that self-harm is a selfish method of attention seeking with no other reason behind it than to want people to feel sorry for them. However, the large majority of people realise that it is not the case and that it is a mental illness which people need help to overcome. It is important, however, to consider the main reasons people self-harm in order to understand this growing illness. Many people are victims of self-harm, but what is often a misconception is that those who self-harm are young troubled teenagers, yet the truth is that many self-harmers are older men and women. Research from the University of Manchester studied 1777 people over the age of 60 who were admitted to six general hospitals in Oxford, Manchester and Derby after self-harming, which shows that self-harming affects all ages in society and support should be offered to all. What is worrying is that with such misconceptions abounding, the risk of suicide in older people is three times greater than the risk of suicide among younger adults who self-harm. Therefore, while many teenagers do self-harm the problem does not only lie solely with them. Self-harm is a serious matter and it is more of an issue than the average person may realise. Many people are accused of attention seeking when they self-harm when it's really a sign of mental distress. BBC Health explains that: “It’s a way of dealing with very difficult feelings which build up inside and that people only resort to self-harm when they feel desperate about a problem and don’t know where to turn for help.” This is not simply people striving for attention but is, in fact, a point of desperation. People who self-harm by using methods which cause a strong physical pain do this to numb overwhelming emotions which provides a sense of temporary relief. The victims act this way in order to experience a physical pain which is preferable to an emotional pain. This acts as a distraction, and in some cases, an escape. Physical pain can also act as a form of self-punishment. This tends to occur when the victim has been abused in the past and then takes on the role of abuser towards themselves. In times of being overwhelmed, self-punishment can manifest due to misplaced feelings of guilt and self-hatred. Another reason for self-punishment is to deal with suppressed emotions that are unfamiliar and “Some self-injurers are punishing themselves for having strong feelings that they were usually not allowed to express as children.” Therefore, it is clear that one reason for self-harm is due to feelings of blame and suffering. Many theorists say that children who have experienced sexual abuse have a higher tendency to self-injure. This could be because of the suppressed anger of being abused as a child and could also be indicative of the inability to express emotions in a healthy manner due to the topic not being easy to talk about. These emotions could emerge as guilt, stigma or even the need to protect the abuser. According to a case study on the Childline website one victim of childhood sexual abuse later went on to taking extreme levels of selfmutilation. She said: “I wasn’t eating and I was cutting myself and burning myself, taking pills, banging my head against the bed-head and doing various other things. I had become addicted to pain.” This shows the effects of trauma in a young age that leads victims to turn to pain. This is a very negative coping mechanism that stresses how people should be provided with support to overcome these traumas. A further cause of self-harm is bullying. The NHS claim that “Children bullied during their early years are up to three times more likely to self-harm than their classmates,” A study