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