e3 : “entertainment, epistemology, empowerment.”

Consider:

“Self Injury [external physical pain] is not “chosen”;
Self inflicted external injury happens when emotional pain exceed resources for effectively coping with emotional pain”.

If you cause physical harm to your body in order to deal with overwhelming feelings, know that you have nothing to be ashamed of. It’s likely that you’re keeping yourself alive and maintaining psychological integrity with the only tool you have right now. It’s a crude and ultimately self-destructive tool, but it works; you get relief from the overwhelming pain/fear/anxiety in your life. The prospect of giving it up may be unthinkable, which makes sense; you may not realize that self-harm isn’t the only or even best coping method around.

For many people who self-injure, though, there comes a breakthrough moment when they realize that change is possible, that they can escape, that things can be different. They begin to believe that other tools do exist and begin figuring out which of these non-self-destructive ways of coping work for them.

This site exists to help you come closer to that moment.

How do you know if you self-injure? It may seem an odd question to some, but a few people aren’t sure if what they do is “really” self-injury. Answer these questions:

#1. Do you deliberately cause physical harm to yourself to the extent of causing tissue damage (breaking the skin, bruising, leaving marks that last for more than an hour)?

#2. Do you cause this harm to yourself as a way of dealing with unpleasant or overwhelming emotions, thoughts, or situations (including dissociation)?

#3. If your self-harm is not compulsive, do you often think about SI even when you’re relatively calm and not doing it at the moment?

~If you answer #1 and #2 yes, you are a self-injurer.
If you answer #3 yes, you are most likely a repetitive self-injurer.
The way you choose to hurt yourself could be cutting, hitting, burning, scratching, skin-picking, banging your head, breaking bones, not letting wounds heal, among others.
You might do several of these.

* w a r n i n g:
Please try to make yourself safe before proceeding; some of these pages/posts contain images that may temporarily intensify the urge to self-harm in some people.

How you injure yourself isn’t as important as recognizing that you do …

and what it means in your life.

Self-injurious behavior does not necessarily mean you were an abused child. It usually indicates that somewhere along the line, you didn’t learn good ways of coping with overwhelming feelings.

You’re not a disgusting or sick individual;
you just never learned positive ways and coping skills to deal with your negetive feelings.

“Self Injury [external physical pain] is not “chosen”;
Self inflicted external injury happens when emotional pain exceed resources for effectively coping with emotional pain”.

Alderman (1997) suggests this useful checklist of things to ask yourself before you begin walking away from self-harm. It isn’t necessary that you be able to answer all of the questions “yes,” but the more of these things you can set up for yourself, the easier it will be to stop hurting yourself.

While it is not necessary that you meet all of these criteria before stopping SI, the more of these statements that are true for you before you decide to stop this behavior, the better:

I have a solid emotional support system of friends, family, and/or professionals that I can use if I feel like hurting myself.

There are at least two people in my life that I can call if I want to hurt myself.

I feel at least somewhat comfortable talking about SI with three different people.

I have a list of at least ten things I can do instead of hurting myself.

I have a place to go if I need to leave my house so as not to hurt myself.

I feel confident that I could get rid of all the things that I might be likely to use to hurt myself.

I have told at least two other people that I am going to stop hurting myself.

I am willing to feel uncomfortable, scared, and frustrated.

I feel confident that I can endure thinking about hurting myself without having to actually do so.

I want to stop hurting myself.

[Alderman (1997) p. 132]

RESOURCES exist.
Seek them out.

*Click on the word: RESOURCES above to go directly to additional Self Help