Disclaimer: Sensory in kids does not promote any form of self harm. My goal in talking about it is to spread awareness and help others who struggle in this area. If you are thinking about harming yourself please seek help from 911 or the hotlines displayed at the end of this article.
In this article we’re going to talk about what is self harm, most common forms of self harm, why would someone want to hurt themselves, and ways to avoid hurting yourself.
Self harm can be described by any type of self inflicted mutilation or injury to ones own body. Common forms of self harm included cutting yourself, burning skin, hair pulling, head banging, and biting yourself. You are probably asking yourself why someone would want or feel compelled to hurt themselves. Well coming from someone who struggles with multiple forms of self harm I can answer that below. Please note that everyone has their own reasons for coping the way they do and its different for everyone. I’m speaking from my own experiences but their could be other reasons that I don’t list.
To feel alive: People who struggle with very specific mental health issues can struggle with feeling numb. Its as if your life is on auto pilot and you’re going through the motions of daily life but mentally your not really there. It’s common for people who struggle with theses types of feelings to also experience issues with dissociating. The best way I can explain what dissociating means is like having an out of body experience where you’re not grounded in your body. So, when your self harming it lets you experience a specific feel some type of sensation which allows you to feel something. This is why using grounding techniques is extremely important! The rush of adrenaline can also be exciting. I mean after all this is a sensory processing website and for people who seek out sensory processing like the sensation.
Self expression: Lets face it some people don’t know how to communicate their own emotions so they act it out. Resorting to hurting yourself is a quick and easy way to set off alarms in anyone’s head and is normally used to cry out for help. Sometimes you want help but you feel so trapped in the moment you don’t know if help is even possible. Or for people with trust issues you can become afraid to open up and ask for help because when you’ve let yourself be vulnerable in the past and you’ve gotten hurt somehow.
Guilt: It’s interesting as humans we’re quicker to forgive someone else before ourselves. Sometimes you blame yourself so much you feel you deserve to suffer. Self harm can be one way of punishing yourself.
Escape or emotional release: When your emotional self harm is a quick way to temporally escape whatever your going through. It can be a huge sense of release for people because it allows you to get everything out of your system while you are in control and feeling a specific type of sensation. The sensation can be so strong for people it can even become an addiction.
Control: This id a big one for many people. Its so easy to get caught up in you problems and feel like you have no control over your life. For people who feel this way myself included self harm can be appealing because you have all the power. You decided how your going to do it and how hard and everything in between. The weird thing is in the moment we don’t realize eventually it will catch up to us. You can ether become addicted to it so its ten times harder to stop or you can end up in the hospital or worse. You don’t feel this way in the moment but if your hurting yourself your not in control if you can’t control your emotions.
Low Self Esteem: Self explanatory if your discontent with yourself you’re more then likely going to lash out. For people who already struggle with self harm they can do this out of anger or frustration with themselves because there’s something going on within yourself that you don’t like. Other common mental health issues that can be linked with this are eating disorders because there’re categorized by a disturbed sense are self image.
Overwhelming sense of urge: Like I stated above self harm can be addicting. For many people struggling with this addiction they feel as though their going through withdrawal and the urge to relapse can be insanely overwhelming. Imagen if you’re a struggling cigarette smoker or a drug addict and stopped cold turkey. Your body will go through withdrawal and you’ll be consumed with craving it. It’s the same as people who self harm and there’s no way to wean off or prevent the craving. Speaking from experience this is probably the worst place to be because when you’re in that state of craving and you deny yourself it literally can feel like your torturing yourself emotionally. Even though you can feel completely out of control in theses types of moments you can stay safe and not relapse. Lets talk about how below.
As you can see their are many reasons someone could want to hurt themselves. Now let’s talk about ways we can try to prevent relapse.
The Butterfly challenge: This is a cute exercise that promote recovery by drawing a butterfly on the area you normally injure yourself. Drawn in sharpie once your done you write someone’s name on the inside that love and wants you to heal. Now the next time you go to hurt yourself that persons name is the first thing you see. When your so wrapped up in your emotions it can be hard to think about anything else. Hopefully this is a way to stop you in your tracks and think. Keep the butterfly on until it fades by itself. NO SCRUBBING. If you cut the butterfly dies if you don’t it lives. I love this exercise because sometimes in order to save yourself you need to do it for someone else before you can learn to do it for yourself.
30 day Self harm Challenge:
This includes of a list of question one for every day out of the month revolving around your recovery with self harm. Discuss and process your answers with a loved one or professional therapist. I personally like this challenge because it puts things in prospective and can help you remember why you want to get better.
DTB TIP Skill: DBT stands for Dialectical Behavioral Therapy which focuses on using different skills in the form of an acronym to target a specific goal or feeling. The Tip acronym stands for Temperature Intense Exercise Paced Breathing Progressive Muscle Relaxation. Lets break it down and start with T for Temperature If hearts your racing you want a COLD temperature. If your feeling sad you want warm temperature. For cold take a cold shower and splash some water on your face. Once you’re out of the shower take a cold ice pack and wrap it around your arm. Hold it for as you can. For warm temperature take a warm bath and then snuggle up in warm blankets and watch your favorite tv show or movie. Next is the I for intense exercise you’ll want to save the for times when you have built up overwhelming emotions or urges. Take a 15-20 walk or jog around your neighborhood and I promise once you get those endorphins rolling you’ll feel so much better. Next is the P for paced breathing. Close your eyes and breathe deeply through your nose and hold for four seconds and breathe out for six seconds. Let your body relax after each breathe. Now lastly is the last P for progressive muscle relaxation. Relax your body from any built up tension sit up straight tighten upper back muscles and release. Now do your arms core thighs and feet. Keep repeating till you feel all tension leave your body. This is a extremely effective exercise when done correctly. Between theses three new exercise I’m confident you have enough tools to stick with your recovery as long as you want it.
If you need further help or are having a psychiatric emergency please reach out to the following hotlines or text connect to 741 741 and someone will talk to you through texting :
Help Hotlines and other Resources