What is Self-Injury, Self-Harm, Self-Abuse?
Self-injury, self-harm is when someone deliberately hurts or injures themselves. Self-injury is a coping mechanism and not an attempt at suicide. It’s a perplexing phenomenon with many names: self-injury, self-harm, self-mutilation, self-inflicted violence, self-cutting, and self-abuse to name some. Those who come across it – family members, friends, supporters – even many professionals – struggle to understand why people do it, and find the behavior disturbing and puzzling. Recent reports imply that it is reaching ‘epidemic proportions,’ particularly among young people. Furthermore, research suggests that it is a frequent companion to eating disorders, alcohol and drug abuse, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder, and dissociative disorders.
