Understanding Self Injury

Self injury is generally not an attempt at suicide. It takes various forms and degrees of physical harm such as cutting, burning, scratching, asphyxiation, and a few others.

It is crucial that the observer understands that a person self injuring themselves is not doing so directly for attention or to end their life. Many times they are doing it as a way to make their emotional and mental pain into a tangible form of pain that they can feel and see. Some few it as a release of depressing feeling; a way to know their still alive.

Self injury tends to be kept secret from many and is NOT just present in social groups such as teenagers, goths, the visibly depressed, drug users, etc. The thing that shocks many people about SI is just how often it is discovered someone they know and see as confident and happy is cutting or doing some form of self injury to themselves.

It does become addictive; just like many people reach for a smoke or a beer to dull the pain or feel some relief, a self injurer will reach for something to dull the pain or release the feelings. As it becomes more addictive, it can become more and more riskier; again much like a drug addict looking for a better high.

Some signs of a self injurer are as follows:
- Begins wearing long sleeve or pants when they don't usually or out of season regularly. (Many cutters SI on their limbs)
-Seems to be 'always' happy or 'always' depressed when around others. Either one extreme or the other.
- Are extremely private in their ways; gets anxious when they make have to expose skin or when someone enters their room unexpected.