Self-Injury: Confusing Identity with a Coping Tool

Many people who struggle with self-injury make the mistake of confusing their identity with the action. For example, a person who cuts her skin in order to manage her emotions might refer to herself as a "cutter" rather than as a person who cuts. While some people might see the difference as semantics, the difference can greatly affect a person's ability to stop leaning on self-injury as a coping tool.

What is Self-injury?

Self-injury (also called self-harm or self-mutilation) is a coping tool that people use to manage painful emotions. Most people think of self-injury as synonymous with cutting, but there are actually many forms of self-injury, including burning yourself, plucking out your hair, or banging your head. Self-injury is nothing more, and nothing less, than a coping tool. It is functionally no different from drinking a beer or taking a pill to manage a very rough day.

Unfortunately, society fails to recognize self-injury as a coping tool, so people who self-injure to manage their pain often feel like "freaks" and are afraid to tell anyone about what they are doing to their bodies. The cloud of secrecy surrounding their actions results in many people identifying too strongly with their actions and seeing themselves as "cutters" or "head bangers" rather than as people who are in deep pain and using an effective, albeit destructive and potentially dangerous, coping tool.

Why Confusing Self-injury with Identity is Damaging

When a person views herself as a "cutter" or "burner," she is confusing her identity with the coping tool. She stops seeing the action as a tool she is using to manage her emotions and, instead, sees the action of self-injuring as defining who she is. So, instead of the coping tool serving her purposes, she becomes enslaved to the coping tool.