"Why Do I Keep Cutting Myself?"
Self-injury is not something people talk about very often, but for an estimated 2 to 3 million Americans it is a serious problem. There are "cutters" of every age, gender, and economic group. A page from CoolNurse.com site.
Self-Injurious Behavior
This article by Mary Jo Jacobs, RN, MSN, CRNH, comes from the Fall 2000 issue of Paradigm Magazine, a quarterly journal written by the staff of the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery and other experts in the mental health field. Jacobs looks at the cultural history behind self-harm, what injurers experience their behavior as, the different emotional significances people have assigned to self-harm and more.
Self Injury in Survivors of Traumatic Violence
Self injury (also known as self harm, self-inflicted violence, self abuse or self mutilation) is an often misunderstood response that some use as a means of coping. WitnessJustice.org, an online community and information resource about help & healing for victims of violence.
Healing Self Injury
Self-inflicted violence is a common means of managing the after-effects of traumatic experiences. Intentional physical wounding of the body serves to temporarily manage many of the emotional struggles that stem from historical unhealed trauma.
Girl Talk: Why We Cut and Burn Ourselves
As the problem of young women cutting and burning themselves gets mainstream attention, female teens are logging on to the Internet to talk about why they injure themselves. Women's eNews corresponded with a few of them for this story by Emma Pearse.
Single Adults Who Self-Harm
A look at overcoming self-injurious behavior caused by traumatic re-enactment. Part of a great site focusing on self-harm and self destructive behaviors embraced as coping mechanisms by survivors.
Self-Injury & Sexual Assault
Columbia University's Health site examines how self-injury is very common among survivors of childhood sexual abuse and rape.
Female Victims of Domestic Violence More Likely to Self Harm
Women who deliberately self harm are 75 times more likely to report physical and/or verbal abuse by a partner than women who do not harm themselves, indicates research.
Self-Injury: Beyond the Myths
Although the public and professional worlds are coming to terms with the seriousness and chronic nature of these coping behaviors, there's still a great deal of misinformation and presumption at work. The American Self-Injury Information Clearinghouse has put together this fact sheet to help.
Cutting, Burning & Biting To Cope
It's unclear whether the practice of self-injury is on the rise recently or if there's just a recent rise in awareness of the behavior. It’s hard to tell- especially since self-injurers are absolute pros at hiding their habit. Written by Danielle Chapman for the online medical consumer magazine, Medical Health Information.
Dissociation, Self-Mutilation & Childhood Sexual Abuse in Borderlines
An article from the American Journal of Psychiatry written by BS Brodsky, M Cloitre and RA Dulit from the Department of Psychology, Cornell University Medical Center, New York. Full text in:[PDF].
Self-Injury & Child Abuse
Many survivors consciously or unconsciously blame themselves for the abuse they endured as children. Is self-injuring a re-enactment of that abuse or a way of punishing themselves for their imagined role in it? Written by Kelli Deister, editor of BellaOnline's Child Abuse site.
Self-Injury After Rape
A compelling Q&A from the award-winning All Experts.com's section on Rape Counseling, this page explores cutting and self mutilation as reactions to trauma, particularly sexual assault and abuse.
Skin-Picking and Self-Injurious Behavior
Written by Amy Gedeon of the Penn State College of Medicine, this page is an easy-to-follow overview which covers the clinical characteristics of Dermatillomania (compulsive skin picking), its prevalence, psychological theories about the behavior and the its association with Axis I and Axis II Psychiatric Disorders.
Skin Picking & Nail Biting
By the Western Suffolk Psychological Services's Fred Penzel, PhD, this article describes these problems when they occur as compulsions. Penzel has also written and published copiously and brilliantly on the self-injuring disorder Trichotillomania, in which individuals compulsively pull out their own hair. Find his work by going to Western Suffolk's Articles by WSPS Doctors page and scrolling down to the highlighted Trichotillomania section.
Self-Injury of the Nails & Hands
Patients who pull out their hair, excoriate, scar, bite, pick and harm their own skin often present to the dermatologist rather than the psychiatrist. This page, however, examines these behaviors from the perspective that they are something more serious than "bad habits", suggesting that they are, in fact, simply less-recognized forms of self-injury. Read this article from Dermatology Online Journal written by Professor Shelley A Sekula, Dept of Dermatology, Baylor College of Medicine.
Compulsive Pickers of Adult Acne
Gail Leino describes Acne Excoriée des Jeune Filles, a condition in which acne sufferers experience an almost irresistible urge compulsively pick at their affected skin. An essay from eZine.com's Health & Fitness section.
Compulsive Skin-Picking
According to this page from the Obsessive-Compulsive Center of Los Angeles, a Compulsive Skin Picking episode may be a conscious response to anxiety or depression or an unconscious urge. Individuals with CSP often attempt to camouflage the damage caused to their skin by using make-up, wearing clothes or- in extreme cases-, individuals with CSP may avoid social situations. Learn more about this seldom-discussed self-harming behavior.
Psychology Today: Hair Pulling: A Baffling Disorder
Apersonal account of one woman struggling with Trichotillomania, the compulsive urge to pull out her own hair.
BBC Health News: Hair Pulling Disorder Gene Found
Trichotillomania is a psychiatric disorder that causes compulsive hair pulling- often accompanied by other symptoms, such as anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder or Tourette's syndrome. People with the disorder may have hair loss or bald patches, but often mask their habit. But recently, scientists have found the gene behind the disorder.
Nailing That Habit
Nail biting is considered a "bad habit" at worst. But those who self-harm via nail biting- to the point where they are hindered from activities because of pain, infection, bleeeding or shame- suffer from what's known as Onychophagia. This article from Healthoma.com offers some ideas about stopping.
Eating Disorders & Self-Mutilation
Created by the ED site Caring Online.com, this info page explains the simlarities between eating disorders and self-mutilation.
Is Self-Mutilation a Disorder?
Self mutilation is real. Very real. And it seems as though it is becoming a new trend, especially among the youth of today’s world. But is it an actual psychiatric disorder? Should it be classified as an illness and included in the "bible" of psychiatric disorders, the Diagnostic Statistics Manual?
Suicidal Ideation And Self Mutilation
A discussion about Suicidal Ideation and Self Mutilation and how multiples and abused individuals use these harmful behaviors as emotional tools.
Self Mutilation is a Borderline Language of Pain
Self-mutilation, for many who have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), is a learned language of expressing profound pain.
BPD: Self-Harm (Self Mutilation) You Can Heal It!
Self-Mutilation in people with Boderline Personality Disorder often represents an abandonment of the self, a way of living in and through a false self.
"Self-Mutilation" in Psychiatry: One Patients View
Provides details in first person of the author's experience with what she refers to as "Deliberate Self Harm Syndrome". An harrowing and well-done read from BME Zine.
"Cutting" Understanding Self-Mutilation
To the uninitiated, cutting may seem like a suicide attempt or a cry for attention, and in rare cases that’s true. In reality, both cutters and psychiatrists say, the urge to self-mutilate is a coping behavior triggered by an inner sense of numbness or deadness. Far from a wish to die, cutting is a terrible urge to feel something , even physical pain, rather than nothing at all. And far from flaunting their cuts to get attention, cutters usually hide them. Columnist Judy Foreman is Lecturer on Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an affiliated scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis. Her regular column appears in MyHealthSense.com.
Homeless, Bipolar, Self-Mutilating: A Case History
An extremely graphic and heart-breaking case history presented by Drs Cheryl A Green, Walter Knysz, III, and Ming T Tsuang, PhD. Published in The American Journal of Psychiatry.
Treating Self Injuring Clients
Working with a client who intentionally inflicts physical harm on him or herself, generally presents a challenge for even the most experienced counselor. When chemical addiction is part of the mix, treatment becomes even more complicated. Although many clinicians shy away from working with clients who self-injure, the behavior is not substantially different from substance abuse, in that it acts as a coping strategy designed to alter one's mental state. Wendy Lader, PhD and co-founder of SAFE Alternatives, explains why some individuals seeking sobriety or recovery from addiction may be as dependent on self-mutilation as they were on drugs and alcohol.
Self-Harm: When to Seek Medical Advice
It's very difficult to overcome self-injury on your own. Getting treatment from a mental health professional with experience in self-injury issues can help an individual learn healthier ways to cope. From the Mayo Clinic's extensive e-booklet on Self Injury.
Stop Self-Harming
From TheSite.org's Self-Harming section, a very pragmatic and encouraging plan (broken down into four basic stages) to help overcome SI.
Self Injury Expert Q & A
This is a very readable transcript of an online conference with Dr Tracy Alderman, a psychologist and author specializing in self-injurious behaviors.
New York Times: The Thin Red Line
The fact that awareness of self-mutilation is growing at a time when tattooing, piercing, scarification and branding are on the rise has not been lost on researchers.
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American Self Harm Info Clearinghouse
The American Self-Harm Information Clearinghouse (SelfInjury.org) strives to educate the general public and medical/psychological professionals about self-harm. By disseminating clear, concise, and accurate information about self-harm, they hope to improve the treatment received by those who cope with distress by injuring themselves.
Dermatillomania & Trichotillomania UK
An incredible site from the UK, D&T UK offers tips and help to overcome self-injurious skin picking and hair pulling. Includes a collection of articles, a free cd about altering self-injurious behavior, online coaching, a chat room and other forums for SI'ers and surveys for medical research and more.
Equilibrium
Based in the UK, Equilibrium is an unique award winning user-led self-injury awareness organisation designed to help educate and support people who self harm and their family and friends. They offer a forum, events, resources, information and more.
HealthyPlace: Self Injury Community
HealthyPlace.com's Self Injury online community offers a forum, the latest news, articles, peer support, an online bookstore, diaries and more- all related to overcoming self-harm. Membership is free of charge.
HealthDiaries.com: Trichotillomania Blogs and Articles
People with trichotillomania, or compulsive hair pulling disorder, share their experiences and discuss treatment.
Psyke.org
Psyke.org is a non-profit site serving as a repository of self injury information. The site's features include: a forum, personal stories, poetry, coping, FAQ’s, articles and an online book store.
Lysamena Project on Self-Injury
Another Christian-based site also very non-dogmatic and inclusive. Information on self-injury, alternatives, information for family/friends and self-help information.
RecoverYourLife.com
This online community prsents information on self-injury and other mental health issues. Features include articles, artwork, written creative works, suggestions for alternative activities to self-harm, and have information on promoting awareness about self-injury, Also includes a forum and chat, a live help chatroom and more.
Safe Haven
This beautifully simple but varied online community for self-injurers offers blogs, a live chat, information, discussion of self-injury, recovery and related subjects, links for family and friends, an off-topic section for creative writing and venting and more.
Secret Shame
Although Secret Shame was created by a non-professional individual, like only a handful of other personal sites, it is so well-done, intelligent and thought-provoking that it deserves to be listed here as a resource. Breath-taking in its scope, well-researched and smart, Secret Shame offers readers a chatroom, a section on self-assessment, a survey, and some powerful essays on SI topics.
SAFE Alternatives
Self-Abuse Finally Ends is a nationally recognized treatment approach, professional network and educational resource base committed to helping achieve an end to self-injurious behavior. Their website includes a professionally-written blog, a section for referrals, resources links, news, an online store and other options- all focused on helping people obtain freedom from self-harming as a coping strategy.
S I A R I
The United Kingdom's S I A R I (Self Injury & Related Issues) is an online meeting place to raise awareness about self-injury and offer hope, support, and enlightenment to those who self-injure & those who love them. In-depth information, personal stories, artwork, poetry, a discussion board and more. SIARI membership is free.
Self-Injury Articles & Excerpts
Compiled articles, essays and book excerpts covering many perspectives on self-injury from eNotAlone.com.
Sirius Project: Self-Help for Self-Harm
The Sirius Project is a collection of resources for people who self-harm. The site offers forums and a chat room, an active message board, an online bookstore and information on SI concerns like staying safe, first aid, help for families & friends and more.
Stop Picking On Me.com
This website addresses compulsive and self-injurious skin picking, a lesser-discussed category of SI that goes by many names: Neurotic Excoriations, Acne Excoriee, Psychogenic Excoriations, Dermatillomania, Compulsive Skin Picking (CSP), Psychodermotosis and Self Injurious Skin Picking (SISP). On this site, find out about the causes of this form of SI, seeking professional help, recovery from it and other related topics. There's also sections with personal stories, a discussion board, chat room and more.
S M H A I 's Self-Injury Division
The Suicide & Mental Health Association International's main goal is to prevent suicidal behavior, but this section of their amazing website focuses on SI. S M H A I offers an online mental health library, prevention suggestions, links to support resources, a discussion forum and more. |
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