SI Awareness

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One in 12. That is roughly the number of teens in the United States that engage in self-injury.

Self injury is intentional damage that some one does to themselves and, according to the Mental Health Foundation, usually begins from as young as age 11 but it really has no age limit. Often, teens who suffer from anxiety and depression disorders will use self injury as a way to relieve the feelings of stress, anxiety, depression and emotional numbness. Sadly, self injury among teens is often dismissed and said to be a manipulative way to get attention. This is not always true. Many self-harmers are self conscious of their wounds and scars and tend to hide them with their clothes and are also very closed about speaking to others about their self-harm. Due to the secrecy involved in self injury, there is hardly any credible statistics for the number of self harming teens.

Contrary to belief, self-harmers have no suicidal intentions as studied by the British Journal of Psychiatry. Self-harmers are not trying to end their own lives. They use self harm as a means of a coping mechanism to relieve emotional turmoil and pain that they do not understand how to express through words.

Precursors to self harm usually go in this order: The person will become overstressed, making them feel overwhelmed, unable to cope or sensitive which then triggers them. They then self injure which makes them feel in control and calm. The other order is the person will feel dissociation which leads to the feeling of numbness, loneliness, and making them feel disconnected or unreal. They then use self injury to feel alive and able to function.This may not seem like a a conventional way to deal with emotional pain but, in the mind of a self harmer, it is easier to cope with physical pain. In other words, they use self harm to transfer emotional pain that they cannot cope with to physical pain that they can.

On March 1, 2002, Self-Injury Awareness Day (SIAD) was made an official annual and global event represented by an orange ribbon. The goal of SIAD is to break down the stereotypes surrounding Self-Injury (SI) and help other people understand that SI is a real problem, not just another teenage stage and is promoted through FirstSigns.

So instead of stereotyping someone you know that self harms, try to understand where they are coming from and reach out to them.
~Kendra