1. What is the point of Self-Harm?

Years and years ago a friend asked me, “Why did you decide to cut yourself?“ To me this was an odd question. I did not wake up one morning and think “Hey, how about today I sit down with a razor and see if it makes me happy to cause me pain?“

It never was a conscious decision.

For me, first came the pain, then the cutting.

Being different

Being different is not as unusual as it might seem. We all are different from other people. Some differences are admired, like special talents. Some differences are seen as more or less normal, like hand and shoe sizes. Some differences are frowned upon, some carry social stigma, some are discriminated against.

When I was young, I did not know that some ways in which I was different fell into the less accepted category. Let me start at the beginning.

My family used to spend vacations at nudist beaches. I grew up being comfortable seeing naked bodies. I also grew up knowing that people often thought me to be a boy, I am not entirely sure, why. This happened at nudist beaches (my mom sometimes tells the story of people coming up to her telling her that her son was crying under the shower) or outside bookshops where I was asked if I was the son of (enter my mother’s maiden name).

Later, in elementary school, I was a child who in sports was playing on the boys‘ team. I remember the outrage when I once came to school with my nails painted and my (male) classmates all went, “what? You are a girl?!“ I mean, I used the girls´ bathroom and locker and everyone knew that outwardly I was a girl. But I was playing with action figures rather than dolls, when I did not do my homework, I was admitting that, without making up excuses. I was unapologetically myself. Like I did not need outside validation and was unashamed of who I was or my traits commonly more associated with boys.

When the boys at elementary school wanted to know what girls looked like inside their pants, I showed them. Not behind locked doors, but in the schoolyard. Why should I not? Naked bodies were natural. It was the other girls who told me that this was immoral and bad, and I would have to promise not to do so again.

Dealing with the pain

So, now there was this whole lot of pain inside that had no way to get out. There was this pain that nobody could see, no one was allowed to see. Pain that was not really there because I could not allow it, and that was still not going away. And of course these are the words I am finding now, not the ones I had back then. Back then I just hurt so hard I could not even cry.

I did well in school, which did not help, as now I was also considered a nerd. To escape the schoolyard gauntlet I slipped away to walk the corridors alone during breaks. I did not feel like I could talk to anyone about anything important.

I developed a liking for graveyards, maybe because they are quiet and have only very few children that could mock me. Maybe because of a fascination with death. I started writing very bad poetry about wanting to die, wanting to not feel anything anymore, wanting it all to be over. Dying started to feel like a way out. A respite.

I am actually not exactly sure on how it started. I believe it was one of those times in my early teens where I had a tick (a blood sucking insect) attached to me and managed only to get the body off, with the head still in my leg. This was over 35 years ago, when the general belief around here was that the heads of ticks could survive somehow and would get transported by the bloodstream to the brain where they would bite the brain and give you Lyme disease. I know, I know. But that is what I believed back then.

It was important to remove the head.

I sat down with a knife and tried to pry the head out. I had to dig around a bit until I managed that. Surprisingly, it did not hurt in a bad way. I was hyper focused on the task, my brain was for once clear of questions, accusations and shouting voices. There had been only me and the knife point. It was peaceful.

Now I know that it was many things at once that happened, to a greater or lesser degree.

1. Hyperfocus made everything still.
2. This was pain, but it was pain that was in my control, unlike the pain given to me by others.
3. It made my inner wounds visible, giving the hurt an outlet.

I know that for many people there are other reasons, which I will touch upon under “Second Hand Addition”. Here, I will talk from my own experience.

Hyperfocus

My brain and my emotions were and still are always full of things. My brain listened to everything, paid attention to every detail around, watching out for danger which could come from unexpected sources.

Controlling pain

So much pain was inflicted on me by others. The taunts, the ostracism, the loneliness, the laughter, it all cut into me, and I could not do a single thing to prevent it or to defend myself.

Pain was a constant companion, and not one that I had chosen. One that had been foisted upon me.

Taking a blade to my own skin, that was different.

It was my choice.
My decision where, and when, and how much to cut.
My choice how deep the wound would be.
My hand that dealt the damage.
It made me feel like I was in control, like I was the one in charge, the one with the power.

When in fact I was nothing but helpless.

Maybe it was enough that not all the pain I felt was given to me by others.

Maybe I thought that if I hurt myself willingly, then there was nothing wrong with pain and others did not treat me any worse than I treated myself, making it somehow okay.

When in fact I was anything but okay.

Making the pain visible

I was an early teenager when I started cutting myself. I think that I did not understand how something invisible could hurt so much. I also had no idea how to address this invisible pain.

Cuts I could see and understand.

It also felt as if some of the pain washed out of me with the blood. Which makes sense, in hindsight. Blood was something tangible. Seeing it well up and drip down my arms or my legs helped me let go of some of the pain that was inside.

Like these breathing exercises where you breathe in clarity and strength and breathe out anger or panic or whatever troubles you. It works over visualization. And I guess that happened when I watched blood dripping. I visualized the pain leaving me.

Some of the pressure inside lifted and I felt calmer.

And I could see that cuts heal. Some left faint scars, many were so narrow, just one touch of a razor, that they healed without leaving a mark. They did not have to be deep. Just enough to break the skin.

Watching these cuts heal showed me that it was possible to recover from the hurt. That it was possible to become whole again. To not hurt anymore. It gave me hope.

Each of the few scars still visible after 20 years, as that is my youngest one, reminds me of that hope.

I can heal.

It never was about hurting me

Maybe you can see that harming myself has never been about hurting me. It was never about punishing me for anything.

It was a desperate act to make sense of something I did not understand, an attempt to get some kind of control back over my emotions. Both things that point towards a desire to not hurt, but to heal.

Let me give you one example to make it more clear, maybe.

One time I did not cut my arms or legs but drew thin lines over my torso:
One cut along the lower left curve of the rib cage, imagining to tear out my heart through that opening.
One along the side, approximately in the area of the kidneys, to drain the poison from my thoughts.
One where I suspected the uterus would be, to make this body less that of a woman.

I cannot recommend that. Those cuts stung immensely, being stretched and squished with every movement. The upper body is a very mobile thing and every movement hurt.

I was not in control of this pain and it showed me very clearly that this was not what I was looking for. I was not into pain. I regretted it immediately and repeatedly and never tried it again.

Second Hand Additions

I do know that other people have different reasons to self-harm.

There are more, but from what I have learned from talking to people who harmed themselves at some point in their lives I can name these:

Cry for Help

For some people, this is a variation of making pain visible, just not for themselves, but for others.

It is giving the signal: “I am in pain. I do not know how to deal with this. I need help!”

If you feel any of these resonating with you: You deserve help. If you cannot talk to friends or family, call a hotline. Please. If you don’t feel like this is bad enough to warrant asking for help, I will believe this enough for both of us. It is bad enough. You are worthy enough.

Writing this I can see that I would have needed help, too. It just did not occur to me as an option. Don’t be me.

Punishing yourself

When everyone tells you – or it feels like everyone tells you – that you do not fit in, that you are somehow wrong, that you are not enough, you start to believe this. After all, you are just one person, and everyone else is in agreement. So maybe you are wrong? And maybe if you are hard enough on yourself, you will get better?

So you punish yourself just like everybody else does.

Or maybe the stress you are under makes you mess up. You really made a mistake. And the people who give you grief had one more reason to taunt you. Thus, you are angry with yourself. And you lash out at yourself.

What about manipulation?

There is the idea that some people harm themselves in order to manipulate others into doing what they want. I have heard the saying “If the stronger one wants to hurt the weaker one, they harm them. If the weaker one wants to hurt the stronger one, they harm themselves.”

I am not saying that this is necessarily wrong. But I am saying that that is not looking far enough.

As far as I can tell from experience or open conversation, this is a form of trying to regain control in a situation in which you feel helpless. I can already hear the “Ah! So it *is* manipulation!”

That is focusing on the wrong part.

It is the act of a person who feels unsafe, helpless, vulnerable, powerless and completely at the mercy of someone else. It is the act of a person who is desperate to find some way to have a choice. In order to get there, the person has been walked over, stomped upon, diminished and weakened over and over and over.

It is a last resort for someone who is afraid, in pain and at wits´ end. A last plea to be heard. In this situation it is not about manipulation, it is about survival.

The question should not be “is this manipulation?”, the question should be “what can be done to make that person feel that they do not have to harm themselves in order to be seen as a person with rights and needs? What can be done to help?”