KEEP GOING; EVEN IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAN'T TAKE ANOTHER STEP

INSPIRATIONAL GRAPHIC PROMOTING SELF-KINDNESS DURING MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH; GRAPHIC BY CHAR EDMUNDS

Warning: this article may be triggering to others if you can't handle this subject please bypass it or read with adults. 

If you as a person want help, and don't know how to get it or find it, the self-harm hotline is 1-800-366-8288. Others to go to for help if open to it could be a parent, counselor/ therapist, and a trusted adult such as a teacher in your school or a friend. 

Many people can't fully wrap their head around self-harm unless they have personally experienced it. Many things can be considered self harm; you may not even know you're doing it until you're told or find out. The top 10 most common forms of self harm are scratching/pinching yourself to feel the pain. Impact with objects like punching something or using something to make yourself bruise or bleed. Cutting is the most known form of self harm which is when a object is used to cut yourself. Burning is when you use a lighter and put it to yourself to create a burn mark on your skin. Rubbing objects into skin could be using something to create some type of burn like mark on the skin. Hair pulling, or trichotillomania, is when you sit and pull out your own hair when in most emotional states. Carving is when a person carves pictures and words into their skin. Impact with oneself is when you bang or punch oneself until bruising or bleeding. Ripped skin is when a person rips or tears at the skin. Interfering with healing is when you re-hurt the hurt area. None of these are a good thing to do and if you didn't know you were doing these things there are many ways to stop or fix them. For some it may take days, weeks, months, and years to stop. This is nothing to be ashamed of or feel little about. 

Many go through something they don’t know how to stop in their life. If you feel too scared to tell someone or use a hotline there are many apps to track how long you’ve been clean from self-harm. If you feel like there's no escape and feel in a pit of darkness, always look for the light in the end. There are also support groups to attend and people who talk about self harm to relate to. Psychology Today is a website where you can find a self harm support group in your area. It will ask you about your city, zip code or name. All of the U.S states are listed at the bottom of the opening page. There's also articles and videos of people talking about self harm and how they overcame it as a person. 

15% to 20% of 16-18 year olds go through some form of self harm. 6% of 13-14 year olds experience it and that percentage is only the people who have come forward to speak about it. Even famous people have self harmed in some way. Miley Cyrus began engaging in cutting in 2012 when she was 19. Fiona Apple had been through a lot as a child and after she released her first album she got bad reviews and began scratching her wrists with her fingernails until bleeding. Russell Brand self-injured by cutting when he was using drugs. Demi Lovato said she was cutting and purging, which is the denial of food, since she got treatment. Many people who suffer from self harm can also develop an eating disorder or depression. I interviewed Myleena Grenis, a school therapist at Clear Creek Amana who is a professional in the mental health field. After asking “What do you know about self harm?” this is what Ms. Myleena had to say: “Okay so I know that self-harm is also known as or the preferred term for is non-suicidal self-injury and I like to call it non-suicidal self injury because I guess I like to separate from suicide and just recognizing that there is a common stigma or perception that anyone who is self-harming or participating in self-harm is actually suicidal so I work a lot with individuals with non- suicidal self injury. We create care plans and various treatment plans if they are motivated to stop participating in that behavior, and I would say it's a really long journey for individuals so it's not something that changes overnight. But I would say I've worked with countless people that have engaged in non suicidal self injury, oftentimes starting as young as 10  I have very few individuals I work with that are over the age of 21 that continue to participate in non suicidal injury.”

I also asked Ms. Myleena “Has it impacted you? Or people around you?” this was what she had to say. “Non-suicidal self injury has impacted me a lot because it's very conflicting. It's tough to get education on how you can appropriately support an individual for the process, so a lot of it is like trial and error and evidence-based research and techniques to help with this. I would say I've lost a lot of sleep at night hoping that people are safe and hoping that people are being honest about their intention, meaning that they are not participating in non-suicidal injury in their life because though I mentioned that I enjoy that I appreciate the separation between the behavior and suicide, I also know that with these behaviors that you also have elevated risk of suicide and anytime you think of suicide any therapist is pretty nervous about that. I have been impacted by friends who have participated in non suicidal injury and also very impacted by navigating the confidentiality with individuals and separating that from parents. Providing education that the information was confidential and building trust with the individual and the families as well has been a very important challenge.”

LIST OF THE MOST COMMON FORMS OF SELF-HARM; GRAPHIC BY CHAR EDMUNDS

One form of self harm that not many know as self harm is biting the inside of your mouth out of stress or worry. Some people don’t even know they're doing it. Another could be simply poking yourself with a needle, for example giving yourself a piercing or stick and pokes when you're mad, sad, stressed, and worried. Doing tattoos and piercings for fun it's different then doing them out of anger and sadness. More hotlines you can reach out to for help are, 988- suicide hotline, 1-800-799-7233 domestic violence hotline, and again 1-800-366-8288 self-harm hotline. Never be afraid to call one of these if you need to. Never fear getting out of a pit of darkness.