How people might self-injure

March is self-injury awareness month so I'm going to talk you through some of the ways that people might injure themselves.

Cutting

Generally, when we talk about self-harm, people think of cutting and that is a common way that people might hurt themselves. They may cut their arms, upper thighs or hip areas in particular; areas that are generally quite easy to conceal.

Burning, hair pulling, hitting, biting

But that's not the only way that people might hurt themselves. Others may burn their skin by using a lighter for instance. They may pick the skin, perhaps by picking a scab to the point that it never really heals and scars instead. Or picking the skin around nails to the point where it becomes very sore and is bleeding. There may be biting of the skin, or perhaps biting nails down so far that again, they become very sore. Pulling hair is another way that somebody might harm themselves. So really tugging on hair and sometimes people can end up pulling whole clumps of hair out. Some people might punch or hit themselves or other objects, for instance sometimes people will punch walls. And that an end up with them having a broken hand or quite significant cuts or grazing across their hand.

Alcohol

Excessive alcohol intake is another way that people can harm themselves. People may not realise it, but if they’ve had a difficult emotional time and then go out and drink an excessive amount of alcohol in order to cope with that, to make themselves feel better, (something that is damaging for their body) is actually a form of self-harming. They are harming their body in response to a difficult emotional situation.

Eating

The same can be said in terms of excessive eating; someone might get home at the end of a hard week and eat far more calories than their body needs. Again, they are harming themselves in order to deal with the way they are feeling. And it can also be the other end of the spectrum; not consuming enough calories. Excessive exercise is on that same spectrum too.

These are just some of the ways that people might harm themselves and to raise awareness that people can self-harm/injure themselves without even realizing that's what they're doing.