Trigger Warning — If you or a loved one is struggling with self-injury or self-harming behaviors and needs immediate assistance,
call 988 free 24/7 Crisis Hotline, or Text Hello to 741741.

How to Deal with Self Harm

We all need healthy ways to cope with the hard stuff. We’re here to help you find a healthy alter­na­tive to self-harm.

What is Self-Harm?

For some peo­ple, when depres­sion and anx­i­ety lead to a tor­na­do of emo­tions, they turn to self-harm look­ing for a release. Self-harm and self-injury are any forms of hurt­ing one­self on pur­pose. Usu­al­ly, when peo­ple self-harm, they do not do so as a sui­cide attempt. Rather, they self-harm as a way to release painful emotions.

Types of Self-Harm

Self-harm can man­i­fest dif­fer­ent­ly for every­one. And, the ways peo­ple may self-harm extend far beyond the usu­al ref­er­ences to cut­ting in media. Sim­ply, self-harm is any­thing and every­thing some­one can do to pur­pose­ly hurt their body.

Here are some of the most com­mon types of self-injury:

• Cut­ting
• Scratch­ing
• Burn­ing
• Carv­ing words or sym­bols into the skin
• Hit­ting or punch­ing one­self (includ­ing bang­ing one’s head or oth­er body parts against anoth­er surface)
• Pierc­ing the skin with sharp objects such as hairpins
• Pulling out hair
• Pick­ing at exist­ing wounds

Symptoms of Self-Harm

Stig­ma cre­ates shame and embar­rass­ment, mak­ing it hard for peo­ple who self-harm to get help. So, look out for your­self and for your pals. If you sus­pect that some­one in your life is self-harm­ing, here are some warn­ing signs to keep top of mind:

• Scars
• Fresh cuts, burns, scratch­es, or bruises
• Rub­bing an area exces­sive­ly to cre­ate a burn
• Hav­ing sharp objects on hand
• Wear­ing long sleeves or long pants, even in hot weather
• Dif­fi­cul­ties with inter­per­son­al relationships
• Per­sis­tent ques­tions about per­son­al identity
• Behav­ioral and emo­tion­al insta­bil­i­ty, impul­sive­ness, or unpredictability
• Say­ing that they feel help­less, hope­less, or worthless

Cri­sis Text Line can help you deal with self-harm. Text a Cri­sis Coun­selor at 741741

How to Deal With Self-Harm

Emo­tions can be real­ly painful some­times. It’s total­ly nor­mal to need ways to cope with and process the hard things in your life. If you are using self-harm to man­age your emo­tions, we’re here for you. And, we want to help keep you safe.

Here are some ways to push through, process, and cope with your emotions.

• Text to cool down. If you’re deal­ing with painful emo­tions, we’re here to help. Shoot us a text to con­nect with a real human and strate­gize healthy cop­ing mech­a­nisms to man­age your emo­tions. Text HOME to 741741 to con­nect with a real human.
• Get cre­ative. Stud­ies show that div­ing into mak­ing art can help peo­ple process emo­tions. So, next time you’re feel­ing like self-harm­ing, grab your sharpie and doo­dle your wor­ries away. A bonus: you can total­ly suck at it and still reap the same rewards.
• Find your zen. Keep­ing your­self safe from self-harm­ing is all about find­ing healthy alter­na­tives to work through the hard stuff. Researchers found tak­ing time to re-cen­ter through med­i­ta­tion to be a pow­er­ful way to find your cool and calm. Try using an app like Head­space to get on the med­i­ta­tion bandwagon.
• Talk to a pro. Self-harm is seri­ous. And, while the inten­tion behind self-harm usu­al­ly is not death, it can still be dangerous—both phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. Talk­ing to some­one who can help you find alter­na­tives is incred­i­bly impor­tant. Of course, you can start by tex­ting us. Also, con­sid­er telling some­one you know who can help you con­nect with a professional.

Why Do People Self-Harm?

Let’s start with this: every­one needs a way to cope with their emo­tions. Peo­ple who self-harm have turned to hurt­ing them­selves as their cop­ing mech­a­nism to man­age their emotions.

So, peo­ple might self-harm to:

• Process their neg­a­tive feelings
• Dis­tract them­selves from their neg­a­tive feelings
• Feel some­thing phys­i­cal, par­tic­u­lar­ly if they are feel­ing numb
• Devel­op a sense of con­trol over their lives
• Pun­ish them­selves for things they think they’ve done wrong
• Express emo­tions that they are oth­er­wise embar­rassed to show

Effects of Self-Harm

Self-harm can be seri­ous­ly dangerous—physically, emo­tion­al­ly, social­ly, all of it.

Phys­i­cal Effects of Self-Harm

• Per­ma­nent scars
• Uncon­trolled bleeding
• Infec­tion
• Emo­tion­al Effects of Self-Harm
• Guilt or shame
• A dimin­ished sense of self, includ­ing feel­ing help­less or worthless
• Addic­tion to the behavior

Social Effects of Self-Harm

• Avoid­ing friends and loved ones
• Becom­ing ostra­cized from loved ones who may not understand
• Inter­per­son­al dif­fi­cul­ty from lying to oth­ers about injuries

Recovering from Self-Harm

A lot of peo­ple who self-harm do so because they are deal­ing with painful emo­tions. If this applies to you, hi—we believe in you and rec­og­nize your pain. Because painful emo­tions are at the root of self-harm, quite often recov­er­ing from self-harm involves address­ing emotions.

Break­ing away from the cycle of self-harm can feel like a huge climb. It involves break­ing a habit that has once brought com­fort from pain. But, it is not impos­si­ble. Here are some steps to set you up for success:

• Name your rea­son for hurt­ing your­self and your rea­son for quit­ting. Ask your­self: “What do I feel before, dur­ing, and after self-injury? Which of those emo­tions do I active­ly seek out, and which are harmful?”
• Iden­ti­fy oth­er ways of achiev­ing the same result. For exam­ple, if you self-harm for the phys­i­cal sen­sa­tion, seek oth­er ways of releas­ing endor­phins, like exer­cise. For real, try throw­ing a few punch­es at a kick­box­ing class or tap­ping it back in a spin class with the *per­fect* playlist. If you self-harm to express your emo­tions, prac­tice express­ing them in words by writ­ing them down. Grab a pen and your favorite note­book, or start typ­ing away in your notes app.
• Tack­le the under­ly­ing emo­tions. Explore the feel­ings that lead you to want to hurt your­self. If it’s guilt, where is that guilt com­ing from? Maybe try find­ing a therapist—there are pros trained specif­i­cal­ly to help with this.
• Tell some­one you trust. Let a friend, fam­i­ly mem­ber, or trust­ed adult know what you’re going through and that you need their sup­port. Open­ing up to peo­ple can be eas­i­er said than done. Here’s a place to start: “I’m hav­ing a hard time pro­cess­ing some painful emo­tions and I could use your sup­port right now.”

Get­ting healthy—both in your brain and in your body—takes hard work. You got this. And, we believe in you.

Text a Cri­sis Coun­selor at 741471 or use the mobile click to text but­ton below. You’re not alone.

Pass 741741 On To A Friend

You nev­er know who might need Cri­sis Text Line. Pass it on and tell the peo­ple in your life to text HOME to 741741 if they’re ever in crisis.