What Do You Wish People Knew About Self-Harm?
There are a lot of misconceptions out there.
Self-harm or self-injury refers to hurting yourself on purpose and is associated with various mental illnesses, trauma, or abuse.
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Most often, people use it as a coping mechanism, because they don't have or haven't found other healthy coping skills, according to the National Alliance on Mental Health.
The urge to self-harm isn't uncommon, but because people often keep their habit a secret, a lot of people have misconceptions about who does it, why they do it, or what it means.
So if you self-harm or have self-harmed in the past, we want to know: What do you wish people knew about it?
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Maybe you want people to know that you're not "doing it for attention."
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Or that "doing it for attention" isn't necessarily a bad thing, because maybe it was the only way you felt you could signal you needed help.
Maybe you want to share some basic etiquette requests, like how people should really resist on commenting on your scars.
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"What are those scars from?" can be a really invasive question if you don't know a person, FYI.
Maybe you'd want to clear up the misconception that self-harming automatically means you're suicidal.
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Or the idea that "self-harm" means the same thing for everyone.
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Self-harm in the media is most often portrayed as cutting, but that isn't the only way people injure themselves.