Self-Harm in Adolescents

Self-injury can be considered a maladaptive coping mechanism. Self-injurious behaviors are often underestimated because they are put in place in a state of secrecy and are frequently accompanied by feelings of shame.

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The 'self-harm refers to a set of behaviors that the individual puts in place intentionally to cause damage or injury to your body or parts of it.

According to Armando Favazza, who first identified such behaviors as a syndrome with characteristics similar to NAS Impulse Control Disorder, self-harm presents some specific components: recurring thoughts of damaging one's own body , an inability to resist impulses to damage it, from which derives the destruction or alteration of the body tissue; growing sense of tension before implementing self-injurious behavior , feeling of gratification and well-being after the self-injurious act .

Wounding with cuts and burns are the most common forms of self - harm among the very young , some of the other methods include poisoning and overdose in more adult age. The ' self-harm has been associated with depression and anxiety , antisocial behavior and, above all, the use of alcohol (the risk is doubled), the use of cannabis and smoke.

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Shame and stigma in self-injurious conduct

One of the major difficulties associated with this disorder is that self-injurious behavior is often underestimated because it is carried out in a state of secrecy and is frequently accompanied by feelings of shame . In fact, those who are self-harming, almost always tend to isolate themselves and hide their wounds, above all because of the fear of being judged.

I remember a friend of mine called Alex who locked himself in the bathroom with a razor in his hand, he cut himself and watched the blood flow and fall on the floor and meanwhile crying. He knew he needed help but in that circumstance his only thoughts were:"What will people think of me? Will they think I'm crazy? What will they go around saying when they know it? They'll think I have something wrong ... They'll think I'm doing it just to get attention. "

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Self-harm as a maladaptive coping mechanism

The ' self-harm is not a way to get attention, or an attempt at suicide . Let me take the words of Alex who lived it: Alex is 30 years old now. In 1992, when he started, he had never heard of self-harm. "It was not the sensation of pain itself, but the reaction of the body," he said.

"A sort of numb feeling. When I hurt myself I felt completely calm, my mind focused on pain and injury and all the other disturbing thoughts and problems left my mind in the meantime. There is a misconception that self-harm would be an attempt to die, "he says."It's really the exact opposite. Sometimes when I felt I did not want to live anymore, I hurt myself and felt more alive. It was a survival mechanism ".

Many people get hurt because they are invaded by their emotions , such as sadness or anxiety or severe stress and damaging their bodies is a way to manage these emotions experienced as intolerable. Those who use self-harm in this way believes getting hurt brings them back into contact with their body and mind, as if it were a way to express unspeakable emotions, but keeping them under control.

Then there are a whole series of other reasons related to psychiatric conditions that lead a person to harm himself (such as purifying himself or trying to atone for a trauma immediately), which we will be analyzing together in another article . What we can generally agree on for now is that self-harm can best be understood as a maladaptive coping mechanism commonly used by teens these days.