Self injury is directly hurting the body in ways that are not socially acceptable, but can also be socially acceptable in some culturals.

Some of the ways we self-injure of self-hurt are:

cutting

burning

hitting

picking

biting

scratching

tearing

piercing

using harmful substances

banging head

pullng or plucking of hair or eyebrows

picking at cuticles

choking

purging

dieitng

overeating

digging into gums

slapping self

drinking coustic substances

inserting objects into the rectum or vagina

cosmetic surgery

Self Multilation, parasuicidal behavior, self-destruction, self-damaging behavior, deliberate self-harm, deliberate self-inflected violence, self-abuse are all forms of self-injury and self-harm.

Body alterations, such as, tattoos, body piercing, ceremonial iniation scarring are all self-injury issues. In-direct self-harm , like behaviors that are indirectly causing bodily harm are also in the realm of self-injury. Substance abuse, smoking, overeating, dieting, purging, denying the body of nutrition, failure to care for yourself both through hygiene and seeking medical attention when needed are considered self-injury issues. Risk-taking and putting ones self in dangerous situations are also considered self-injury/self-harm.

Anyone out there who self-injures, knows that the list above is not exclusive. There are many other creative and unique forms of self-injuring that we create for ourselves or as our therapist calls it "loopholes" we use to give us the illusion that our style is different and does not fall into the realm of self-harm.

Through the following pages, we hope to give you an insight as to what self-injury is about, why we might be doing it and how we might stop it from continuing. We will tell you what our experiences have been for us and how we are working on changing our behaviors to stop hurting our body and we will give you links to sites that might help answer your quetions or give you insight to help yourself with self-injury. We hope our information helps someone out there.

It seems strange or odd in a way, that we, the ones who have already been abused, would continue to abuse ourselves or to let others abuse us through abusive relationships. Yet, self-injury and self-harm is prevelant in those of us who are DID and survivors of abuse.

We still do not have a concrete reason for our own self-injury patterns and behaviors, or why we do it. What we have been able to do is to become aware of the urgency to self-harm and are working on alternative ways to meet whatever need self-injury serves.

We begin this section with our own story of our history of self-injury/self-harm. It is not an easy task we have set before us, because, self-injury is embrassing, humilating and hard to explain to others. For us, it has been away of life which we have lived with for many years. For as long as we can remember.

When we began therapy three years ago and our therapist started to ask questions of our past history, she asked us about self-injury/self-harm. She asked in a way that was of such ease to her and seemed to be a normal thing to ask. We were surprised at how easy and matter-of-factly she proposed this question to us. Of course we denied it. No, we would never so anything like that. {This we said as we sat there with a cast up to our elbow}. She just smiled, nodded and jotted some notes on a pad of paper.

Through about another month worth of weekly sessions, it became apparrent to her that a confrontation over the matter was necessary. This time with notes in hand and medical records to support her, she stated her case and we had no other way to go but to confess. She had been taken notes of the injuries she had seen in the last month and was watching carefully to see if any new injuries appeared. {and these were the injuries she could see, there were plenty hidden}.

Being forced to openly divulge our secret to someone outside of ourselves was hard, damn hard and scarey too. We felt that no one else could or would understand what we were going through or why we were doing what we did. Hell, we didn't even understand it. To our surprise, she was not shocked, surprised or angry with us. She simply asked us if we could remember when we began this behavior and if we had any idea what purpose it has served us.

We can only say, that our pattern of self-injury started very early in our life and we are still struggling with it today. We have had many broken bones, blackened eyes, scars from cuts and burns and various other self-injuries as well as "risk-taking" behaviors. We are working very hard on our Safety and to maintain safety both internaly and externaly. We have developed and are always updating a safety contract. We do this because we are always finding "loopholes" in which to use to our advantage.

Up until recently we were very good at making excuses for our injuries to those who were around us and to those who cared. We can be very creative in our excuses as to what happened and people easily believed us. They caulked it up to us being "accident prone" Well, that was then and this is now and we can't get away with anymore excuses. Whenever there is an injury to our body, we are questioned and questioned again. It is hard to get away with any thing anymore and this makes us frustrated and humilated at the same time. Having others now know our secret makes us feel violated. But it is because of this violation that it has become harder for us to self-harm and has made us look at other safe alternatitives to seek what it is we need to when we begin to feel the need to hurt ourselves.

Everyday we struggle with the urge to hurt. Everyday we think of ways that would be creative and help us stop the feelings that we don't want to feel. But in doing so we realize that this is an unhealthy way to live and a dangerous way to live too. Therefore we have begun searching for alternative ways to sooth ourselves and relax from the feelings that send us from 0 - 10 in the self harm arena. We are looking at ways to re-direct those feelings of self-injury and focus on positive actions to our reactions. We know we are not alone in our struggle. We realize that there are many more out there who do the same thing and that they struggle as we do. It is our goal to help make others aware of self-injury behavior and find ways to re-direct how we can cope with the needs and feelings we deal with on a daily basis.

Just Remember TAKE CARE OF YOU