anxietys-room:

List of things that can be considered self harm

According to my therapist, self harm is simply a way to temporarily numb some deeply hidden inner pain by causing outer pain. Here are some examples:

Cutting: it’s fairly self explanatory…

Burning: again, fairly self explaining…and this includes anything that puts your body under unnatural and unhealthy levels of heat that could potentially cause damage, not just holding a flame to your skin

Scratching: either with your nails or just taking any somewhat sharp object and scratching away at your skin

Hitting: slamming your head into walls, slapping yourself in the face, hitting yourself in any way, can cause a lot of damage especially if it’s on the head. We don’t want your beautiful mind to be damaged

Grabbing: grabbing at your neck, and face, and arms, and basically just having a rough grasp on your body that causes pain

Starving: starving yourself is a very unhealthy and very deadly form of self harm, when you purposefully skip meals for any reason it can cause horrible effects on your body. And it’s not just with eating disorders. It’s possible to starve yourself for a week and it’s not because you want to lose weight or anything, you just feel like you can’t

Snapping/flicking/small harms: flicking at yourself or snapping an elastic are what I call small harms, drawing on yourself with a pen that is not a good pen to mark yourself with as well. These things aren’t really considered as bad as others, but they can still hurt you. They’re sometimes suggested for when you have an urge to cut or do something else that’s considered more serious, but it can still cause problems

Emotional self harm: This includes self deprecating thoughts and bad comments about yourself, as well as doing things you know will cause you emotional pain, such as reading hateful things written by others about you or a group you’re a part of, or searching up a topic that you know will hurt you in some way. Emotional pain can be very similar to physical pain, and things like this can shape how you view yourself and can have very long lasting effects on yourself. Trust me.

Now, here’s the truth about self harm, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, what matters is why. What is it that’s motivating you to hurt yourself? You can snap an elastic on your wrist to fidget, and it’s not self harm because you have no intention to hurt yourself, but you can do the same thing, and you’re doing it only because you’re too scared to take a blade to your skin or because you enjoy the pain, then it’s self harm. This doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s unhealthy, but it’s no reason to feel ashamed. The important thing is that you’re honest and that you try to work on it. The next important thing: it won’t go away overnight, it’s okay to fall back to where you were at the start, it doesn’t mean you’re bad or not healing, what’s important is that you pick yourself back up, and continue moving forward, and sometimes back, but it’s okay, it’s a process and it takes time. Be patient with yourself and be gentle with yourself.