I'm going to try to post here more often. I really miss posting on this blog, and I miss helping people with the info provided here - or at least I *hope* it has helped someone.
This came from a researcher. Please spread the word if you feel like it or get the chance!
Would you like to help us understand how to help people who self-harm?
Self-injury (sometimes called “self-harm”) involves harming yourself on purpose. Some examples include cutting or burning yourself, taking an overdose of pills, or banging your head. Right now, very little is known about why people start or stop self-harming. The Personality and Emotion Research Lab (PERL), a research team from Simon Fraser University in Canada, is conducting a study to learn more about the experiences of people who self-harm, and we want your help! We are interested in how emotions, life experiences, stress and coping styles affect self-harm. We hope that this research will help other people understand more about why people self-harm and what they can do to help.
What you can do: If you want to participate in this study, you will fill out online questionnaires on self-harm, emotions, coping, symptoms, and life events. These questionnaires will take approximately 2 hours to complete.
Who can participate: We are looking for people who currently self-harm (whether you are trying to stop or not) AND those who have self-harmed in the past and quit.
What’s in it for you: Participants who complete the questionnaires will be paid $5 CAD (either online gift certificates (e.g., Amazon) or money transfers via PayPal). You can also choose to participate in our long-term study, where you will fill out a shorter version of the questionnaires every three months for two years. You will be paid $5 CAD (either online gift certificates or money) each time you complete a set of questionnaires (about 30 min each), and you will get a $15 CAD bonus once you have completed all 9 sets for a total of $60 CAD. Telling us about your experiences will give us important information on how self-harm changes over time, and could help develop and improve treatments for people who want to stop self-harming.
Please contact us at perl@sfu.ca if you are interested in participating or if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Personality and Emotion Research Laboratory (PERL)
Simon Fraser University
Department of PsychologyRCB5246, 8888
University DriveBurnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6
Showing posts with label self-injury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-injury. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Families and Friends: Self-Harm
Your best friend calls you up crying hysterically. You try to ask her what's wrong, but she gets flustered and ends up telling you she has to go. The next day she confides in you that she cut herself again last night. You feel so helpless! You wish you could do something to help her. The good news is, you CAN do something to help.
Here are some things you can do to help your self-harming loved one:
1. Offer a chance for him or her to talk - Some self-harmers are trying to communicate through cutting, burning, hair pulling, and so forth. Given a chance to talk, some self-harmers will be more than happy to talk. Others may not know how to express how they feel. Still others may be reluctant to talk about what's going on. No matter what the case, be patient and don't push. Simply let him or her know that you are there to listen if he or she wants to talk about anything with you.
2. Nurture and care for them no matter whether your loved one has recently self-harmed or not. Some self-harmers feel that they can only get your attention when they hurt themselves. It's important to nurture your loved one regularly. Here are some ideas of caring things to do:
-Send your loved one a paper or e-card.
-Bring her a flower.
-Set some time each week where you and your loved one do something fun together.
-Take her to lunch or a movie.
-Hug her (if she likes hugs).
3. Offer distractions. Sometimes self-harmers merely need a distraction from their feelings for a while. Offer to go to a movie or dinner with your loved one. If you can offer her to spend the night at your house or offer to come stay at her house for the night.
4. Set some boundaries. Tell your loved one that you can talk up until 10PM at night, but if you don't want her to call at 3AM, let her know that. You might also tell her that you care about her, but you don't want her to hurt herself while she is actually talking to you because it hurts you to see her do this.
5. Be available. You can't be helpful if you're not available to your loved one.
6. Be patient. Sometimes families and friends of self-harmers expect them to stop self-harming right away. This may not, and in fact, often does not, happen. Stopping self-harming behavior can take months or years. It requires consistent support from loved ones and professional help for a self-harmer to break this unhealthy coping mechanism.
7. Get support for yourself. If you need to, talk with a therapist about your own feelings regarding someone who self-harms. Sometimes it is important to get help for yourself when you are supporting a loved one.
8. Educate yourself. The more you understand about self-harming behavior, its causes, and other related mental illnesses, the better off you'll be. This is one of the best sites I've ever found on self-harm.
For blogging services, please contact me at: miniemedia@gmail.com.
Here are some things you can do to help your self-harming loved one:
1. Offer a chance for him or her to talk - Some self-harmers are trying to communicate through cutting, burning, hair pulling, and so forth. Given a chance to talk, some self-harmers will be more than happy to talk. Others may not know how to express how they feel. Still others may be reluctant to talk about what's going on. No matter what the case, be patient and don't push. Simply let him or her know that you are there to listen if he or she wants to talk about anything with you.
2. Nurture and care for them no matter whether your loved one has recently self-harmed or not. Some self-harmers feel that they can only get your attention when they hurt themselves. It's important to nurture your loved one regularly. Here are some ideas of caring things to do:
-Send your loved one a paper or e-card.
-Bring her a flower.
-Set some time each week where you and your loved one do something fun together.
-Take her to lunch or a movie.
-Hug her (if she likes hugs).
3. Offer distractions. Sometimes self-harmers merely need a distraction from their feelings for a while. Offer to go to a movie or dinner with your loved one. If you can offer her to spend the night at your house or offer to come stay at her house for the night.
4. Set some boundaries. Tell your loved one that you can talk up until 10PM at night, but if you don't want her to call at 3AM, let her know that. You might also tell her that you care about her, but you don't want her to hurt herself while she is actually talking to you because it hurts you to see her do this.
5. Be available. You can't be helpful if you're not available to your loved one.
6. Be patient. Sometimes families and friends of self-harmers expect them to stop self-harming right away. This may not, and in fact, often does not, happen. Stopping self-harming behavior can take months or years. It requires consistent support from loved ones and professional help for a self-harmer to break this unhealthy coping mechanism.
7. Get support for yourself. If you need to, talk with a therapist about your own feelings regarding someone who self-harms. Sometimes it is important to get help for yourself when you are supporting a loved one.
8. Educate yourself. The more you understand about self-harming behavior, its causes, and other related mental illnesses, the better off you'll be. This is one of the best sites I've ever found on self-harm.
For blogging services, please contact me at: miniemedia@gmail.com.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Why Do They Self-Harm?
One of the things I've discovered throughout my psychology and social work education and training is that people do things for reasons. These reasons may not always be clear to observers, however. And like any other coping mechanism, people self-harm for various reasons.
These are some of the reasons self-harmers commonly give for their self-inflicted violence:
-To numb feelings or to escape depression, dissociation, or emptiness.
-On the contrary, some self-harmers self-injure to escape numbness; they want to feel something.
--To prevent suicide (please see my post below for more information).
-To escape tension or overwhelming feelings.
-To communicate their emotional pain.
-As a way of continuing abusive patterns (many self-harmers have experienced abuse).
-To validate emotional pain.
-To gain control over something, their bodies.
-To punish oneself for being "bad".
-To cope with feelings of anger, alienation, depersonalization, depression, or disassociation.
-To get grounded or to escape a flashback.
Self-harmers have found that hurting themselves is a way in which they can cope with their feelings that seem to painful to just sit with. While the behavior may successfully prevent suicide, once the self-harmer is "hooked" on it, it is very difficult to stop. Learning new, healthier coping mechanisms is hard work and takes a lot of time and practice. For this reason it may take self-harmers months or years to completely stop self-harming.
These are some of the reasons self-harmers commonly give for their self-inflicted violence:
-To numb feelings or to escape depression, dissociation, or emptiness.
-On the contrary, some self-harmers self-injure to escape numbness; they want to feel something.
--To prevent suicide (please see my post below for more information).
-To escape tension or overwhelming feelings.
-To communicate their emotional pain.
-As a way of continuing abusive patterns (many self-harmers have experienced abuse).
-To validate emotional pain.
-To gain control over something, their bodies.
-To punish oneself for being "bad".
-To cope with feelings of anger, alienation, depersonalization, depression, or disassociation.
-To get grounded or to escape a flashback.
Self-harmers have found that hurting themselves is a way in which they can cope with their feelings that seem to painful to just sit with. While the behavior may successfully prevent suicide, once the self-harmer is "hooked" on it, it is very difficult to stop. Learning new, healthier coping mechanisms is hard work and takes a lot of time and practice. For this reason it may take self-harmers months or years to completely stop self-harming.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Who Self-Injures?
The typical self-injurer is female and is in her mid-twenties to her early thirties. Self-injurers typically begin hurting themselves in adolescence, but some individuals begin harming themselves before or after this period in their lives as well. Self-harmers are generally intelligent, middle to upper-middle class, well-educated, and has suffered from sexual and/or physical abuse. Many self-harmers also have at least one alcoholic parent.
Certain personality characteristics are also typical of self-harmers such as an inability to accept rejection, tend not to plan for the future, tend to hate and invalidate themselves, tend to have poor emotional regulation, are usually angry at themselves, may be suicidal or self-destructive, suffer from depression and anxiety, do not feel as if they have much control, and tend to be avoidant. These individuals also tend to lack healthy coping skills.
Self-injurers may engage in other unhealthy coping mechanisms such as eating disordered behavior, substance abuse, reckless driving, unnecessary risk taking, and/or shoplifting.
Certain personality characteristics are also typical of self-harmers such as an inability to accept rejection, tend not to plan for the future, tend to hate and invalidate themselves, tend to have poor emotional regulation, are usually angry at themselves, may be suicidal or self-destructive, suffer from depression and anxiety, do not feel as if they have much control, and tend to be avoidant. These individuals also tend to lack healthy coping skills.
Self-injurers may engage in other unhealthy coping mechanisms such as eating disordered behavior, substance abuse, reckless driving, unnecessary risk taking, and/or shoplifting.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Self-injury
March 1st is National Self-Injury Awareness Day. Please wear a red and black ribbon in support of the day.
This month I will be posting some information about self-injury.
I'll start today with a definition.
Self-harm is any action ones takes with the intent of hurting oneself and leaves marks lasting for more than one hour.
Some types of self-injury include cutting, burning, hitting oneself, interfering with the healing of wounds, bruising oneself, skin picking, hair pulling, and scab picking.
This month I will be posting some information about self-injury.
I'll start today with a definition.
Self-harm is any action ones takes with the intent of hurting oneself and leaves marks lasting for more than one hour.
Some types of self-injury include cutting, burning, hitting oneself, interfering with the healing of wounds, bruising oneself, skin picking, hair pulling, and scab picking.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Self-harm
Self-harm has been getting increased attention by the media over the past decade. I wanted to share my experiences as a self-harmer with others in order to help dispel the myths surrounding self-harm. I hope my personal essay sheds light on this topic. If you are a self-harmer, know you are not alone. Family and friends of individuals who hurt themselves may want to read the facts versus myths article I have written on the subject.
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