Get the facts about depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide from To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA).
To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Our scars remind us that the past is real...
Self-Injury Versus Suicide
"Self-injury is a distinctly different activity from a suicide attempt, but the boundaries often seem murky, and many self-injurers do indeed have suicidal thoughts or have committed acts aimed at ending their lives. On rare occasions a self-injurer will carry her actions a step too far, inadvertently causing death.
Paradoxically, self-injury is usually a life-sustaining act, a mechanism to cope with stress, relieve inexpressible feelings, and gain attention. Most sufferers say it is a mechanism to stave off suicide or more serious forms of emotional disorganization; it is a "life preserver" rather than an exit strategy. Indeed, in many cases the superficial cutting and burning patients use is not the type of behavior usually associated with people who kill themselves.
To be sure, a small percentage of self-injurers do end their own lives, either on purpose or as an unplanned side effect of an extreme bout with self-injury. Some patients have told us they've come so close to dying so many times that they don't really believe they can die. Others engage in a macabre game of Russian roulette, testing fate to see whether they are meant to live or die.
In our experience, the handful of people who have committed suicide were those who also suffered from a very long-term and profound depression, with sustained feelings of hopelessness. If self-injurers were suicidal as a group, we would be hard pressed to help them to the degree we have, and we would be far less confident of their prospects for recovery.
In terms of its dangers, self-injury can be compared to anorexia, bulimia, or drug and alcohol abuse. All are potentially lethal problems when carried to an extreme. But people seldom think of anorexics or alcoholics as suicidal; people view them as having a difficult problem that can be overcome through perseverance and treatment. We look at self-injury the same way."
-Excerpts from the book "Bodily Harm" by Karen Conterio and Wendy Lader, Ph.D. with Jennifer Kingson Bloom
"Self-injury is a distinctly different activity from a suicide attempt, but the boundaries often seem murky, and many self-injurers do indeed have suicidal thoughts or have committed acts aimed at ending their lives. On rare occasions a self-injurer will carry her actions a step too far, inadvertently causing death.
Paradoxically, self-injury is usually a life-sustaining act, a mechanism to cope with stress, relieve inexpressible feelings, and gain attention. Most sufferers say it is a mechanism to stave off suicide or more serious forms of emotional disorganization; it is a "life preserver" rather than an exit strategy. Indeed, in many cases the superficial cutting and burning patients use is not the type of behavior usually associated with people who kill themselves.
To be sure, a small percentage of self-injurers do end their own lives, either on purpose or as an unplanned side effect of an extreme bout with self-injury. Some patients have told us they've come so close to dying so many times that they don't really believe they can die. Others engage in a macabre game of Russian roulette, testing fate to see whether they are meant to live or die.
In our experience, the handful of people who have committed suicide were those who also suffered from a very long-term and profound depression, with sustained feelings of hopelessness. If self-injurers were suicidal as a group, we would be hard pressed to help them to the degree we have, and we would be far less confident of their prospects for recovery.
In terms of its dangers, self-injury can be compared to anorexia, bulimia, or drug and alcohol abuse. All are potentially lethal problems when carried to an extreme. But people seldom think of anorexics or alcoholics as suicidal; people view them as having a difficult problem that can be overcome through perseverance and treatment. We look at self-injury the same way."
-Excerpts from the book "Bodily Harm" by Karen Conterio and Wendy Lader, Ph.D. with Jennifer Kingson Bloom
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Cutting: Why Teens Hurt Themselves
Cutting: Why Teens Hurt Themselves
Thank you to my friend, Tara, for sharing this article with me. =]
Enjoy and be educated!
Thank you to my friend, Tara, for sharing this article with me. =]
Enjoy and be educated!
Monday, June 6, 2011
'Cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all...
"Some turn to alcohol, narcotics, or other destructive substances. Others binge, purge, or starve themselves. For more and more people, however, comfort comes from the razor blades, knives, scissors, and other household implements that they use to carve physical expressions of their anguish on their skin. By most accounts, self-injury is rapidly displacing eating disorders as the most serious mental and physical health problem confronting our society.
What is self-injury? We define it as the deliberate mutilation of the body or a body part, not with the intent to commit suicide but as a way of managing emotions that seem too painful for words to express. It can include cutting the skin or burning it, or bruising oneself through a premeditated accident. It can mean scratching the skin until it bleeds, or interfering with the healing of wounds. In more extreme cases, self-injurers break their own bones, amputate their own digits, eat harmful substances, or inject their bodies with toxins.
Leaving aside the more dramatic examples, there are aspects of the syndrome that are prevalent among "normal" people and among people with milder disturbances. Self-injury encompasses a range of behaviors, some of them not so distant from the stress-busting strategies of the healthy population. How many people do you know--yourself included--who bite their nails, pick at acne lesions, or scratch mosquito bites until they bleed? How many people have gone on starvation diets to fit into a certain pair of pants? Where does one draw the line between the harmless things that people do to their bodies and those that merit serious attention?"
-Excerpt from the book "Bodily Harm" by Karen Conterio and Wendy Lader, Ph.D. with Jennifer Kingson Bloom
What is self-injury? We define it as the deliberate mutilation of the body or a body part, not with the intent to commit suicide but as a way of managing emotions that seem too painful for words to express. It can include cutting the skin or burning it, or bruising oneself through a premeditated accident. It can mean scratching the skin until it bleeds, or interfering with the healing of wounds. In more extreme cases, self-injurers break their own bones, amputate their own digits, eat harmful substances, or inject their bodies with toxins.
 |
| The only photo I ever took of any of my self-mutilation. This was done with a paring knife. |
Leaving aside the more dramatic examples, there are aspects of the syndrome that are prevalent among "normal" people and among people with milder disturbances. Self-injury encompasses a range of behaviors, some of them not so distant from the stress-busting strategies of the healthy population. How many people do you know--yourself included--who bite their nails, pick at acne lesions, or scratch mosquito bites until they bleed? How many people have gone on starvation diets to fit into a certain pair of pants? Where does one draw the line between the harmless things that people do to their bodies and those that merit serious attention?"
-Excerpt from the book "Bodily Harm" by Karen Conterio and Wendy Lader, Ph.D. with Jennifer Kingson Bloom
Welcome!
Welcome to my new blog!
I have created this with the hope of enlightening people who have never suffered from depression or do not understand self-harm. I am currently weaning off of 100mg of generic Zoloft that I take every night. Due to the way my body and mind have been reacting to the weaning process I felt like I wanted to share so much with the world.
I am completely open to questions.
Enjoy and be educated!
I have created this with the hope of enlightening people who have never suffered from depression or do not understand self-harm. I am currently weaning off of 100mg of generic Zoloft that I take every night. Due to the way my body and mind have been reacting to the weaning process I felt like I wanted to share so much with the world.
I am completely open to questions.
Enjoy and be educated!
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