Myths
There are a number of myths about self-injury that can end up persuading people that SIers do not deserve help, or are frightening. They can cause a great deal of damage, particularly when repeated by the media, and many organisations try very hard to stop these myths from spreading. These are the most common ones:
- Self-injury is just attention-seeking. In most cases this is emphatically not true - most self-injurers go to great lengths to hide cuts, burns and scars. One of the ways of guessing if a friend is a self-injurer is if they wear long sleeves/trousers in the height of summer after all. Some people do show their scars - for a variety of reasons. Some wear them as battle scars, feeling proud of having come through difficult times; some simply long to be free, and not to have to hide. Some people cut, tell others, and show their wounds so that they can receive help. While they are certainly seeking attention, I would not condemn someone for wanting to get better. Self-injurers are not attention-seekers, and they deserve respect.
- Self-injury means the person is suicidal. This is not normally true. Self-injury is an expression of inward conflict, pain or lack of feeling, not a series of repeated suicide attempts. This particular myth is generally aimed at people who cut themselves - yet their motivation for doing so is the same as for people who burn or pull hair. That is not to say that self-injurers cannot be suicidal - the pain that they are feeling may indeed lead them to attempt suicide - but that is not the reason they self-injure. Indeed self-injury may act as a suicide preventative, easing the pain and providing temporary relief from feelings that might precipitate a suicide attempt.
- Self-injurers are mad. While a good number of self-injurers do suffer from a mental illness - most notably, borderline personality disorder and depression - not all do, and certainly most self-injurers are no threat to other people, and there is no need to be frightened or to sneer.
- Self-injurers are dangerous. Self-injurers commit violence against themselves, rather than (and sometimes to prevent violence) to other people. The feelings they have and the impulses they act upon that are not like most people's are not against others but turned inward.
- Self-injurers are masochists. It is true that many self-injurers gain something like pleasure from injury, due to the release of endorphines from pain and the subsiding of painful feelings, they do not gain sexual pleasure from the action. Some people do gain sexual pleasure from injury - that is what masochism means - but they injure or have someone injure them for that purpose and no other.
- Self-injurers were abused as children. While a good number of self-injurers are survivors of sexual abuse, it is unwise to assume any self-injurer you meet was, and especially unwise to encourage them to "re-remember" such abuse. Recovered memories have been discredited after having caused immense pain, and it is offensive to assume someone must have been sexually abused if they self-injure.
- Self-injurers are demon-possessed. A minority of Christians hold to this view, yet it is notable in the case of the demoniac in Mark 5 and in other biblical cases of possession that the actions of the afflicted were not under their control whereas self-injurers choose their actions. Also, the Old Testament condemns cutting of the flesh because it was a Pagan custom of mourning the dead - which is not self-injury.
- Self-injurers are goths, vampires, punks [insert name of subculture here]. Some goths self-injure, but not because they are goths, that subculture (indeed no subculture) does not encourage self-injury. Self-injury is not a fashion statement, a style choice, or a mark of belonging to a certain group. Self-injurers are perhaps more inclined to being goths but being a goth does not make one a self-injurer. Vampires - by which I mean people who actively live a vampire lifestyle, for example drinking blood/energy - tend not to be self-injurers. That they drink blood means nothing - they do so either because of a perceived need or for pleasure, and also tend not to drink their own.