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Self-Mutilation and Self-Injury – An Introduction

For people who have Borderline Personality Disorder, self-mutilation and self-injury may be a shocking, but very real fact of life. Some people can't even fathom deliberately hurting themselves, and the idea of self-injury may seem frightening, but for other people who do injure themselves by cutting or other means, self-injury can offer a momentary sense of release of tension and feeling of calm.

Unfortunately, for those people for whom self-mutilation and self-injury/cutting does offer a sense of release and feeling of calm, those feelings are usually quickly followed by other feelings – negative feelings of guilt and shame – followed by the return of other painful emotions. With self-mutilation and self-injury comes the very real possibility of inflicting serious and even fatal injuries.

Self-injury is not a specific disease or condition. It is not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) published by the American Psychiatric Association and used to diagnose people with mental illness. Rather, it is a type of abnormal behavior, and may accompany other mental illnesses or disorders, such as depression, Bipolar Disorder, and Borderline Personality Disorder, but it is not a disorder of its own.

Because self-injury is often done impulsively (on impulse), it is sometimes considered an impulse-control behavior problem. Self-injury is also known as self-mutilation, self-harm, self-injurious behavior and self-mutilation.

It is difficult to estimate exactly how many people engage in self-injury, because some people never seek treatment, for several reasons. There is a stigma attached to the problem. Many people are embarrassed about the fact that they deliberately injure themselves. Most people are frightened by that fact, and feel that they cannot talk to anyone about it, because no one would understand their problem. Therefore there are no accurate statistics regarding self-injury; however, it is thought that about three to five percent of Americans have deliberately injured themselves at some point in their lives. Also, self-injury may be more common (and on the rise) among adolescents.

Self-injury is not the same as a suicide attempt. For example, someone might try to harm him/herself by taking an overdose of medication, but then stop short of taking a lethal dose. In self-injury, instead, the intent isn't to die, but to inflict bodily harm. However, self-injury can accidentally result in suicide.

As opposed to a suicidal attempt, self-injury is behavior in which people deliberately harm their own bodies in some way to help them cope with overwhelming emotions. Since many times an impulsive act, the person may become upset and, spontaneously, seek a way to hurt themselves, recklessly doing damage to their own body. Other times, self-injury may be inflicted in a methodical, controlled manner. The person may even plan it in advance, whereby he/she takes steps to avoid detection.

Self-injury in this sense isn’t the same as the scarring, piercing, and tattooing, which are considered as other forms of self-mutilation. This type of self-injury is distinguished from those other practices by the emotional motivation behind it. In other words, it is an emotionally unhealthy coping method for negative, overwhelming feelings.

About the Author

David Oliver is the founder of BorderlineCentral.com a one stop source of information on how to cope and deal with borderline personality disorder.

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