What is Self-Harm Addiction and How is it Treated?
- By Rosemary Grace Brooks
- Published 01/14/2009
- Addiction Recovery
-
Rating:
Unrated
What is Self-Harm Addiction and How is it Treated?
Self-harm addiction, also known as self-mutilation,
usually refers to the act of cutting and burning oneself and is an addiction
that is widely misunderstood. Many often believe that a self-harmer is
attempting to commit suicide due to the serious nature of the wounds and cuts
inflicted. When a person is a self-harmer, they engage in obsessive and
compulsive behaviours involving inflicting physical damage to their bodies in a
quest to avoid feelings with which they are unable to cope or do not know how
to process. Others may see a self-mutilator as an attention seeker which is
simply not true.
What is self-harming?Self-harming can include cutting,
burning with cigarette lighters, cigarettes and other hot implements, and
general acts of bodily harm such as hitting one’s head against a wall
repeatedly. The self-mutilation can be so severe that the sufferer may need
medical treatment and hospitalisation.
The results leave permanent scars on the
body, which the sufferer may be proud of when immersed in their addiction, yet
will also cause deep shame of their behaviour resulting in their hiding the
evidence from others.
Who suffers from it?
Many people suffer from the addiction
concerned with self-harm. The condition does not discriminate race, gender,
culture or creed although young women seem to suffer most commonly from these
addictive behaviours. Self-harm is often accompanied by other addictive
tendencies, especially eating disorders and drug addiction, but anyone can
suffer from the problem.
Self-harm is a disease - just like drug
addiction and alcoholism, the sufferer has an incurable and progressive disease
which can be arrested and managed through therapy and treatment. The act of
harming one’s body is not really the problem when self-mutilation is involved.
Whilst the behaviour is the addiction, the problem lies in the person: their
behaviour is a symptom of the disease.
If a person is addicted to the obsessive
and compulsive behaviours related to self-harming, the person is generally
secretive about their behaviour. Fear of being stopped or confronted results in
the hiding of their actions.
Many sufferers report their behaviour
involving self-harm as ‘ritualistic’, just as with drug addicts and alcoholics.
For example, a person who uses razors to cut themselves may have a strict
routine that they follow, which could include getting a special and ‘safe
place’ ready for their self-harm to be carried out in ‘peace’ without
disturbance. The implements used, the method of harming and the aftermath may
follow a very similar pattern each time. The location of self-harm infliction
on their bodies may be in one place, such as the arms, thighs, stomach and
sometimes even the face.
How does a person self-harm?The process of self-harming generally
involves the sufferer experiencing some sort of an emotion, such as rejection
and the resulting self-hatred, and following this, a desperate need to
‘cleanse’ themselves of the unbearable feelings.
The sufferer will feel some pain when
they inflict the harm on their bodies, but will feel immediate relief flood
over themselves when the first cut is drawn or first burn is inflicted. The
sufferer will carry on mutilating their bodies until the feeling has passed and
their feelings have been completely extinguished. The body will suffer the natural
reaction of the release of adrenalin when physical harm occurs which is
resultant in the extinguishing of emotion and the ‘high’ which self-harmers
feel.
Sufferers report feeling immense ecstasy
at the first infliction of pain which they desperately try to retrieve again
and again in the same harming ‘session,’, much like a drug addict chasing that
first high for years after it occurred. Yet the self-harmer will be in a state
of distraction and distance following an episode and will usually be completely
calm, without any emotion whatsoever.
What are the signs of self-harm and
how does a person stop?
Signs of a person having a problem with
self-mutilation are secretive behaviour, wearing long sleeves even when the
weather is hot in an attempt to hide the scarring, staring at or playing with
scars, obsessions with whatever implement they choose to use, uncharacteristic
behaviour such as mood swings and engaging in other self-destructive behaviour,
some of which are drug use, alcohol abuse, starvation, purging, over eating and
promiscuity.
Treatment for self-mutilation is of a
similar approach to treating other addictions. Firstly the behaviour must be
ceased to allow the feelings which the sufferer is avoiding to surface. It is
only then that healing can begin in the form of therapy and counselling.
Many sufferers are admitted to treatment
centres because self-harm addiction is based on an addiction like any other
obsessive and compulsive behaviour. In fact, many people who end one compulsive
behaviour find themselves engaging in other types of self-destructive and
addictive behaviour to deal with the feelings that surface.
Self-mutilation treatment is most
beneficial when one to one counselling, group therapy and a daily programme of
recovery is implemented. A Twelve Step Programme can be extremely beneficial to
a person who suffers from self-mutilation addiction. A Twelve Step Programme is
a daily programme which allows addicts to find cessation of their obsessive and
compulsive behaviours and provides tools and support for continued recovery. A
combination of treatment, therapy and a programme of recovery are widely
considered to be the best method of maintaining abstinence from this self-destructive
compulsion.
Self-harming addiction is incredibly
serious and can take sufferers to such dark places that they may feel they can never
recover or live a life free of the obsession and compulsion to self-harm. Yet,
with treatment and a daily programme of recovery, a self-harming addict can
regain a normal and happy life.
About the Author:
Oasis
Counselling Centre is a treatment centre located in Plettenberg Bay, South
Africa, and offers intensive in-patient treatment for a multitude of addictive
behaviours such as self-harming
addiction through the use of individual and group therapy, a Twelve Step
Programme of recovery and a nurturing and caring atmosphere.
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