Two warnings for the top of this video. First of all a trigger warning that I will be talking
about intentional self-harm behavior such as cutting. Secondly a comment warning that
if you are planning to make vile comments about people who intentionally injure themselves
or encourage people to injure themselves or cut themselves, your comments aren't welcome
here. This is intended to be a safe space and if you make this an unsafe space through
your comments you're going to get banned. So let's all practice being decent humans
shall we?
Couple weeks ago Emmy A asked for help with a friend who's cutting. 'She asked in class
for a pair of scissors to cut herself with a smile on her face and I said "no I don't
want you to hurt yourself I really love you." A few days ago she said to me with the exact
same smile, "I'm going to cut myself." Yesterday she even sent pictures of her arm bleeding
to her good friends and some friends she doesn't even talk to. My question is is she doing
it for attention or because she needs help? What do I need to do?' To just quickly answer
Emmy A's question of is she just looking for attention or does she actually need help,
yeah she probably needs help. Because what's going on regardless of the reasons for it
or the ways that it manifests whether it is cutting or excessive scratching or burning
ect., what is happening is quote, "A deliberate adaptive strategy to manage physiological
stimulation and emotional distress without the intention of ending life.' It's often
used as a coping mechanism for extreme tension or stress, anxiety, depression, it might be
used to deal with extremely traumatic events or abuse happening. It might be used to deal
with bullying. It can be related to impulse control disorders. Speaking of control it
is often used to gain a sense of control over whatever is going on inside or outside and
there is a socially contagious element to this particularly among younger people and
it does spread through social media. There are these online communities that have been
created that thrive on places like tumblr, YouTube and YouTube comments. Considering
all of the outrageous things people can do or wear to draw attention to themselves, just
writing people who might self-harm in public off as just wanting attention, plain and simple,
it's not that plain and simple. Demi Lovato who has talked before about her past cutting
behavior and how she overcame that said that she did it as a way to match the outside to
how horrible she felt on the inside. When it comes to the work of recovery from this
kind of behavior and almost rewiring our, our brains and our thought patterns to resist
that impulse to seek out that instant "gratification" and I put gratification in quotes because
it isn't ultimately gratifying, the challenge is focusing on the inside and working on renovating
the inside rather than destroying the outside. Emmy A's question of attention-seekers versus
people who 'legitimately' need help also gets at a really toxic pattern that I've noticed
as well of there being this false hierarchy of severity, of quantifying the legitimacy
of your emotional distress based on the severity of your self-inflicted wounds. If you're hurting
yourself or attempting to hurt yourself or even just making it look like you've hurt
yourself, that's still unhealthy behavior that's being exhibited. Speaking as an adult
although I'm not a parent, I do think that parents and teachers and other authority figures
in kids lives can probably do a better job maybe stepping up in certain ways to where
people don't feel compelled to have to prove just how much their problems if anything just
feel like problems rather than having to physically manifest it. What do you do though if you
know that say a friend or family member, someone you care about is hurting him or herself.
Freaking out about it and telling them all the ways that it is, what they're doing is
terrible is probably not going to do anything. Ultimatums, not going to do anything. Guilt
trips, not going to do anything. In fact that might actually make it worse. The very best
thing that you can do for someone who is doing this to themselves is be as kind, gentle and
non-judgmental as possible. Saying hey, I didn't know that you felt this way. Next time
you want to do this, you call me. By making yourself available and letting them know you
care, I'm sure that that does make a difference. Ultimately it's up to that person to stop
the behavior. What you can do is open yourself up as a resource. It's distressing yes to
see how many people do this and how this is such a way of life for so many girls in particular
but also how completely hateful people are in response to these girls in particular and
I know that guys do it too. It just all feeds in to this vicious cycle that has only elevated
this behavior to epidemic levels when we should be collectively working towards becoming healthier.
To that end, I need your help. Have you helped a friend with this before or if you've been
someone who has intentionally hurt yourself, what did you do to stop those kinds of behaviors.
let me know in the comments below and seriously I would appreciate everybody's insights on
this and also people's kindness and non-judgmental approach to this. Let's make this a positive
conversation because guess what, people legitimately need help whether they're open with this or
in secret and you never know how one comment that you could make on the internet could
radically change someone's life for the better or for the worse so chose the better. Due
to the sensitivity of this week's topic I am going to hold off on sharing comments from
last week's Ask Cristen video 'What's Not to Hate about Valentine's Day' but quickly
I want to thank everybody for the very kind engagement congratulations. You all made my
heart feel ten times bigger. Oh no it just looks like my heart broke. Opposite.