Self-injury.

The psychology post of the day involves that which few understand - the act of causing physical harm to oneself, voluntarily.

It's so very hard for most people to comprehend the willingness to take a blade (or a lighter, or what have you) and rend your flesh asunder. Why would anyone ever WANT to harm themselves? Don't they understand how, well, STUPID that is? That your flesh is supposed to stay in one piece thankyouverymuch, that those scars will last FOREVER?

Well, yes. Most people that injure themselves do understand the generally accepted thought processes regarding the act. That, however, will not stop anyone when they are in the depths of pain that they cannot find their way out of. Self-injury is a way to cope with overwhelming pain - escaping it, transcending it. Allowing the pain to come to the outside and bleed away; a distraction, perhaps, from what is going on in your mind; quieting the chaos that swirls around in your psyche at any given time; or reattaching yourself to your body, proving that you are still here, grounding yourself in the present, for as long as you can.

While I admit that some people certainly are the "HEY LOOK AT WHAT I DID!" types, this is not a cry for help, it is not a whiny "I'm going to go ask my mom to buy me a shirt at Hot Topic and prove how cool I am by cutting myself!" gesture, and it is not even a suicide attempt. That, I think, is the most difficult part to understand - people who injure themselves intentionally are trying, in the best way that they know how, to stay alive. To deal with the pain inside of them and push past it, to make it one more day, to see if the next sunrise will provide the help they need but are too afraid to ask for.

It all goes back to stigmas. If you see someone with slashes all up and down their arms, words burned into their flesh, you would most certainly assume that they're insane. You would want to involuntarily incarcerate them - "for their own good," assuredly. No good, healthy, sane person would ever do such a thing... right? It's hard to consider the fact that people can sometimes do less than healthy things to try and keep themselves in a healthier place than they would be otherwise. Some people drink - some people play video games - some people go out and dance until they fall into an exhaustion that lets them finally sleep. Is it really any different than the other methods of self-destruction that we at least tolerate, if not smile upon?

It's easy to accept smoking, drinking, driving fast, screaming at others as ways to reduce stress. It's easy to call these people normal, to understand why they're doing what they're doing. But why is it so offensive that someone might take another method? People who injure themselves are trying the only way they know how at this point to get through their daily lives - and those who condemn them are not making it any easier.

Be kind to people, no matter what they're doing, even if you don't understand it. You might be the light in someone's day, the bright point of acceptance that they so sorely need, instead of being one more accuser that seeks to take away the only thing that's helping at the moment. Try to understand someone else's point of view - and even if you can't, there's no reason to be afraid of someone who injures themselves. They're people just like you - they simply wear their pain on the outside.