Many forms of self-mutilation

There are many forms of self-mutilation some more known then others.  I struggled with cutting which seems to be the most common known form for most people, but I knew several individuals who struggled with others forms such as burning themselves. I even knew one girl who would wear rubber bands around her wrists and would constantly pull them and let them snap against her skin.  Some forms are more violent then others but they all have one thing in common and that is pain.  But the pain isn't from the physical situation that they are creating, it is from a much deeper and emotional place. That is where the damage lies and until that is taken care of the problem will never go away, no matter how hard you treat the symptom. 

CNN recently did a story about a not so known form of self-mutilation called Self-embedding. Self-embedding is a form of self-injury where foreign objects are inserted underneath the skin, and left either for a limited period of time or permanently.  The earliest recording of this kind of self-injury was in 1936 and in 2008 a study showed that that self-embedding was growing more common amongst teens who self-injured.  Sadly this seems to come as a shock to the medical profession and seems to have them scrambling round to try and explain such a phenomenon.  But the real tragedy is that this is not a new trend, and it isn't because of the internet or kids trying copy the behaviors of others, self-injury shouldn't shock you because it is as old as history.  And it has come in many forms over the years.  As time goes by we were able to fool ourselves into thinking that certain forms should be more accepted as others but the truth is if you try to numb the pain inside by replacing it with something else that can harm you then you are just like these people.  That cigarette that you know is probably going to kill you one day but you are just too stressed out to care, or that last bite of that 1500 calorie burger when your cholesterol is already too high but you are sad and it brings you comfort so you eat it any way.  If we were honest with ourselves we could call these a form of self-harm. Now that that mean that I am accusing smokers or people that eat too much self-injurers, no I am not, just like every person who harms themselves might not actually be a self-harmer.  There are some people who are just acting out for attention or acceptance.  But the truth is we all experience some form of emotional pain at some point in our lives and there are some people that are able to deal with it in healthy ways and then there are others that don't know how.  Sometimes I think that if we would just stop acting so shocked every time we newly discover that this is happening, then maybe we could actually work at creating an environment where a self-harmer would actually feel safe enough to reach out for help. 

Click here to read the CNN's article on self-embedding:
http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/07/teens-embed-objects-in-skin/?iref=NS1