Self- Injury Awareness Day

March 1st is Self- Injury Awareness Day. I had debated whether or not to write an entry mentioning this as I have another self-injury centered entry coming up in a few days. Truthfully though I really feel that SI needs and deserves the attention that things such as Eating Disorders and other illnesses receive. Am I saying SI is an illness? No. I personally feel it is a coping method. It is frequently a sign of illness though. I won’t go attempting to quote statistics for the number of people who self-injure. Why? Because statistics can only be based on 2 things when it comes to this - the number of people who end up needing AND seeking medical treatment for their wounds and the number of people who admit to doing it. Many never seek any type of help. Many hide it as best as they can. And a lot of people who might want help, have no way to get it. Frequently even medical professionals try to pass the behaviour off as attention-seeking. Or they get labelled as crazy. Neither is necessarily true. They just don’t know of a better way to cope with whatever is going on in their lives- at least not a way that *works* for them.

I am a recovering self-injurer. I am lucky in the sense that I have never needed to seek medical treatment for my wounds. It doesn’t change the fact that I have spent over half my life as someone that causes myself physical pain in order to deal with other problems of my life. As I have seen a few people word it today: “I am not proud of my struggle with self-injury, but I refuse to be ashamed.”