People generally view self harm as a "very bad" thing that they will try to help you stop if they find out you do it.
Can someone explain to me why it's bad? If it's done safely, with no lasting damage, and is an effective method of stress relief, why is it so bad?
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Because people who self-harm frequently are not doing it safely, it has lasting damage, and it’s typically indicative of an individual who lacks outside resources to help them. Particularly for teens, ignored self-harm can escalate into even riskier behaviors.
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I wonder if this also applies to other damaging behaviors that we don't treat in the same way? Like if someone says they do cocaine semiregularly they don't get the same reaction that someone does if they say they cut themselves.
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cw: self-harm
"Effective" is doing a lot of work here. 1) SH escalates. You can go to more extreme methods for relief. 2) SH can distract you from seeking long-term solutions for the underlying mental health issues. 3) SH reinforces the idea that you "ought" to be in pain.
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I've seen a few people mention this - the "ought to be in pain," "deserving harm," etc. I didn't really think about this aspect - how common is this in a motivation for self harm?
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food is tricky because you need at least some of it to survive, but you absolutely don’t need any amount of self-harm (here I’m defining self-harm as causing intentional direct injury to your body, e.g. cutting your skin or ingesting something knowingly poisonous)
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Bc those who do it describe a narcotic effect & folks rarely do narcotics safely?
As a more practical matter, hv you ever tried to help someone keep dozens of flesh wounds from becoming infected for a few wks? "Safely" is doing a lot of work there & it's not really up to the job
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Believing physical suffering alleviates mental suffering quickly leads to believing non-existence alleviates all suffering. While the slippery slope isn’t inevitable, it isn’t worth the risk.
Take shrooms instead. They saved me from that thought process.
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There’s a lot of implicit questions in here, like - are we only talking about physical harm? How do you define lasting damage? Is it the most effective form of stress relief compared to others?
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