5 Not Obvious Signs of Self Harm | psych2go x Katia
Despite halloween coming up, this is an important issue to look into.Â
This is an important video.
However, I feel like I should add to this because I thought this video was going to go in a completely different direction – Forms of self harm that might not always be obvious, because they don’t occur externally.
Let me explain.
I self harmed in High School to cope with parental abuse. I made a promise to myself that I have yet to break on Christmas Eve, age 17, that I would never do that to myself again. I am now 23 and happier than ever, having moved out, graduated from college, and found the love of my life.
However, even tho no blade came to my wrist, I continued to self harm in ways that did not manifest in cuts or bruises for a good 5+ years afterwards.
I would self harm in words. Saying things to myself and others like “I’m a piece of shit,” “nothing I do matters,” “I’m worthless,” etc., and although those words never leave a mark, they’re still hurting you on the inside.
I know people who have, by the physical definition, have never self harmed, but by my definition self harm every single day.
In short, we need to expand the definition of self harm.
My grandmother is the first person that comes to mind.
She is on her way out of this world, she’s 81 atm, her husband is losing his memory, and in that way, she is losing her husband.
She is arguably the closest thing to a perfect person I have ever met in my entire life. And I don’t just say that because she is my grandparent. She is incredibly talented, keeps her house cleaner than a hospital, cooks incredible meals, is sharp as a tack and has enough intelligence for the next 10 people, and has the cutest highland Scottish accent you’ve ever heard, especially when she swears ❤
There’s only one problem. She’s never been mean to another living soul, but she’s mean to herself every day.
Every mistake she may make, she says “I’m so stupid,” “I’m just a waste of space,” and other things that just make me wanna cry on the spot when I hear them.
I finally told her, ”Grammy, you don’t have much time left. And if I have one wish for you, it’s that before you go, you see how truly amazing and incredible you are. I look up to you. In my mind, you are the best at everything in the entire world and the adult I could only dream of ever being.”
She started crying. (My Grammy does not cry in front of people first of all so this is already a huge deal.) I could tell this message really resonated with her.
Because she lives in Scotland and I live in America, I can only afford to see her once a year. I came back the next year and she was still treating herself the same way.
I still wish, before she leaves us, that she will stop hurting herself the way she does.
When we expand the definition of self harm to include people like my grandmother, we can start bringing awareness to how harmful words can be not only to others, which is discussed all the time, but to ourselves, which is very rarely discussed.
We have already thoroughly acknowledged that words from others can hurt, words can even kill in the form of suicide from bullying, but we never talk about the harm that negative words used for ourselves can hurt or even kill.
Listen to how people talk about themselves. Observe if they express pride in their achievements, or dismiss them onsite. You’ll start to see patterns of self harm in a lot of people this way. Under my definition of self harm, a lot more people self harm than meets the eye. And nobody is talking about it.
TLDR: We need to expand the definition of self harm to include words and actions towards the self, because those wounds, although not visible, do not mean they don’t exist or don’t cause pain.
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