Parents, Friends, Professionals

What is Self Harm?

  • Self harm is a spectrum. Where behaviours can be placed in order of severity. Forms such as alcohol, unprotected sex, drink on one end of the spectrum and on the higher end more life threatening behaviours such as overdose, cutting,strangulation etc. The most common form of self harm is known as self injury such as cutting.
  • Self Injury is when somebody intentionally damages/injures the body to relieve the feeling of extreme distress. This is often described as an internal scream.

It is hard for people who don’t self harm to understand the pure distress that someone is in. Have a think, after you have had a bad day, how do you cope? Where would it fit on the spectrum?

There are various forms of self harm, it is a myth that people only cut themselves as a form of self harm.