Self-Harm Report

In high school, I took a nursing program. Nearing the end of the first year, we were going over the subject of mental health. To begin the lesson our teacher had every student in the class say how they cope with stress, so one by one we answered. The result of this poll indicated that the majority of us had very poor coping mechanisms. The one common answer was sleep as if we were wanting to wake up and have our problems magically disappear. However, compared to other coping methods, sleeping is pretty tame. One method that is rarely talked about and that has seen a rise over the years is self-harm. Self-harm is the act of poisoning, cutting, burning or anything that causes person pain inflicted by themselves. This is a critical subject to

Dame Esther Rantzen was quoted claiming “Self-harming is at epidemic level among young people.” I, personally, see the truth in Rantzen statement because the first time I was introduced to the concept of self-harm was by a group of 11 or 12-year-old kids who were in my classes. As a matter of fact, they acted and talked about it as if it was a normal, healthy thing to do; and even though I did not understand it, I thought of it as they did until a year or two later when I learned differently. That time of my life was almost eight years ago, nobody was talking self-harm then, and it is still rare to hear about it today. All things considered, if the “epidemic” keeps growing, we will have no choice to look at the matter by

Like anything else that one may try, this coping mechanism will lose its effect which can lead to even more damaging alternatives. A study from Oxford showed that 8.7% of people who self-harm used drugs as well. Although this is not such a significant percentage, it is still very dangerous especially when the individual is performing both activities at the same time. These sufferers are more susceptible to drug and alcohol abuse, which are way more addictive and harmful. Additionally, they have a high potential of carrying on into adulthood. Furthermore, when self-inflicted pain and substance abuse does not seem to do the trick, the individual can turn to suicide. This is not to say that everyone who is a self-harmer is suicidal, but they are at higher risk. K. Skegg wrote an article, in which they claimed that “More than 5% of people who have been seen at a hospital after self-harm will have committed suicide within 9 years.” Additionally, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention found that for one suicide there are about twelve self-harmers. Although these numbers do not reveal a correlation between self-harm and substance abuse, or suicide, we should not ignore how self-harm has a potential to be a gateway to other destructive