Effective Ways to Release Self Abuse

Are you one of the millions of Americans that partake in self abuse? Have you experienced feelings of overwhelm or insecurity and find that your solution for dealing with it is to hurt yourself? Unfortunately you are not alone. Many Americans resort to harming themselves, self sabotage, and cutting the body as a way of dealing with stressful situations, problems, or emotional disorders.

This way of coping may provide you some temporary relief by way of redirecting your focus, releasing anger, or assisting you in expressing repressed and bottled up feelings. Although you may feel better for the time being, as soon as those feelings of overwhelm and stress return, urges to injure yourself well up inside you as to provide relief.

Many therapists equate self-harm to being like an addiction. You have a burning desire to stop, but you don’t know how. Some are so paralyzed by the temporary relief of self-harm, that they can’t give it up. Now, if that’s how you are coping with life, please understand you can receive assistance without harming yourself. There are countless venues which can provide support and guidance if you desire to stop. Regardless of the events in your life right now, you can learn to feel the fear and move forward in the face of adversity.

Self-abuse is a coping mechanism that many adopt to deal with guilt, rage, sadness, abandonment and numerous others. Self-abuse is also known by many other names, including, self injury, self-harm, deliberate self-harm, self mutilation, and para-suicidal behavior. I mean really think about it; hurting yourself to stop hurting for another reason doesn’t sound productive. It’s like breaking a finger to take your mind off being shot. It’s a distraction, but the underlying problem still exists. You’ve been shot and still need assistance. There are individuals that feel as though hurting themselves is the best alternative and the only way to deal with feelings of deep emotional pain.

The challenge is that self-harming provides a momentary release of the pain. It’s like throwing a Band-Aid in the ocean. It covers up a small part of the problem, but it does not address the root cause of this situation. The fact of the matter is that self injury nor cutting helps you with the stressors that fueled your desire to harm yourself in the beginning.

For those that find relief in self-harm, they do their very best to keep it a secret. Feelings of resentment and hatred may keep you from seeking out help or sharing this part of your life with friends and family. Believe me when I say this, suppressing your feelings, putting your wants and desires on the back burner will only create more undesired feelings. This can easily lead to bigger health and emotional problems. “If you don’t learn other ways to deal with emotional pain, it puts you at risk of bigger problems down the line, including major depression, drug and alcohol addiction, and suicide.” Melinda Smith and Jeanne Segal

Below, I will discuss 3 ways to assist you in dealing with cutting and self-harm; figure out why you self-harm or cut, confide in someone you trust, and adopt new constructive behaviors.

1. Why I harm myself

The initial step to dealing with and overcoming self-harm or cutting is to understand why this is your chosen way of coping. Once we figure out what purpose self-harm or cutting serves, we can introduce other actions, techniques, and activities to meet those needs. It’s important to gain an understanding of your emotional center. In other words, how you feel and what feelings make you want to hurt or cut yourself. Your feelings are an easy indication of what you are thinking. If you’re feeling good, you must be thinking something positive, if you’re feeling bad, you must be thinking something negative.

Discover your emotional center

As you go throughout your day, ask yourself several times a day, how do I feel, what am I thinking. This will bring you back to the present moment and allow you to make decisions on how to deal with and correct the current situation. For instance, when you have urges to self-harm, ask yourself what am I thinking. Obviously, your thoughts are negative and your desire is to relieve the pain. This can be done by shifting your attention from negative thoughts to something positive. But you have to be aware of your thoughts so you can make the shift. So paying attention to your feelings or having the ability to identify and express what you are feeling is key in making the transition from hurting to healing.

Feelings can change as frequent as the direction of the wind. Hence the importance of being aware of when you are feeling good so you can maintain those thoughts. The mention of paying attention to your feelings can be scary to someone who is used to self-harm as a pain relief. You may think, it’s my feelings that got me in this situation in the first place. When really, it’s your decision to deal with pain by self-harm that got you in this situation.

2. Tell someone you trust and get help

If it is your desire to find assistance and support from cutting and self injury, please reach out to someone who can help. You are not alone in this fight. Confiding in someone can be a challenge but it can start the healing process. Remember, the urge to self harm can stem from emotional pain such as sadness, anger, shame, guilt, low self esteem, being unclear about your purpose in life, or feelings of abandonment and resentment.

I suggest you find someone that you trust, someone who makes you feel accepted and supported. You may decide to seek out a coach, a friend, a relative, a religious leader or teacher. Bringing this area of your life to light, can be uncomfortable and down-right unsettling. Do your best to stay encouraged even if the situation feels worse. It’s hard to confront and let go of any habit so give yourself credit for taking steps to correct this behavior.

When it comes to divulging this very personal and sensitive information, it can be emotionally exhausting. Your initial approach may not be face to face due to your understood nervousness about the subject. You may not understand why you self-harm and expecting someone else to understand can be just as challenging. So you want to give them time to process what you share with them. This information can be shocking to a friend or relative and their reactions, whatever they may be, are simply out of concern for you.

Focus on your feelings and the events that lead to self-harm. This will enable the person you confide in to step into your shoes and get a better picture as to how you interpret things. This can also be an eye opener to letting the other person know why you chose to tell them. Is your objective to get help, advise or simply let someone else know?

3. Fun techniques to replace self-harm

When it comes to handling painful situations and emotional distress, self-harm is your way of coping. In order to release that idea, it’s important to raise your awareness of other positive and healthy response methods whenever you begin feeling like it’s time to hurt or cut yourself.

If you are feeling disassociated, numb and need to feel sensation:
– Smell perfume; use aromatherapy to awaken your senses and ground yourself; Peppermint is stimulating
– Do relaxation exercises;
– Be mindful of your breathing, slowly inhaling and exhaling 10 times;
– Squeeze a rubber ball;

If you are feeling angry and frustrated:
– Exercise vigorously; go jogging, swimming, play tennis
– Play music loudly and dance, dance, dance
– Hit a punching bag or pillows
– Rip up a newspaper or telephone book
– Yell into a pillow, rant
– Throw out all your sharp objects and/or lighters, whatever you used to self-harm
– Clean your house, your car, your closets, do gardening, have sex

If you are feeling sad, depressed, hurt:
– Visualize a stop sign
– Write in a journal; scribble; do free association writing
– Draw; freestyle drawing or drawing to music
– Walk your dog; groom your pets
– Reach out and talk to a friend
– Take a bubble bath, put clean sheets on your bed and indulge in little luxuries
– Give yourself a manicure or pedicure
– Listen to uplifting music

“I do not believe that you can substitute self-harm with self-harm, thus I do not recommend that you in any way cause yourself pain to overcome your urge to cut or burn yourself; it may be all too tempting to go overboard and harm yourself just as much if not more but in a different manner.” Allie Bloom, David Schafer