It is so easy to ignore at first when you see it. You may see fresh scars on their arm and think they scratched themselves accidentally. You may see healed scars and think it’s a birthmark. But if only you could see their heart. That is where the true cuts are still fresh and the scars still quite real.
Self-injury is the act of bringing intentional harm to your body without the intent of suicide. The term “Non Suicidal Self-Injury” (NSSI) was coined in an effort to distinguish Suicidal Self-injury. Some of the most common self-injury behaviors include cutting, burning, and scratching. The definition of NSSI is the deliberate harming of one’s body, resulting in tissue damage, without the intent of suicide, and is not culturally sanctioned by the society in which one lives. This may seem counter intuitive but self-injury is rarely about ending life. It is about experiencing it. It is about feeling something in a life that may tell them not to feel anything. It is about expression. It is about moving the pain in their heart to their arm. Suicide would be easy enough. But their cry is not about ending their life, it is about living it. It is not about avoiding the pain they feel in their heart…it is about releasing that pain.
Read here to learn what we can do to help face the pain…
Click here to hear this moving prayer from Katrina
Also, visit the website, To Write Love On Her Arms. They are a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire, and invest directly into treatment and recovery.
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