Skip to main content

What Renee Taught Me About Why Some People Harm Themselves

When I met Renee she told me she was nervous all of the time. And, she was cutting herself.

Some people resort to self-harm when they're overwhelmed by emotions. When we feel utterly alone and out of control, we’re capable of doing illogical things to stop bad feelings. Self-harm can become a reliable way to cope. It can also be unlearned and replaced with healthier ways to soothe ourselves.

Fear and feeling "bad."

When we met, Renee told me that part of her mind was constantly yelling at her, just like her father had yelled at her throughout her childhood.

“You’re a stupid little shit,” the male voice in her head would say.

As an adult, this made her feel she was a “bad person.” And both the real and imagined anger of other people terrified her – they were huge triggers for Renee, connecting her back to early memories of her father’s rages.

These feelings would come up quickly and were absolutely excruciating. The only way she had discovered to stop them was to inflict pain on her own body. Her cutting seemed to satisfy two purposes:

  • It was self-punishment for her perceived badness; and
  • It somehow stopped the emotions from intensifying any further.

 Start with compassion.

Symptoms like cutting are often described as “just crazy.” In fact they are, in some ways, wise. They can be thought of as a person’s best attempt to become calm in the face of utter aloneness. Despite the fact that they are ultimately hurtful, both the intention and the short-term effect of self-harming behaviors are, in a way, helpful to the sufferer.

Time and again, my patients are relieved when I share this positive understanding of their self-harming behaviors. I invite them to approach their behavior with a stance of curiosity and compassion for themselves.

Then learn healthy ways to self-soothe.

Symptoms like cutting won’t go away until the sufferer has other ways to calm their emotional overwhelm. To ask someone to stop cutting without offering alternative ways to achieve comfort is akin to asking a trapeze artist to give up their safety net. Renee and I experimented with many ways to help calm her emotions such as:

  • Grounding her feet on the floor,
  • Breathing,
  • Talking about light-hearted things like her favorite television shows,
  • Wrapping a blanket around her,
  • Calling a trusted friend,
  • Trying to parse out the overwhelm into bite-sized pieces.

 Renee and I worked together on calming her anxiety by learning what emotions were being triggered and accessing and processing the anger at her father. She slowly learned how to tolerate and channel any feelings of anger at others in a healthy way by asserting herself. She eventually built up her access to and tolerance of the full spectrum of emotions and their accompanying physical sensations.

After about six months of treatment, Renee grew much more compassionate to herself. She came to understand how her traumas affected her. Her self-harming behaviors were no longer needed. She appreciated them for how they helped at one time. She still had painful and powerful feelings like we all do. But, now Renee was relieved and proud that she had new, better ways to cope.

Patient details have been changed to protect confidentiality.

Originally posted on September 15, 2016 Hilary's blog: The Change Triangle

Add Comment

Comments (6)

Newest · Oldest · Popular

I appreciate the self-harm topics.  George Brooks (a counselor in the UK) taught me a lot about this subject.  Although I haven't gone back to listen to it in a while, you might like my old Podcast discussion with him - it's still available - very conversational, easy to listen to, here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/e...-self-harm-behaviors

Cheers for talking about the big stuff and how to hold the space for our clients and families to step into a greater understanding and compassionate, helpful place. - Jondi

Thanks! I have just shared it with the Group. And I'll subscribe to your blog so I can share (linking to your website and mentioning your name each time) with others in the Parenting with ACEs Group. If you think there's anything that's especially relevant to parents, PLEASE share it in the group (as you do here). It's welcome and appreciated.  You just have to go to "Groups" (https://www.pacesconnection.com/groups and Join Parenting with ACEs or any other group that speaks to you.

Thanks!
Cissy

Thank You for this post, Hilary. I recently had a neighbor tell me that someone in our Elderly Public Housing project tried to cut herself (who almost always wears short pants and short sleeved tee-shirts, and I'd never before seen any visible cut marks/scars on her before this). 

Christine Cissy White posted:

Dear Hillary:

This is really great. Is it o.k. to share it over on the  Parenting with ACEs site?

Even though it's not about parenting, per se, it's relevant because it's about living with symptoms of traumatic stress and overcoming some parenting experiences which is good for parents and the kids we adults once were.

This is my favorite line: "Symptoms like cutting won’t go away until the sufferer has other ways to calm their emotional overwhelm."

 I don't want to minimize the role we parents have and our duties to our children. I think too little is done to support parents with ACEs and a trauma history and too much educating at is done instead. 

This self-compassion, though not super fast, is a way of re-parenting ourselves and that helps us parent our own children  better as well. You show/describe it well and capture that critical inner voice.  I imagine it would be pretty great if a whole family learned these techniques and how great for Renee to learn them young. Thanks for sharing your work. 

Cissy

I just re-read that you said it would be great if the whole family learned these techniques. Well i just couldn't help but add I had the same thought when I learned all this emotion work in my training. So that's why I started writing a blog for the public and I have a book coming out to help educate and teach the public these principles because I think they can be applied not only in therapy. I hope if you are interested in staying in touch you subscribe to my mailing list on my writing website and share the blog posts freely. I only send them once per month so I don't clog people email inboxes. The website is hilaryjacobshendel.com. thanks for reading and sharing the post above. It's great to connect.

Christine Cissy White posted:

Dear Hillary:

This is really great. Is it o.k. to share it over on the  Parenting with ACEs site?

Even though it's not about parenting, per se, it's relevant because it's about living with symptoms of traumatic stress and overcoming some parenting experiences which is good for parents and the kids we adults once were.

This is my favorite line: "Symptoms like cutting won’t go away until the sufferer has other ways to calm their emotional overwhelm."

 I don't want to minimize the role we parents have and our duties to our children. I think too little is done to support parents with ACEs and a trauma history and too much educating at is done instead. 

This self-compassion, though not super fast, is a way of re-parenting ourselves and that helps us parent our own children  better as well. You show/describe it well and capture that critical inner voice.  I imagine it would be pretty great if a whole family learned these techniques and how great for Renee to learn them young. Thanks for sharing your work. 

Cissy

Hi Cissy,

I'd be honored for you to share it.

Warmly,

Hilary

Dear Hillary:

This is really great. Is it o.k. to share it over on the  Parenting with ACEs site?

Even though it's not about parenting, per se, it's relevant because it's about living with symptoms of traumatic stress and overcoming some parenting experiences which is good for parents and the kids we adults once were.

This is my favorite line: "Symptoms like cutting won’t go away until the sufferer has other ways to calm their emotional overwhelm."

 I don't want to minimize the role we parents have and our duties to our children. I think too little is done to support parents with ACEs and a trauma history and too much educating at is done instead. 

This self-compassion, though not super fast, is a way of re-parenting ourselves and that helps us parent our own children  better as well. You show/describe it well and capture that critical inner voice.  I imagine it would be pretty great if a whole family learned these techniques and how great for Renee to learn them young. Thanks for sharing your work. 

Cissy

Post
Copyright © 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×