Blog Post 2: Self Harm Websites

Have you heard of Self Harm Websites? Well probably not. Its not really quite known in the internet that's why some people call it "The Dark Side of the Internet". However, it has this hype to it nowadays and it's becoming mainstream. But What are Self Harm Websites? Self Harm websites are websites that are quite popular on people who self harm. They can be blogs, forums, groups or group chats.

Patricia and Peter Hadler, both Professors of Sociology, wrote a book called "The Tender Cut" which contains 135 in-depth life history interviews with self-injurers located all over the world also wrote this article I have read entitled The Deviance Society. This article states that there are 3 kind of Self Harm Websites: One is a website that encourages and glorifies the act of self harming and is composed of people who exchanges morbid ways or techniques on how they can harm themselves. It also gives everyone the freedom to post photos of their injured body parts. However, this self harm website is strictly only for people who has the desire to continue injuring themselves. They confront those who seek comfort and does not have the desire anymore to harm themselves and tell them that this not a site that they are looking for because it is a site for people who accepted self harming as part of their lifestyle already. As opposed to alcohol and drug addiction they reason out, self harming became an outlet for escaping their problems without the actual possibility of them hurting anyone but themselves. The second type of a self harm websites are basically just like support groups. Contradictory to the first type, they seek self harmers who wants comfort and possible friends that understands what they are going through and talk them out to stop injuring themselves. This site provides counselling and group chats for people to have interactions and have the capability to vent their feelings out so people who had overcome self harming can give them advises and find possible solutions to the roots of their problem. The third and the last type of self harm websites are the combinations of the first two types. It accepts people who self harm and people who wants to cure them self out of it. It does not judge every individual who wants to do with themselves and respect every decision they make to their bodies.

"They don't usually go to the Internet to find it; they go there after they have become attached to it." I think this is one of the most important statements Mr. and Mrs. Hadler have written on this article. It clarifies the malicious and exaggerated issue that the Internet encourages or teaches kids to self harm. The truth is, teenagers do not go to the internet and suddenly develop this crazed emotion or urge to self harm because of social trends and other various factors, Rather, they go to the internet to seek for people like them who self harm and can possibly understand what they are going through and why they are doing such a thing.

Further more, I was really intrigued by this Pro-Self Harm Websites so I researched for it more keenly. I was curious on what specific websites or forums that encourages people, specifically teenagers, to see self harming as such an acceptable and normal thing to do.
So I came to find this article entitled, Public disorders: self-harm in social media communities by Allyson Galle. There are three most known sites that are pro self harm namely LiveJournal, Pinterest and Tumblr. I was intent to know this websites and how they work so I googled their definitions and found this on the Wikipedia.

1. LiveJournal

LiveJournal is a social networking service that allows people who, share interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections to interact with each other.Its service consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his social links, and a variety of additional services. It allows individuals to create a public profile, to create a list of users with whom to share connection, and view and cross the connections within the system. 

2. Pinterest
Pinterest is a visual discovery tool that people use to collect ideas for their different projects and interests. People create and share collections (called “boards”) of visual bookmarks (called “Pins”) that they use to do things like plan trips and                                                             projects, organize events or save articles and recipes 

3. Tumblr
 Tumblr is a microblogging platform and social networking website founded by David Karp and owned by Yahoo! Inc. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog. Users can follow other users' blogs, as well as make their blogs private.Much of the website's features are accessed from the "dashboard" interface, where the option to post content and posts of followed blogs appear

I'd like to quote what Ms. Allyson said "Social media has evolved so rapidly that no one can completely keep up with its progress and direction, leaving many things open for experimentation as they happen until something sets the precedent." I quite agree with this statement because internet can not be grasped. Internet is like a dragon and you can't keep it a prisoner. All these self harm websites  share one common thing, it gives the power for self harmers to interact with fellow self harmers and express their interests, feelings, or activities together. Although, I think it is not fair to brand these websites strictly as 'Pro Self Harm Websites' because I myself run a blog in tumblr so I know a few things about its community. I can personally say that it doesn't encourage people who self harm, there are even blogs that helps people recover from depression. However, there are some parts of it that posts pictures of self inflicted injuries and it can trigger and affect people who has recovered from self harming to start hurting them self again. In my opinion, It is between the person and the internet itself. If you don't wanna see things that might trigger some of your sensitive spots then don't go in it. But never did the Internet caused anyone to self harm alone. Various factors should be considered for anyone who self harm, it can be a mental illness, depression, anxiety, stress etc. Nobody can blame the internet as a major cause of self harming.

Blog Post 1: Introduction to Self Harming

A. What is self harming? 

Everyone deals with their stress or problems differently. Some people like to listen to music, go on the computer, read a book or watch a movie. These are some of the healthy ways of coping with stress. Well to some people, dealing with stress is like trying to swim when you don't even know how. It wears them down to the point that they can't take it anymore. That's why some people succumb to the unhealthy ways of coping with stress like using illegal drugs or self harming. But, what is self harming? Self harming is an act of intentional and direct injuring of ones own body tissues most often done with suicidal attempts or intentions. It is impossible to grasp and accurately graph the number of people, most especially adolescents, who self harm. This is of course, because of the fact that teenagers has this secretive personality and they do not tell anyone what really is going on or how are they struggling to cope up with their everyday lives. 

According to this article that I have read written by Natasha Tracy entitled 10 Ways People Self Harm, Self Injure there is list of top 10 ways on how people usually do it:

1. Scratching or pinching – this act includes severely scratching or pinching with fingernails or objects to the point that bleeding occurred or marks remained on the skin. 
2. Impact with objects – this act includes banging or punching objects to the point of bruising or bleeding. 
3. Cutting – this behavior included self mutilation and most common in females.
4. Impact with oneself – this act includes banging or punching oneself to the point of bruising or bleeding.
5. Ripped skin – this way of self-mutilation includes ripping or tearing skin. 
6. Carving – this way of self-harm is when a person carves words or symbols into the skin.
7. Interfering with healing – this way of self-mutilation is often in combination with other types of self-harm.
8. Burning – burning skin is a way of self-mutilation. 
9. Rubbing objects into the skin – this type of self-harm involves the rubbing of sharp objects, such as glass, into the skin.
10. Hair-pulling – this way to self-harm is medically known as trichotillomania. In trichotillomania, a person feels compelled to pull out their own hair and in some cases even ingest that hair.

So there, the most common ways of self harming. Moreover, I want to quote what Ms. Tracy said, "Eating disorders and addiction behaviors are not typically considered methods of self-harm, but in some cases they may be if the intent of their use is specifically to cause harm to the body." I quite agree on this statement that she have indicated. In my opinion, intentionally starving yourself or abusing your own body by using illegal drugs can be considered as a way of self harming.

B. The truth behind Self Harming

People often think that people who self harm are usually "attention seekers". Apparently they are not. Those are just some ridiculous stigmas and stereotypes about them. What are the true reasons people self harm? Based on this article written by Simon Crisp entitled Explainer: what is self harm and why do people do it? Some reasons include:  Severe intellectual disability, acute psychosis, childhood history of physical or sexual abuse, and personality disorders. He also said that the main reason these people who have experience certain scenarios or born with the circumstances self harm is because it is their way of how they deal with their frustration or anger, difficulty in managing the symptoms of their trauma, having hallucinations or delusions (for people with acute psychosis) and self blame or loathing that often follows from abuse. The act of Self Harming also becomes the way or the key to release their tension or anger, to substitute emotional for physical pain, to be able to "feel something" when feeling emotionally disconnected or dissociated or sometimes to induce dissociation to avoid aversive emotion  as is common in the case of abuse or trauma.

I would like to quote what Mr. Crisp have said about the stereotypes of Self Harming, "Despite self-harm being one of the major risk factors of attempted or completed suicide, a large proportion of people who self-harm have no desire to die whatsoever. Some may even have very strident views against suicide." This pretty much breaks all the strongly built walls of stereotyped ideas about people who self harm. They do not want to die. They just wanna escape the horrible truth of their problems because they don't know how to deal with it.