Childhood Abuse Survivors: Self-injury, and Expressing Emotions

Many adult survivors of childhood abuse struggle with self-injury. While most people think of self-injury as cutting, there are many other ways to self-injure, including burning, head-banging, hair-plucking, and scab-picking, among others. Most adult survivors of childhood abuse also struggle with the inability to express their emotions, which can fuel an abuse survivor's dependence upon self-injury.

Self-injury as a Coping Tool

Self-injury is nothing more, and nothing less, than a coping tool. While self-injury is not necessarily a safe way to manage emotions, it is very effective. When a person is freefalling into an emotional abyss, self-injuring is an immediate way to stop the freefall. Self-injuring is like flipping a switch that turns off the emotional pain. In the moment, the person who self-injures does not feel any physical pain, only relief from the overpowering emotions.

Repressing Emotions

Adult survivors of childhood abuse often struggle with very intense emotions that are left over from childhood. As children, their abusers told them through their words and actions that expressing emotions was not okay. As a result, the children repressed their emotions, including grief, terror, and rage, and they grew into adults who continued to repress these emotions. Emotions do not just go away with the passage of time: They fester inside of the person and taint every aspect of her life until she learns how to express them.

This is where self-injury enters into the picture. Self-injury is a way to give emotions a voice. While an abuse survivor might not be able to express her rage verbally, she can carve or burn her rage onto her body. An abuse survivor who feels cornered by feeling the need both to express and repress her emotions can bang her head, which expresses her internal conflict and quiets the emotions, at least for a while.

Healing from Self-injury

The first step to healing from self-injury is for the abuse survivor to recognize the action for what it is - a coping tool. Self-injury is functionally no different from having a drink or taking a valium after a bad day of work. As the abuse survivor grows to see the self-injury as a tool, she can separate out her identity from the action. She is a person who cuts to manage emotions; she is not a "cutter."

The next step is to develop some positive coping tools to use in place of the self-injury. Here are some examples of positive copings tools from which to choose:

· Exercising

· Journaling

· Playing a musical instrument

· Puzzles

· Talking with a friend

· Walking out in nature

· Yoga & meditation

Ease yourself into using some of these positive coping tools so you can build confidence in their ability to help you cope in the moment. The more you lean on other coping tools, the less you will need to rely on self-injury to get through the moment.

The final step is to heal the underlying pain that is driving the need to self-injure. Find a qualified therapist with experience in helping people recover from the issues that are driving your pain. (The self-injury is the symptom, not the cause.) Learn how to express your emotions. Punch pillows to express your anger, and learn how to cry to express your pain. As you give your emotions a voice, you will feel much less internal pressure to self-injure.