Self harmar given razor blades in school WTF


www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/48599...n_id=288381481237582

I have two questions.
1. Where is the logic in any of that?
2. Why did it mention autistic students? Are they all of a sudden notorious for self-harm?

1/ This is from the Sun so any information presented must be treated with caution.

2/There has been advocacy of people who self-harm having 'cutting rooms' for years now. The principle is harm minimisation, similar to giving IV drug users clean needles. If people are going to do it, they may as well be using sterile equipment and have somebody around in case anything goes wrong. Though obviously people have their own individual reasons for self-harming and it in some cases can tip into parasuicide, the majority of self-harmers do it as a coping mechanism and don't want kill themselves or cause serious injury. And in many cases they're going to do it anyway.

In the case described, it may be the case the teacher figured it was safer for the pupil to self-harm under supervision than go off and do it secretly., though going beyond their professional boundaries in just going ahead and doing so off their own initiative. You don't know the context, don't know if the pupil had a history of going off and self-harming in a dangerous fashion.

But it makes fantastic tabloid fodder.

dogsmilk wrote: So these teachers figure that it's better to give them razors than encourage the students to stop? Clearly they know next to nothing about teenagers. There are far more ways to express frustration/depression than self harm. I know autistics often use repetitive body motions - "stimming", then there's therapists u can verbally abuse as well as simple meditation. Chances are, even if the kids are allowed to do it at school, they will continue to do it at home with their own razors because the whole point of the exercise is that you want to feel the pain, it's a sort of punishment on your own body. You feel you don't deserve a clean razor.
Thanks for the response, btw.

Night_Gaunt wrote:
Well I think it's difficult to say exactly what those involved were thinking or what history the pupil had. We don't know whether the teachers tried to encourage them to stop or not. It could have been an attempt to contain something they'd found they couldn't stop. Being the Sun it could be totally twisted from what actually happened - who knows. I'm certainly wary of taking a story in the Sun at face value.

Sure there are 'better' ways to express frustration, but it's contingent on whether people find they work for them. I've met people who have been made fully aware of alternative means of dealing with emotional stress but whose arms are nevertheless one huge series of lacerations.
You don't necessarily want to feel pain - some people say they feel a sense of release that isn't about pain. Some people feel it gives them a sense of control - they can control what they do to their own body. And some people are quite scrupulous about hygiene, perhaps ritualistically so - some people like laying out all their equipment and preparing to cut themselves, others are spontaneous and reckless. I don't think there's a universal profile for self-harmers, just a bunch of core themes that tend to crop up.

I'm not saying what happened was right, just that there may be a lot more to it.

dogsmilk wrote:
Yeah, you're right. I'm no psychologist but I do like to analyze behavior and I've had friends who participated in the activity; some would claim they didn't even feel pain anymore (this could be from frequent cutting of the nerves in the wrist) and just seeing the blood rush out would feel comforting or what not. Even in my darkest hours I never thought of slashing any part of me so I don't necessarily understand, I discovered alternative methods to express pain. It's different for everyone but I would come to the same conclusion, that harming oneself gives the person a sense of release, as you've mentioned. Supposing the article is true, it would be a good idea to give these kids counselors or programs to help. Wrist-cutting is much too dangerous and any other method (given the same amount of energy was put into it and the psychological result was the same) would be just as effective.

dogsmilk wrote:


Still very irresponsible for a school to take children some with disibilities autism etc,wait outside the toilet while the child goes in with a razer blade to cut themselves.

'I am a self harmer though I have it under control a lot better nowadays then I did as a teen. I loathe the scars I am left with particularly in the summer when it is harder to cover them up. I can understand the reasons for the school doing this if the kid is going to self harm anyway it may as well be in as safe and clean way as possible and there is someone on standby if it goes a little too far.

Stopping self harming is a long process as it needs a lot of self awareness of triggers and you need to find a different way to meet the needs that self harming itself meets.

When I used to cut i never felt it whilst I was doing it though the next morning I would. I remember one particular incident where I had self harmed and then had to attend a family event - the blood dried onto my clothes and I had to soak in a bath for hours fully clothed just to remove them without ripping the wounds open again. That incident scared me but it didnt stop me.

I would have really appreciated being able to self harm in a safe place without judgement and without a fuss being made of it.

If the teachers remained neutral about the whole thing then they would not only have been ensuring it was done in a safe way but also removing some of the stigma, the fact that the child feels comfortable in voicing their need to self harm and was allowed to takes the secrecy away and gets them used to speaking up rather then just going off and dealing with their feelings on their own.

The staff would learn more about what triggers it, would know how bad the child was feeling and a trust would have been established.

Most people grow out of self harm particularly if they feel supported and not judged. Those who do not feel supported and who have sharps removed are incredibly inventive when it comes to finding ways to self harm. At the hospital I was at there were people who would slam doors on their arms or legs in an attempt to break bones, hold themselves against radiators causing awful burns, scratch themselves down to the bone in some cases, pull out hair, cut off chunks of their feet with scissors, drink bleach, use battery wrappers or rip up cans, some would even remove stones from jewellery in order to use the sharp edges to cut. We were encouraged to talk about our urges to self harm and would be offered peer support to not do so, whether it ment sleepovers or people taking shifts to sit outside our rooms overnight. All of which was effective in preventing the self harm but not so effective at dealing with the why.

I would have been interested in learning what they were doing alongside the 'safe' self harm to help the child move on from it.

I guess it comes to which is the lesser of two evils, leaving a child to self harm in secret and alone or making it as safe as possible, if someone wants to self harm they will find a way.

I can't say it any better than this fella(or Thor)...

Educational Kinesiology works literally miracles in self harming situations....I have seen it happen working alongside such a therapist...absolutely amazing.

@Thoroux

Jane