Getty Images: Self Harm

Getty Images has a few (19) images found by the search terms "self harm".  They're all listed under 'Creative'.  

A lot of the images feature blood, the color, drops, the razors, the whiteness of most of the subjects and the contrast of the blood and the skin, scarification, bathrooms (privacy?), and metaphors.

Methods include knives, burning/stoves, gun, alcohol. 

E.G.:

See Me: UK Anti-Stigma Campaign

The UK launched an anti-stigma campaign about a year ago that focused on all kinds of issues of mental health, including self harm. Find out more about See Me.

Check out the ad about 'Cloud Boy', a boy who self harms.

Also of note: This article that talks about the UK campaign.

Self Harm: Cut it out

Article about the UK authorities' stance on self-harm, new campaigns to reduce stigma.  This article is fascinating because it is decidedly ANTI-self-harm, and ANTI-stigma-reduction.  Quotes:

 

"The UK medical authorities are sending the message that young people hurting themselves is an acceptable lifestyle choice."

"It is a sign of a sick society when young people start turning to self-harm to work through their emotional problems. But it is an even sicker society in which medical and political authorities give sanction to their actions." 

"In March 2004, the Mental Health Foundation and Camelot Foundation launched an inquiry at the House of Commons looking into self-harm in young people, which was backed by MPs from across the political spectrum. The inquiry’s website cheerfully announces its aim to ‘educate and raise awareness about self-harm - for everyone!’. By ‘shifting culture’, it wants to move ‘towards a more flexible, user-focused, non-alienating, “no-blame” culture for young people who have experience of self-harm’ (3)."

"Michael Maher, a group analyst, tells me that when he first started working in the area of self-harm 17 years ago, it was seen as an ‘exotic behaviour’. Now, he said, it has become part of people’s vocabulary: ‘if you’re going to choose a language of distress, self-harm is part of the menu of choices that people use for expressing distress.’ The issue has become part of popular culture: for example, there was a recent story about self-harm inHollyoaks, the soap for young people. We also hear about celebrities who have harmed themselves, such as Johnny Depp and Princess Diana - which prompted the MSN self-harm discussion group to set up a section entitled ‘Your [sic] not alone - celebs who SH’ (5)."

"But self-harm needs to keep its ‘stigma’, in the sense that we shouldn’t forget that there is something deeply wrong with it. Giving self-harm official sanction as a ‘coping mechanism’ is only likely to entrench the practice, and make it more acceptable. "

Read more here.

Pro-SI community

This is a live journal community that is PRO self injury and self harm.  It states,

"We don't promote, but we don't judge either, and we see value in our actions...you must not post instructions or techniques. We have a forum for that...Feel free to vent here. If you want to stop cutting, there are serveral communities for that, but we can also be a support system. If you just wanna let us know how you're doing and what's been going on in your life, that's fine also. We're basically just here for one another."

Interesting other perspective to the issue?  Group has over 800 members.  

Listed under 'interests', one will find:

ana, anger, anorexia, anxiety, blades, bleed, bleeding, blood, bulemia, burning, carving, cut, cutting, death, depression, die, eating disorders, hatred, help, helping, hurt, hurting, knives, love, mental disorders, mia, outsiders, pain, passion, poems, poetry, pro-choice, pro-cutting, pro-ed, pro-si, razor blades, razors, sadness, safty pins, self-control, self-harm, self-hatred, self-injury, si,siers, slashing, venting, wounds, writing

interesting:  their word for "comment" is 'broken', so when you comment you 'break the silence'.  hmm...

Self Injury Information and Support

A somewhat pro (or neutral) self injury site is http://www.psyke.org/

Sections on the site include Photos, Stories, Articles, Books, Coping Resources, and Forums.

Perhaps most interesting is the 'Photos' section, which has a disclaimer about the triggering nature of its content.  Once clicking through this page, you reach a HUGE selection of photos users have submitted of their scars, with descriptions about their self harm trajectory.  USEFUL?!?!?!

UK Self-Harm Trend

Article in the Telegraph on Self Harm trends in the UK. 

Key quotes:

"what experts fear is the 'new anorexia'"

"Cutting made me feel better," Tor says. "Imagine holding your breath and feeling like you are going to blow up. Then you release the air and immediately feel better. That's what self-harming feels like."

"Tor, 24, is not your typical victim but she is part of a growing trend. Self-harming is associated with disadvantaged children but, increasingly, youngsters from well-off backgrounds are also displaying this destructive behaviour."

"Tor discovered self-harming by accident; she and a friend tried to create tattoos, using a compass and fountain pen ink. "My mate was in a lot of pain but it didn't hurt me. It felt good." "

'In the past, self-harm was expressed in different ways. It was called hysterical behaviour, or manifested by women not eating, pulling their hair out or scratching themselves. We tended to examine it in the context of psychiatry - looking at girls who were in care or in hospital. Now we are finding out it is much more common."

Celebrity: Amy Winehouse

This gossip site has the link to a 2007 article on Amy Winehouse and self harm.  It's refreshing in that it is in her own words.   Key quotes include:

 "She says: "It's a funny thing, a morbid curiosity. I'm talking about when I was nine. What does that feel like? 'Ow, that f*****g hurts.' It's probably the worst thing I've done."

Also: "She said: "It's a way of suffering for the things that mean a lot to you. Actually I like the pain. To me, it relieves you.""

Another gossip blog has an article about it  here, in her own words/texts, includes an episode with her husband finding out.  More recent than the other article.    

Amy is also used as a 'poster child' for self harm in this article.

See previous celebrity post.

Celebrity Cutting

Consumerism, Cutting, and Celebrity.  

Check out the Lindsey Lohan Self Harm Speculation, 2006.  

More recently, tween star Demi Lovato had marks on her wrist.  

In that vein, many 'self help sites' for self harm have pages devoted to 'Famous Self Injurers'.  Examples include:

Self-Injury.net

and

Wide Open West

What does it say of our celeb-obsessed culture that such sites proliferate--and that questions about self harm plague young starlets?

Perhaps most enlightening: Comments  from the Lindsey Lohan article

"Seriously guys, I am not a fan of Lohan but seriously, it honestly isn't our business whether or not she is and for a second thing, self harming isn't always "to die", its used as a way to release emotional pain into physical."

"Shut up you douche, take your preachings elsewhere. Why are you even in a celebrity gossip column anyway? Oh, and Lindsay, please come up with something original in the pain category. e.i. slitting palms or fingers. it's more honorable. 

I feel stupider for even wasting this energy to type this shit"

"wow, big deal a TEENAGER that CUTS HER SELF =0. man everybodys paying too much attention to celeberties, i dont even know y im on here. and as far as her publicist denying it, he probably just doesnt want to worry her fans (that is if theres still any more lindsay fans out there)."

"Ok. Those are cut marks. I cut, my friend cuts. They are cut marks. End of story. She wouldnt have covered it up at before if she fell in a bush. Whatever. If it was a suicide attempt, its pathetic, you cut down the legnth of your arm if you want to die. Whatever."

E.G. Blog

http://jmh83.wordpress.com/

Seeking Attention?

from http://freakontheloose.wordpress.com/2006/07/04/grow-up-i-think-my-group-knows-about-that-i/

 "i tend to agree with joyce, that when people cut, sure-they have a problem, but most of them have a problem of seeking attention of people around them. if suicide was on your mind, you wouldnt cut at random places, you’d cut at strategic places and deep enough, this way, your goal might be achieved. plus, if suicide really was your goal, you’d need a significant amount of courage to cut, most people find cutting painful, okay, so if hurting yourself, without the intention of suicide is your way out, i dont think anyone in a right frame of mind would agree it’s the right way. heck, even if suicide was a way out for you, i still wouldnt agree"