Cause And Effect Essay On Self-Harm

Studies have found that self-harm can start as young as 5 and that at the age range of 5-10 year olds, it mostly is boys self-harming, while the age range for girls is 11-15 years old (Murphy & Fonagy 3). It is found that the majority of adolescent self-harm is coming from homes with split family homes, where one parent is raising the children. It has also been found, that children without any siblings are more apt to inflict self-harm than children with siblings. When adolescents have a bad home life and have multiple stressful life events, it often makes them reach out to self-harm to relieve the pain that they are feeling. Ayton says, “These findings suggest that housing type has an independent effect on the mental health” (306 ). Meaning

When a person advances in using self-harm and learns how to control themselves to the point they stop, in many cases, they go back to self -harm in the future. “The first time they hurt themselves, they experience unpleasant pain. But when they keep doing it and experience pain relief, they begin to associate cutting or other forms of self-injury with relief, and they return for more”(DeAngelis 58). The reason they go back to committing self-harm is because it once worked for them when they had a problem going on in their life. They already know how it feels, how it makes them feel, and what it will do for them. Repetition is a big reason why it is hard for people to be completely clean from self-harm (Larkin 1-3). The ability to stop self-harm is based on whether the person wants to or not, much like quitting smoking or stopping drug and alcohol abuse. When a person decides they are ready to stop, there are many ways to achieve that. They can do many things like writing in a journal or finding things to take their time up like working out, running, painting, etc. They should also get rid of whatever they were using to harm themselves (Smith, Segal, & Shubin