Burn out! The hidden epidemic.

Please check out my video's on my Youtube channel or like my Facebook Page for parenting support and information XX 

What is burn out?

Most of us know this term and have a basic understanding of the impact 'burning out' from work can have. I want to create some awareness today based on my own experiences of this predicament. I also want to highlight that burn out can occur in any situation, not just at work. You don't need to be a therapist or paramedic to experience it. You don't even need to be doing anything society would deem as high risk work. Burn out is more about you than your environment. 

Burn out occurs when you become triggered and overwhelmed consistently. I believe it creeps in gradually and grows as you continue to brush aside the warning signs. The less support you receive, the worse it becomes. The more toxic your environment, the worse it seems to impact you. 

Imagine a Pressure Cooker:

The way I would describe it would be to imagine a pressure cooker. All the ingredients inside the cooker are representative of your responsibilities and stress. They are all added as separate ingredients. You start off with control, cutting, peeling, preparing, tasting, seasoning and adding as you go along. You have an idea of what you would like this stew to turn into. You have an idea of what you like, what you don't like and take other stews you have made before into account. You also aspire to create a stew you have experienced someone else make before. You may even be following a recipe. Similarly to your life stresses, responsibilities and experiences, you can identify each part and it feels manageable as you add it into the pot of your life. You make an educated guess as to how much you can fit into the pot and you keep adding, keep adding, until you have cram packed as much as you can into the pot. You attempt to give it a stir to blend it but feel satisfied that if you leave it simmering, it will reduce and become cohesive. You secure on a lid and leave it simmering below the surface. 

This is a metaphor for what so many of us do with all the little stresses, problems, emotions and pressures in our own lives. We are all so busy and the world expects us to put one foot in front of the other at a growing pace. I hear the saying 'I can't afford to dwell on this' over and over again. We take on board so much information. We repress emotion after emotion. We get angry but hold it in. We 'can't afford to' get angry with our manager/boss/colleague. We feel tired but we 'can't afford to' rest, the kids need feeding, I have to do the shopping, I'm running out of clean underwear, my friends want to see me, I am behind at work... The list goes on. We push down our resentments, our hurt feelings, our fears, our irritations, our jealousy, our annoyance, our grief, our pride. We ignore our gut feelings and opt for things that we think we 'should' be doing. We criticise ourselves when we don't meet our own expectations or those of other people. We berate ourselves for how we look, mistakes we make and just about anything that we feel is 'not good enough. These are all ingredients we unknowingly add to the pressure cooker.

The steam starts to whistle:

The pressure is on, the lid is sealed and the heat starts rising. The pot is like our bodies and the lid is like the walls we put up to lock all our internal pressure inside us. It starts to feel explosive. The pot starts to feel too small, too constricting. The biggest indicator of burn out is a feeling of pressure. This pressure becomes harder and harder to bare. Steam is released violently through the tiniest hole and keeps the pot from exploding. 

When we are starting to burn out, we also release small amounts of pressure each time we reach exploding point. This can come out in many different ways. We may snap at our loved ones, scream at the TV, burst into tears over the smallest thing or throw something against the wall. We may find we feel certain emotions at the drop of a hat and feel really sensitive, taking so much personally. We may start finding tasks that once seemed easy have started to feel like a hike up Everest. We may start losing interest in things we once considered fun and don't feel much like socialising. We may feel drained and fatigued, even at the thought of doing things.We may struggle to sleep at night or find ourselves restless and waking up regularly. The pressure feels so overwhelming, the best way I can describe it is a 'feeling of wanting to run away, avoid it or escape in some way'. People who aren't able to literally run away may find escape in substances and addictions. It is ALL consuming, this pressure sits with you day and night.

Why does it get so bad?

This is easy to answer but not so easy to do. We are scared to take the lid off the pressure cooker. We fear an internal explosion as much as we fear the rush of burning steam in our face if we take the lid off when it feels this way. It feels like a lose lose situation. You want relief but you don't feel the release will be a relief. You feel trapped, desperately clinging to keep the lid on. The best way to keep the lid on but reduce the pressure...stop adding anything more in. You seem to come to this conclusion unconsciously while you consciously beat yourself up for not being able to handle the pressure. Your body, mind and emotional experiences SLOW DOWN. You are simply unable to cope with too many tasks. Many people have no choice but to stop working altogether. This is not a choice, it is a necessity. Your body and mind go into a state of survival. Your physical and mental presentation forces you into respite whether you like it or not. Your emotions are in control, emotions you don't understand and feel at the mercy of.

Survival = Fear

When you look more deeply at this survival reaction and state of being, you can see the core emotion 'fear' at the heart of it. Overwhelm, worry, stress, anxiety, jealousy, pressure, insecurity etc, are all associated emotions of fear. The heart of burn out must therefore have a base line of fear. The one associated emotion I didn't mention, that is not as obvious, is safety. Emotional safety. When I said burn out is more about you than your environment, that is what I meant. It is about safety. People who have had fear regulated in childhood will cope better with external stress. Whether it means resigning from a toxic job, asking for help, standing up for yourself, or taking care of yourself better, those people who have a healthy relationship with the emotional experience of fear will open that pressure cooker lid and release the steam and pressure. They will find a way to lower the heat. They will be able to find a way to see the situation as separate from who they fundamentally are. The only thing standing between you and the release is a fear of fear itself. Go figure!

Put your needs first, always!

Many people will cringe at this heading and think I have lost my marbles. I am talking about emotional needs. These should never be compromised. Emotional needs are not the same as your expectations on other people to make you feel good. No, emotional needs are from your childhood. They come from your inner child who has been emotionally neglected in some areas. You have unprocessed emotional trauma's and these come out in the form of triggers and reactions. When something in your current environment triggers you emotionally, your child self reacts to that original trauma. As you are unconscious of this, it feels too large, you want to bury it back inside. Put it back in the pot and hope it boils away on it's own.

Burn out happens when you can no longer hold in all the pressure.  It takes so long to recuperate from because you are dealing with layers of trauma, past and present. The more you stay in a place of external blame (as a victim), the longer it will take. The more you ignore your reactions to the pressure and continue to plough ahead anyway, the more of an impact it will have on you. To identify your needs you have to get real with yourself. You have to ask yourself some difficult questions. You need to be willing to feel the burn of the steam. You need to find a way to trust your own inner resources to cope with your own difficult emotions. You are stronger than you may think. The fact that you think you will crumble is a lie you have told yourself because no-one has told you otherwise in your childhood. Fear is not your enemy. No emotion is harmful.

Stop the stigma, Burn out is MASSIVE!

Burn out affects you on just about all levels. Not just in your body, mind and emotions but it gets into your relationships, your ability to function, your health, your self perception, your parenting, your focus and your dreams. It is a serious condition and is minimised in many work situations and circles. People who have not experienced it do not understand how bad it can get. It almost wears a label of 'weakness'. I believe this occurs in the same way triggers do. It is seen as an overreaction and this is seen in a negative way. People are judged because of their inability to cope with otherwise 'easy' or manageable tasks. This further compounds the problem.

When I experienced burn out, I was working at an organisation that understood the risk of burn out on paper. As an individual, however, I was treated as the problem. I was making mistakes and failing to keep up with tasks I would normally be able to do. I was not met with support. I was met with criticism. At one point I was being called into my manager's office once or twice a week to be reprimanded. I would have walked out and run a mile if it hadn't been for my client's. I didn't listen to my gut and pushed through extreme levels of anxiety in order to complete tasks and close my cases (I worked right up until the end of my contract). That is probably why people in my industry or any industry that works with vulnerable people experience higher levels of burn out. We find it hard to walk away or put our own needs first. 

Looking back:

Looking back, I needed to leave and heal my own trauma. I was being triggered every single day. I was unable to process what was going on for me and was using all my energy on my clients and the families I was supporting. I was becoming a shell of myself. I was extremely angry, especially when I was being criticised for something I was unable to help. I was angry at the lack of support, compassion and understanding I received. I was, and needed to be for a time, seeing myself as a victim.

As I healed, I learn't a lot about my own responsibilities. I realised I was cut off from myself. I placed the job ahead of my health. I didn't look after myself enough and I judged myself more than anyone was judging me. I had fast become my own abuser. It took me a long time to heal and I have made a number of changes because of this. I no longer see this as a bad experience, rather I see it as a very powerful learning experience. I will never allow myself to reach this point of burn out again and you guys don't have to either. Put your needs first, always! Life is too short to put yourself at risk in this way. The earlier you recognize the signs, the more time you have to get yourself out safely and with minimal impact. 

Take Care,

Paula XX  

My Evolving Relationship with 'Fear'

Please check out my video's on my Youtube channel or like my Facebook Page for parenting support and information XX 

I have felt a need to share some of my own experiences with the emotion 'Fear' today. It has been something that I have been actively processing, working on and making sense of for a number of months now. There are many experiences and variations of this emotion in my own life and in the lives of those closest to me and it is certainly not an easy emotion to get my head around. That said, which ones are!

We struggle to admit to our deep set fears:

One common theme I am starting to see more of is a fear of fear itself. Anyone who has read some of my earlier writing will know that I have lived with Anxiety for most of my life. I am pleased to say that I have healed from this in so many ways and I am at a point in my life where I am able to use my own experiences to conceptualise how I would like to work as a psychotherapist and practitioner but also in my personal life. 

Anxiety is a fear based disorder. I have unpacked so many of my deep set fears and this has been a gradual and difficult process. Fear comes out in the form of instability, insecurity and worry amongst other things. We do not live in a world that accepts these traits, let alone help you with them. Many of you, like me, will have shame attached to your fear. This is because we were shamed for feeling fear as children. We were either dismissed, ignored, left to soothe ourselves or our emotions were unintentionally unattended to.

We may have had parents that tried to change how we were feeling and would say things like 'you have nothing to be afraid of' or would distract us from our emotional experience. The very act of our fear being stomped out and not processed often creates shame. The way the world seems to repress emotions shows me that unless something changes, we will continue down this path without realising it. This is shown to me time and time again. Unfortunately we seldom get our needs met by other people when we are feeling scared, insecure or unstable. We often don't meet other people's needs when they feel that way too. The shame associated with our fear means that we often feel like fear is a weakness or embarrassing. We feel that we are going to be seen in a negative light for admitting to our vulnerability and insecurity. The truth is though, this often is the case! So many of us have an unhealthy and avoidant relationship with fear. This stems from childhood.

My personal discovery:

Throughout my healing journey I have been piecing things together. I have been trying to make sense of my patterns, behaviours, feelings, reactions, memories and triggers. I have been exploring and re-experiencing my emotions predominantly through inner child work processes. I have had to admit that I, like most people, have fallen prey to childhood emotional neglect. This is something that has run through many generations in my family. Emotional regulation continues to be a rather foreign concept and was certainly not known in my childhood growing up in South Africa. My mother had much of her own emotional trauma, so did my grandparents. No one taught any of us how to cope with difficult emotions such as fear. Strength and courage were applauded traits in my family, which is not a bad thing in the slightest. The problem comes in when the interpretation of strength comes to mean an 'absence' of fear. This is a false belief and one many people hold. This belief, in my opinion, is one of the most destructive forms of thinking we have. It creates an unhealthy relationship with this emotion and people develop a deep set shame because fear is unavoidable. It is one of our core emotions, we all experience it!

Fear builds up and is experienced in many different ways!

Well intentioned deception: 

I personally had a mother who liked to tell me that everything was OK and I had nothing to worry about. Looking back, I knew full well that this was not the case. I have been remembering many occasions where I have picked up on the stress and hardship in the home. I knew we had financial struggles. I knew my mother found it difficult to cope. I knew that my mother felt bad about herself. I knew that my uncle had gone missing on a sailing trip to Portugal and that my mother was staying up all hours of the night calling the Red Cross in various parts of the world. I could hear my mother and grandmother cry. I knew something was horribly wrong. I knew so much more then my mother could possibly have imagined. If I tried to express my worry, I was 'reassured' that everything was OK and there was nothing to worry about. This seemed to be a trend.

This continued throughout my childhood and into my teenage years. My mother continued to deteriorate under a pressure she refused to acknowledge to me. Our financial situation was dire and it was extremely obvious. There is nothing like no petrol in the car to drive this point home (excuse the pun). My mother was unemployed and shutting herself off from the world. Instead of attending to my fears and providing reassurance, validation and inclusion, she hid from the world. She taught me how to do the same in so many ways. This was her shame. She was frightened and was too embarrassed to ask for help, especially from my grandparents.  My grandmother refused acknowledge how bad things were for us and tried to motivate my mother by being critical. Thus my mothers' fears were punished due to my grandmothers fears. No one had any control, least of all me. It was no wonder I developed an Anxiety disorder that manifested in the form of needing to control my environment and struggling to trust other people. My environment was riddled in a survival based fear from the get go. I was never taught how to process my fear, I carried it inside me and it started to grow and permeate all aspects of my being as the years went on.

I learnt that the only person I could rely on was myself:

I developed a severe and unconscious problem with trust. I over compensated for this in ways that made me out to be overly trusting. This was such a good deception I even had myself fooled. It was a coping mechanism for my shame as we seem to do everything in our power to hide the truth when coming from a place of not feeling worthy or as if we are different from everyone else. The truth was though, I was let down again and again, particularly in my personal relationships. The love I experienced always felt extremely conditional. In many ways it was but this was partly due to the fact that I was not being true to myself. The self love I had was almost non existent. What love I did feel towards myself was the most conditional of all.

I let people down too. I valued honesty on the surface but deep down my inner child laughed at this concept. The world is unsafe she said to me. People will abandon you, they will dismiss you, you need to act a certain way in order to keep people in your life and on your side. Due to this childhood trauma around my fear, I developed the belief that people only liked me for what I could do for them in their lives. I had no money or nice things. I did, however, have a real knack for helping people with their personal problems. I was an excellent shoulder to cry on and ear to listen. I became the resident Agony Aunt. Good thing I love this role, in fact I chose to make this my profession. The problem was though, I never felt as if people liked me for me. In certain friendships and many romantic relationships, this was certainly the case. This was one of the hardest realisations I have had to face up to. The more I learn about myself,the more I realise that people couldn't have liked me for me because the real me was very lost. I didn't even know who I was outside of my practical identity (student, daughter, female, loves cats, has a sense of humour etc). The fear was so ingrained and I was so conditioned to act a certain way or I feared I would be ostracised or lose my sense of belonging in the world. It felt like the only person I could truly rely on in the world was myself. I struggled to trust anyone and still do if I am to be honest. I find it very hard to let people truly help me, especially emotionally. 

Fear is not and has never been the enemy:

I have called this blog 'My Evolving Relationship with Fear' because my understanding of my fear is continuously evolving and transforming. If I had to go into all my childhood issues we would be here for a year. From fear of the dark to fear of snakes to fear of being alone...I had many. We all do. Children are experiencing the world for the first time and fear is a natural part of this. Fear is not a bad emotion at all. Our reactions and resistances to fear are what cause us hardship and struggle. It is our experience in the world that determines what we find threatening and frightening. The less we are attended to emotionally, the more we will struggle to feel safe in the world. The more our emotional needs are not met, the less skills we will have to cope with life's challenges and the less self esteem and self trust we will have.

One thing I have recently thought about is my fear around very real danger. Living in South Africa with an extremely high crime rate means that safety is a very physical reality to this day. My house was not very safe and we didn't have much security in place. My mother had a responsibility to keep me physically safe and in this area she was unable to, predominantly for financial reasons. I lived with a high level of genuine and relevant Anxiety on a daily basis and in the end, my worst fear came true and my mother was murdered in our home. One could argue that the fact that my mother dismissed my fears and ignored her own had tragic consequences. Fear is often there to alert us to harm and danger. That is how it has been designed. As a child we are powerless to gain control in terms of our living environment. This feeling of powerlessness is where the link to shame comes in.

Emotions are here to benefit us, not make us suffer!

We become so cut off from our difficult emotions that we lose touch with the benefits of them. We turn off our internal guidance system that is really the basis of our authenticity. We cannot be our true selves without having a relationship with our emotions. We can't pick and choose what emotions we feel, this creates a mask that will end up making us sick and impacting our relationships. Most importantly though, we cannot have a positive relationship with ourselves and who we genuinely are without having a relationship with our emotions.

Most of the time we are really fearing the shadows from our past!

Lots of love

XX Paula

What is your 'Inner Child'?

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Understanding why we all have an Inner Child:

What is an Inner Child?

We are very complex creatures us humans. Many theorists will talk about the concept of 'plural selves' or multiple aspects to us that make up our whole being. Gestalt therapy will teach you that we are the sum of all our parts - Gestalt means 'whole'. The term 'inner child' is a psychological way of labelling that 'part' of you that is your younger self. This part of you is the part that carries all your unprocessed childhood experiences, particularly the difficult ones. This is also the part of you that holds your imagination, playfulness, innocence and some would argue, your true identity before you were socialised (your authenticity).

Your inner child is often a very neglected part of you and is usually the part of you that you repress and is thus situated largely in your unconscious. That is because many of the memories you have as a child are still in a feeling state rather than an intellectual or cognitive (thinking) state. As actual children, our cognitions or thoughts are one of the last areas of our brains to develop. We are guided by our emotions and felt sense of the world. When experiences happen that we fail to understand and make sense of, we have no place to put them. We need someone to teach us about our emotions and what they mean in order for us to process what has happened to us. We know this now to be called 'emotional regulation'. 

Each time we experience something difficult and have no understanding of it or how to integrate it into our reality, we develop an emotional trauma. We then have a part of our childhood self that gets 'locked' or stuck in this point and time, unable to move forward from this. As we grow older, we develop many of these trauma's and as they are unconscious to us on a cognitive level, particularly the very early trauma's, they make up a part of us we have come to label 'The Inner Child'.

How does our Inner Child affect us?

Most of us have a basic knowledge of the unconscious. Freud coined this term and identified that we have drives, wishes, reactions and motivations that come from a place outside of our awareness. Our dreams are a good example of how our unconscious works. It is not something we understand. The minute we do, it has become conscious and within our control. Our unconscious may feel like that part of you that you feel 'at the mercy of'. Those feelings and reactions that appear to come out of nowhere. We call those 'triggers' (please read my blog on 'Emotional Triggers' to learn more). Triggers are like overreactions to put it simply. Everyone has triggers because everyone has unprocessed emotional baggage. Unprocessed emotional baggage is another way of looking at our Inner Child. Dreams and triggers, therefore, are an attempt to bring our unconscious into our awareness, particularly if this is something that has been at the foreground of our reactions. Our bodies are actually designed to heal not suffer. Most things we have termed suffering is actually our trauma re-emerging in order to alert us to areas that need healing. Unfortunately we often have to re-experience those difficult emotions such as shame, fear, anger, disgust and sadness in order for us to release them and heal these wounds. This is not easy and many of us develop many defence and coping mechanisms to resist this process. Most of the time we do this unconsciously.

These emotions come back up when we have been triggered by something in our present lives and therefore, as the trigger is often unconscious, we assume the experience has made us feel this way. We react to the experience in the present and repress what is really going on (without even knowing it most of the time). We then add the new experience to the trauma which reaffirms our false belief about ourselves and carry on until the next trigger emerges. There is no escape. Our triggers will continue to emerge and occur until we address the core experience and heal the wounds of the inner child. Most people are forced into finding help as life becomes more and more difficult. This is where you see mental illness developing, escapism such as substance abuse and addictions, broken relationships, inability to feel happiness and patterns that seem to repeat in cycles.

We are all unique

Everyone is unique and will be affected in different ways. This is due to a number of factors such as your level of emotional regulation and how you were attended to as a child on an emotional level. The level of 'attachment' you had with your parents or parent (the person looking after you) is also very important. This is the bond between you and your parent and the level of emotional safety and unconditional love and nurturing within this relationship you received. Your environment and stability in the home comes into play. Other traumatic experiences outside of your family may impact you as a child. Your personality and gender, your extended support and interactions, exposure to certain stimuli (TV, games, cultural practices, pets, activities etc) may also effect you. We are all made up of many layers, experiences and social influences/conditioning. Thus the more difficult your upbringing and personal experiences of situations, the more emotional trauma you will develop. The more experiences that have been left unprocessed, the more triggers you will have and the more wounded your inner child will be. That is why child abuse and neglect have such long term, harmful affects.

Childhood Emotional Neglect

Certain theorists and practitioners such as Dr Jonice Webb (author of 'Running on Empty: Overcome your childhood emotional neglect') will tell you that you can have childhood emotional neglect without child abuse but you cannot have child abuse without childhood emotional neglect. Basically it is possible to have childhood trauma without coming from what most people would term an 'abusive' family life. The reason for this comes from a 'lack' of emotional regulation where emotional needs have not been met to some degree. For most parents, this is not deliberate and it appears to be a cyclic process where parenting is generational and influenced by how people were parented. The emotional neglect transfers from generation to generation and people are largely unaware of this even occurring. Think about it, you can't know what you need if you have never experienced it and have no conscious awareness of how it 'should' be. With other forms of abuse, even emotional abuse, something is 'done' to you. You have something tangible to identify, to explore, to question. If you are unaware of emotional needs, you are unaware of the areas of struggle you may be faced with. Your coping mechanisms ensure that you are in resistance to your difficult and traumatic emotions and your emotional needs start to play out in present day experiences. You start to believe it is the present day experiences and your current relationships that are the problem and don't identify the root causes. Thus your triggers persist and patterns are formed and repeated.

Understanding your Inner Child is key for deeper healing and positive change

To end off I will leave you with these thoughts. Your inner child is not only made up of emotional trauma from childhood. This is also the part of you that is able to feel joy, happiness and freedom. This is the centre of your creativity and authenticity. To shut out and repress your pain is to shut out and repress these other parts of yourself too. The more cut off from yourself you are emotionally, the more unhappy and uninspired you will thus become. Some, like myself, believe that there are links between physical illness and unprocessed emotional trauma. There is growing research on the links between the mind, body and spirit (emotions); these parts of us are all connected.

Think of your inner child like an actual child. Children are free from social stress and pressure. They want to play and have fun. Children tell it like it is and react to their needs without talking themselves out of them. They honour their true feelings and do not see all the systems and categories we have constructed in our societies such as race, class, gender etc. They are pure of heart and innocent with a fundamental drive to trust and love. This is something inherent in each and every one of us. Many of us suppress this part of ourselves because of the trauma we have endured and the pain we experience when allowing this trauma to surface for healing. We are built to heal and in order to heal we need to work with our wounds. The more we run from ourselves, the more suffering we will endure. Often we become our greatest abusers and would never treat a child in the same way that we treat our inner child. The judgement, dismissal, ridicule, punishment and avoidance that we put our inner child through is often larger than we even realise. 

Always treat yourself with kindness, there are very relevant reasons why you behave and think in the way that you do. Give your Inner Child a voice and start getting to know this part of yourself. You may be surprised at just how beautiful and special you are inside! 

Much Love
XX Paula

Understanding why people Self Harm

Please check out my video's on my Youtube channel or like my Facebook Page for parenting support and information XX 

What is Self Harm?

Self harm is an act of deliberately hurting oneself either physically or emotionally. 

When we think of self harm, many of us think of cutting. The image that pops into my head is one of razor blades and bandaged wrists. This is certainly a large part of self harm and there are many forms of physical harm people inflict on themselves purposefully and often ritualistically that can be mild to severe. Self harm is common amongst teenagers and there is a great deal of concern and fear amongst people (professionals included) around the dangers this form of coping creates. There are often a great deal of misconceptions about 'why' people do this as well as around the risk and dangers. A common misconception is that people who self harm are suicidal. This is often not the case. Self harm is a coping mechanism that people who are hurting emotionally adopt. It is done to create a sense of relief, regardless of what that relief may be to each individual person. 

Why choose self harm?

The reason I am writing about self harm today is largely due to this question. Why hurt yourself MORE when you are already hurting? I feel it is this mentality that creates a big divide between people who self harm and those trying to understand why. To help someone who self harms or to help yourself if you are self harming, this is a very important question to gain answers to and seek to understand.

I mentioned before that the intention of self harm is to create a sense of relief. For a person who is self harming, the goal is to hurt less, not more. To understand how physical pain or discomfort makes a person hurt less, you need to understand how emotional pain can hurt. Many people find this concept so difficult to comprehend as we live in a world that has mastered the art of repressing painful emotions. Many of us are very cut off from our difficult emotions and wear many masks in our daily lives to hide how we really feel. People who self harm are struggling to keep these masks on. They are finding their emotions difficult to live with, to bare, to keep in. They are in pain. Inherently,they have lost a sense of control and feel powerless to their emotional pain.

Self harm is a controlled act. It gives the person control over their pain. They are able to choose their pain and where to place it. They are able to distract from the emotional pain by redirecting their senses to their self inflicted physical pain. They have taken ownership of their bodies. They have pushed through numbness and reconnected with something tangible, something real and something that they can feel and manage the feelings of. Many people feel so awful inside that this form of punishment mirrors what they feel they deserve. It reflects what they are feeling inside. The outside wound helps to highlight the inside wound in a way that is outside of the 'unknown'. We all fear the unknown to some extent. Many of us fear our internal pain. The more emotional trauma we have, the greater the internal pain and the more enormous and frightening this 'unknown' part of us becomes. Self harm is a coping mechanism, it is done to create relief and ultimately 'help' the person. This is not the mentality of suicide, this is not giving up. In fact, this is a fight for life, for connection, for relief.

The Emotions behind Self Harm:

This is not a black and white answer because each person is unique and there will be many different core emotions. Some people, depending on their past childhood experiences and trauma, may have more than one core emotion. I would say that people who reach this point of coping will have an accumulated range of trauma ranging from mild to severe. Childhood sexual abuse is a common example to give for trauma leading to self harm as a coping mechanism. Chronic neglect (physical and/or emotional), physical abuse, unprocessed grief, chronic emotional abuse and disability are also good examples. There are also situations such as bullying, medical trauma and other external stresses and hardship that may come into play. Thus the core emotions can be fear, anger, disgust, shame or sadness; it all depends on the experiences and individuals involved. The key factor to understand, however, is that these core emotions have not been regulated or processed by the individual. These feelings have been repressed and the trauma has not been integrated.

The act of self harm and actively harming oneself in order to gain relief is done from a place of shame and/or disgust. Self harm is the opposite of self love and self care. As this act is a reflection of what the person feels inside themselves, it reflects a self hatred and loathing. Self harm thus comes from these negative feelings inside that are, for want of a better word, 'dark'. The act of self harm is a form of self punishment and the person consciously or unconsciously believes that they deserve this pain. Internally they are punishing themselves through negative thinking, low self esteem and judgement. The physical act is a reflection of this. They are not placing value on their physical bodies and have become detached from who they really are (their authentic selves) underneath all their internal pain and suffering. Shame is linked to powerlessness. As mentioned above, self harm is a controlled act which invariably brings about a renewed sense of power (however short lived). For people who feel powerless, self harm may relieve this feeling of powerlessness and the sense of control and power understandably can become addictive. 

Self Harm and connectedness:

The physical pain or discomfort also brings about a connectedness between the mind and body. For those who have endured physical and sexual abuse, this connectedness is a way to combat dissociation. Dissociation is a splitting of the mind from the body in order to cope with the physical trauma the body is enduring. This becomes a coping mechanism for many survivors of abuse, particularly sexual abuse. Survivors of this form of abuse develop many emotional triggers and will dissociate regularly when faced with reminders and triggers of their past abuse. Self harm is a way to feel, to connect to the body and to ground oneself back into reality or the present.

Self Harm is not always black and white:

Self harm is not always about cutting or burning or other visible methods. Many people harm themselves in other less overt ways. Eating disorders are a good example of this. Not all eating disorders require hospitalisation, starvation and obesity. Many people over or under eat and do this from a place of shame or disgust (self-loathing). I personally used to emotionally eat when struggling and at times still do. How many people eat food which they know is bad for them? How many people need caffeine to get by, a chocolate fix, a sugary reward for a tough day? Where is the line between treat and self harm? You just need to look at the number of people struggling with weight issues, body image issues and addictions to see that self harm is not a black and white issue. It is an emotional issue. Unprocessed emotions and trauma that have led to a place of shame and disgust.

How do you tackle Self Harm in terms of healing and awareness?

The first point I would like to make is that this is not a simple issue of 'attention seeking'. I find those 2 words extremely hindering in our modern world as I see them minimise and deflect very real and important issues going on for people. I often say to people, in any attention seeking context: If the person is going to this extreme to gain attention, it is a clear indicator of something being wrong. Our society likes to blame the victim. I feel this stems from fear and a lack of understanding and resources to deal with what they are being faced with. Seeking to understand, growing in awareness and finding compassion is vital.

We need to stop burying our heads in the sand. People who self harm are hurting and internally wounded. They need help not judgement. They are doing this from a place of shame, your judgement will increase this shame and place them more at risk. Ignoring them and pretending everything is fine is also shaming them as this translates into: I am not worthy of help, I disgust and repel people, I am not cared about, I am unlovable. This is when the self harm may start moving into a destructive path of suicidal ideation.

Shame is at the root of low self esteem

Self Harm is a cry for help. To help someone is to look past the behaviour and focus on their feelings. Listen, care, support and refrain from judgement. You can't remove someone's coping mechanism without giving them new ways to cope. The solution starts within, emotionally, through a positive relationship without judgement. Helping people to learn how to build up their self esteem and access self love. This is not an over night process and will often require professional support as well as support from loved ones. In a nutshell, the more support and care the person receives, the better!

Lets change the focus from 'what' the behaviour is to 'why' are people hurting so much internally? Why are people coping in this way? What do they need emotionally? Learn about the emotion 'shame'. The solutions lie within compassion, love and empathy. 

Lets not turn our back on those most in need of help.

Be kind to yourselves

XX

Paula