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When you think of violence the image that comes to mind most often is someone doing damage to someone else... often with intent to injure.

I have been violent and I have been the victim of violence, and the years I have experienced as a patient in our California mental health system has made it all the more confusing for me... blurring the distinction between the two. But by far the most puzzling aspect of the violence I have known is the violence I have done and continue to do to myself.

The first time I can remember causing harm to myself purposefully was in the first grade. I had been beaten up at school, then came home to be hurt again by a neighbor, and yelled at by my mother to clean up my room. I went into my bedroom and somehow lifted the bed and dropped the frame wheel on my hand. Through the years I discovered self-injury to be a release of emotion that had no other outlet.

I remember a neighbor... a teenager who found me to be a suitable object to explore and experiment upon. And considerably before puberty I was no longer a virgin.

Abuse piled up on abuse. Molestation upon molestation. To whom could I cry out? It felt bad. But how was I to know it was not normal? Anger, despair, and sadness all enveloped me. And with nowhere to put those feelings, with no one to really trust, I put them on myself. I blamed myself and never saw myself as a victim.

Years passed and I got good at hurting myself... cutting, burning, falling... the works. I would set myself up in harm's way... going from one difficult situation to another. And all the while, the incredible rage I contained within me grew. Eventually, I would even try suicide, but stop just short of finality.

I managed to keep all of it a secret till age 30. Then, wanting help, I went to see a psychiatrist and I tried to be honest and tell all.

I have regretted that decision ever since. What I learned was that the treatment for people who have what is called SIB, or self-injurious behavior, is often barbaric to put it mildly. Of course, before I was diagnosed as SIB, a diagnosis which I suspect is an accurate one, I was also diagnosed as Paranoid Schizophrenic, Manic Depressive, and Schizo-affective... all of which I was not.

After years of inappropriate treatment, that I now know was a form of abuse based on negligence and misdiagnosis by persons I dared to trust, I have learned about fallacies and become determined to find truths upon which to base my survival.

FALLACY -- People who hurt themselves are doing it for attention.
FALLACY -- People who hurt themselves are schizophrenic, manic depressive or schizo-affective.
FALLACY -- People who hurt themselves need to be locked up and drugged if they are to get better.
FALLACY -- Self-injury is an addiction.
Through all the horror of my serious, long-term mental illness, attention was the last thing I wanted. What I did want was to vent my feelings I had pent up. When I asked for help, it was to learn a new way. But before I could effectively do that I had to free myself from the trap of my past… through therapy.
Today I know, and those who treat me acknowledge that I am not schizophrenic or manic depressive or any other previous label. What I am is an abuse victim, and most of the time, sanity is turned around 180 degrees for those who have been hurt in this way. Self-injury is a scream for help. It is also shedding tears in a time and place where crying for help or expressing grief over your situation can be very dangerous. Sadly, I have discovered that inappropriate professional care is also a form of violence.

Locking us up and tying us down is the last thing a SIB victim needs. All restraints do is impose a feeling of isolation, not a feeling of protection. SIB victims can be talked through the feelings of self-injury.

Though there may be addictive qualities to the SIB disorder, there are also many other complex components to it such as socioeconomic background, gender, type of abuse, endocrine and biochemical disorders, etc. that must be fathomed. And to do that, one must somehow find an extraordinary therapist who is willing to work with you through long and precarious sessions.
The places where I have tended to get better were open units and open door facilities. Rather than lock me up, drug me, and tie me down, the staff in those places would sit down and talk me through the difficult times.

Dealing with an SIB person requires professionals who do not freak out and too easily succumb to applying the more familiar labels of serious mental illness, then drugging us into compliance and proceeding to help us in traditional ways that really don't make a difference. Luckily for me, I have at last found a professional who seems to hear me and shows some understanding of what I have experienced. I am still in treatment, but at a place where I can come and go at will. If I hurt myself, the staff treats it medically and we also go into the psychological issue at hand. There are no locked doors... and there are a lot of open minds... and I have less and less need to do violence to my person.