According to World Health Organization (WHO), Self-harm is when somebody injures or harms themselves to cope with or express extreme emotional distress and internal turmoil. It is a dangerous coping method, even if they don't intend to kill themselves, but the results can be fatal because it can lead to suicide. Some examples of self-harm are poisoning themselves by taking too much medicine or something harmful, slapping, punching or hitting, cutting, burning, and banging their head against objects.
Self-harm is most done by young people. According to data from a YouGov Omnibus survey in June 2019, more than a third, equivalent to 36.9% of Indonesians, had injured themselves on purpose. And on May 2021, the Indonesian youth suicide prevention community, Into the Light, and the petition website Change.org conducted a survey involving 5000 participants. The majority of participants were youth aged 18-24 years and young adults aged 25-34 years, and said In fact, 2 out of 5 people who took part in the survey admitted to having thoughts of suicide or self-harm in the last two weeks.
Many people do self-harm without realizing that they do it. We can diagnose self-harm if we get these signs or symptoms: unexplained cuts, bruises, or cigarette burns; keeping ourselves fully covered even the weather is very hot; have a sign of depression like lack of motivation or interest, wanting to punish ourselves, being withdrawn with others; have a sign of low self-esteem such as blaming ourselves for every mistake and problem or thinking that we are not good enough for something.
Various triggers can increase the risk of teenagers doing self-harm, one of them is social problems. Adolescents who experience life difficulties and social problems can experience stress and are at risk of experiencing self-harm. In addition, the psychological trauma experienced by a teenager can also increase feelings of inferiority, loneliness, emptiness, and numbness which can increase the risk of self-injury. Like Biere and Grill said in their book that people who experience abuse, illness, trauma, or have a lack of impulse control are more likely to be at risk for self-harming. Klonsky and Muehelenkap in their book that people self-harm for several reasons, including to feel better, to communicate their emotional pain, to feel a sense of control, and to punish themselves.
Many people don't take it seriously because almost self-harmers don't intend to kill themselves, they just cope with their feeling, but it's a really dangerous thing to do. Konsky in his book said a study found that almost half of people who self-harm reported at least one suicide attempt. From some books we can find that self-harm can also lead to suicide when self-harm is no longer an effective coping method or self-harmer becomes desensitized and habituated to pain through repeat harming episodes and see suicide attempts as less frightening. There are some ways to prevent or treat it by talking to a trusted friend or family, asking for help from the doctors(it is covered by BPJS), taking care of ourselves by eating healthy food, sleeping regularly, and getting involved with others. So if you are self-harmer or maybe people around you doing that you can do the things above, don't ever stay alone and try to give more love to yourself. It'll be so hard but you have to know that you are precious.
Reference:
https://applications.emro.who.int/docs/EMRPUB_leaflet_2019_mnh_224_en.pdf?ua=1&ua=1
https://www.suicideinfo.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Self-Harm-Toolkit.pdf
https://www.mind.org.uk/media-a/5783/self-harm-2020.pdf
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/publications/truth-about-self-harm
