Trigger warning: This article discusses self-harm and related imagery, as well as anxiety and depression. If you are bothered by such, or related subjects, continue at your own risk.
When you hear the term "self-harm," what do you think of?
The average person likely pictures a pack of razors, a bloodied bathroom sink, and a set of scars along an arm, a leg, or a stomach. You picture a person who's gone so far as to say "I deserve this," as they cut into their own body.
I'm here to break that image a little bit. Of course, what I've described is definitely a part of self-harm that is not to be dealt with lightly, but there can be bigger, dare I say more self-destructive habits that are just as much self-harm as the cuts along somebody's arm. The thing is, people can self-harm on a frequent basis, not realizing the abuse they are causing themselves, and sluff it off as no big deal until it's caused significant damage.
I'm talking about self-deprecation.
I've seen people throw around self-deprecating comments as if they don't matter at all. People treat them as if they do just as much as any other average set of words and nothing else, when, in reality, it is words that can seep most into how we think about ourselves.
Julia Banim of HealthyPlace.com discussed the connection between anxiety, self-esteem, and self-deprecation. She speaks of her own experience, talking about how her humor as a child often included lessening herself, saying purposefully unintelligent things for the sake of a few laughs.
"Sometimes, for those of us with anxiety, it can even feel too utterly humiliating to take yourself seriously. After all, we anxiety sufferers are not always sure who we are exactly and, during darker times, what we have to present to the world in terms of identity."
We would rather show a purposely unintelligent, clumsy mask to the world that we have the illusion of controlling, rather than have our real selves be taken as such. For somebody with anxiety, it is the most comforting to have control, or at least the illusion of control, over the surrounding environment. We would rather be able to control the fact that we are careless, impulsive, and brainless, whether or not that happens to be who we truly are on the inside.
When we act this way, we are also presenting this image to ourselves. We are creating an untrue picture, not only for the outside world, but that we will begin to see in our own mirrors. If you present yourself as idiotic and uncoordinated to somebody else, you will start to hear your own words. This image that you begin to make of yourself will slowly trickle into your own mind, causing you to think that the person you've created is who you truly are. This can be in any area of life, and is not just restricted to intelligence or physical coordination, enabling you to stab at yourself from a variety of angles simultaneously, without realizing the harm you have caused yourself.
"The way in which I communicate with others can all too often revolve around small, comical jabs at my own expense that I wouldn't dream of directing at another person. This can be lighthearted. I will often tut about my hair being messy or my clothes being unfashionable. I will mock my ongoing weight problems or the frequent poor exam grades of my school days. Other times I will be a little crueller on myself. I will sometime, only half in jest, really, refer to myself as being a "pointless failure" or "hideously ugly" and spin jokes around these traits."
It is comments like this that let our negatives feelings about ourselves make it to the outside world without denial or rejection, and often with acceptance. People will chuckle, and even often agree, jokingly or not, at the comments you have made, reinforcing them in your own mind. These thoughts solidify from a wet clay to a baked stone, and only you are left to deal with these false images that you've built of yourself for a long time to come.
It is your responsibility, as a friend, to watch for these kinds of comments. Stop them in their tracks. It is also your responsibility to yourself to watch when you make these kinds of comments. Take a moment to realize what you're doing to yourself and the harm it will cause you in the future. Take care of yourself and your friends, and you will be rewarded in the long run.
