Are All These "A Cry For Attention" Articles in Fact Desperate Pleas For Attention?

Suddenly we find ourselves inundated with self-harm related articles! Now, I'll admit, this title is deliberately a little tongue-in-cheek, but the topic that's being raised (and raised again... and again...) is something that appears to be sorely misunderstood.

Now, first of all, the term "self harm" doesn't just refer to those poor, over-reported cutters. Self harm envelops a much broader spectrum of things that no man, woman or child should ever have any desire to do to themselves - it can be pill popping, it can be deliberately burning oneself or pulling out hair and eyelashes. It can be inhaling noxious substances, or scratching at skin until it breaks. This is all self harm, and one particularly saddening misconception is that it's all a "cry for attention".

Statistically, women are more likely to self-harm than men. From a study conducted in Oxford (England) it was found that approximately 300 out of 100,000 men aged between fifteen and twenty-four had been hospitalised for self-inflicted injuries, whereas 700 out of 100,000 women in the same age bracket were hospitalised after self-harming. Now, perhaps all these 10,000 fifteen to twenty-five year old women and men were attention seeking - without interviewing each and every one of them we just can't rule that out. However, motives differ from person to person, and it seems very likely that had these cases not ended up in hospitalisation a fair percentage of them would never have been reported or even seen the light of day, and wouldn't be turning up in these statistics.

Now for some even less inspiring statistics. A report (again, one using data gathered in England) written by The Samaritans has found that 41% of people believe self-harm is selfish, and 55% think that it's stupid. That's roughly half. A major cause and effect of self-harm is shame, and the feeling that there's no one out there to turn to. These statistics seem to verify that idea.

The true issue with self-harm is our perception of it. Does wanting attention make a fifteen-year-old girl any less deserving of receiving help, if something in her life is driving her to cut herself? Are drunk drivers refused treatment after car accidents - or just less deserving of treatment because they helped cause the accident? Is motive and background brought into the equation, or do we tar every girl and every boy who self-harms with the same brush? Because by claiming that cutting is an "emo trend" that's what's being done, and this approach doesn't appear to be working. I've yet to see someone who was depressed concede that perhaps they should just "be happy" and avoid being an "emo" and recover. So does this mean it's time for a new approach?