Please be gentle - self harm as a feminist issue

[fluffydressinggown]

I am currently in a psychiatric unit because of my self harm.

My psychologist has asked me to read two books (Susie Orbach - Bodies and Women who Run With the Wolves) and think about them in relation to my own body and feelings.

Reading them and thinking has made me wonder about how I, as a woman, view my own body as a without value and an object for me to do things to rather than to inhabit and be a part of.

I certainly think that in the media there is a strong sense as woman's bodies as objects without meaning behind them.

I consider myself to be a feminist and so I am interested that some of my issues (of course this is not the only reason) may be related to this. I certainly place no value on my body in terms of keeping it safe or secure and I do see it as a vessle to destroy which is quite separate to my own internal being. I often say 'I need to do enough' and 'I need to make it right' which make me wonder why it has to be enough and right on my body. I don't do it for emotional release or to dull internal pain, it is about damage and punishment, and a way to communicate.

Of course self harm is deeper than this and has many many reasons, but I am interested in looking at it like this and wondered if anyone had any other feelings.

Interestingly I am very well 'kept' and for the 6 weeks I have been here (and prior while I was in the community and unwell) I have had my make up done, nice hair, nice clean clothes, showered twice a day. I find the contrast between this and the hand I can barely use because it is so bruised and swollen from shutting it in heavy fire doors to be difficult. Oh and I have been told repeatedly that 'I am a nice girl' and 'I obviously care for myself' because of my make up - despite the very physical damage I do to my body. Which is interesting, like being a nice, good, neat girl makes it ok?

Like I say please please be gentle :)

I can't find the words just now, but I want to say how much I wish you well x

Didn't want to leave this unanswered, I am sorry for all you are going through.

I agree that a lot of objectifying and 'othering' of women's bodies goes on in the media. I sOmetImes hate my body for being overweight but don't think I would think about it so much without constant media pictures etc - even giving up wOmen's magazines doesn't stop constant coverage in news etc of such matters.

Best wishes for your recovery.

Thank you.

I don't want to see attention seeking with this, I know I have a big post on mental health but it had just not occoured to me that maybe the way I see my own body is liked in to my own existance as a woman.

My Mum certainly is quite detatched from here body, always dieting, always covering up and rejecting herself as she is.

It sounds like you have a good psychologist who has really given you some new things to think about.

I know very little about self-harm so i'm afraid i don't have much to add but I do wish you all the best in learning to rebuild your relationship with your amazing body which does so much for you and allows your 'self' to experience this world.

I have only just started seeing him, I am quite good at 'intellectualising' my issues and I think he is tyring to find a way in.

I have never really thought about how other and separate I am from my own body and where this might have come from. But it makes sense that I can destroy a body I feel so disconnected to.

Ok I will stop rambling now :)

I didn't think you were attention-seeking, I think this subject is a massive one and not often discussed.

Some of the Big Guns will be along later, I am sure, and will be better able to frame their replies.

it's a difficult area for me, because although I don't have "major" self-harm issues, I do have more low-level, less-visible and very long-standing ones as a result of my childhood

hence my inarticulacy but whole hearted support

Ok my computer battery is dying but I am sorry for any crossed wires, AnyFucker - I really appreciated your kind sympathy and took it as that. Lots of thoughts for you.

Just worried because I have a thread about my admission in mental health and didn't want people to think I was attention seeking about it. Just trying to make sense I guess.

I get you, and I don't think you should be worried

this is so much a feminist issue and I wish I could formulate something useful to say x

Hi. I hope you are doing okay and I think you're brave to post about your experiences.

I haven't read the books you've been recommended but I have read Orbach's Hunger Strike (about anorexia) and the book published by 42nd Street (the self harm counseling group) called Who's harming who?

I do think the issue of separating the mind from the body and not seeing the body as part of who you are is a very important factor in a number of problematic issues that can have a huge psychological impact on women. I think Orbach is really, really good at explaining that in a way that reaches out to women. I hope that is also true in the Orbach book you're been recommended.

I will come back on this thread later when I have more time, but didn't want to leave your post unanswered.

I definitely do not think you are attention seeking. I find it really helpful in understanding women's experiences more generally when people speak up about self harm and mental health.

I think you are brave to be addressing this, and I suspect you are seeing a really good psychologist!

For what it is worth, on some of my darker day I feel like a vast number of things I /lots of women do routinely are a sort of self harm either by inflicting pain or by deprivation eg waxing, plucking eyebrows, hair dye, food restrictions, high heels, piercing ears etc. I think this certainly applies to cosmetic surgery.

I have recently been watching lots of make up videos on YouTube, sort of weird fascination, and I am struck by how odd it is to see your face as a blank canvas and do 'marylin Monroe' make up, or Adele from the Grammys. For me makeup is making me look more like how I would look after a week of decent sleep, not some random stranger. Is that the sort of thing you mean about being detached?

I need to wrestle a toddler into the bath now, but will be back to read later.

Ramble away, so many of us do so here...

Firstly, well done on getting help. It's such a big step.

I agree with you; self harm is indeed a feminist issue. If I remember correctly, young women and girls are more likely to self harm than young men and boys.

You don't sound attention seeking at all. I'm not sure what else to add to what you've said, but I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone. :)

Hope things get better for you.

Yes young women are brought up to value their bodies for what it gives to other people rather than what it brings for themselves. For example, looking pretty for men and other women, being "hot", etc. Men are more likely to be brought up to value their body for what it gives them i.e. muscles for strength, athleticism, etc.

Of course at an individual level it is more complicated, but generally women are brought up to think of how their bodies look for others and men to think about what their bodies can do for themselves.

Sorry I know that I haven't expressed it that clealy and I hope someone else can explain it better

As a former and recovered (for a very long time) self-harmer, first of all I am sorry for what you are going through, and there is hope that things will improve.

I'm just speculating here, but I wonder whether there's something in messages to women and girls to be 'nice' and not make a fuss which encourages them to internalise strong feelings, particularly anger, which means that for some it will be turned inwards into things like self-harm, eating disorders etc.

It's interesting that self-harm often gets labelled attention-seeking, when it is so very frequently something which stays hidden for many years. I also wonder why the label 'attention-seeking' is seen as bad... like you don't have a right to speak up and be heard or articulate your needs (who doesn't need attention of some form? We're all social creatures) and I think perhaps women suffer from this more than men.

Just some thoughts that spring to mind.

that is a very good post, synchronicity

YY synchronicity

Fluffy I don't have any insights to add, but I agree that self harm is linked to our existence as women. I've not self-harmed to a great degree, but I have felt 'separate' from my body for much of my life and have an eating disorder. My eating is about punishment too.

I wish you all the best with your recovery xx

Fluffy I dno't know much about self-harm so not much to add, but just wanted to say I hope you're OK and it sounds like you're getting the kind of help you need.

My take on it is that we are encouraged not to have ownership of our bodies, not to think of them as our own - they belong to the men we live with, to the medical profession, to random strangers who will judge whether we have earned approval for how we look. I have actually heard women say that past 6 months / 9 months/ insert random time here, their breasts go back to being for their husbands, not their babies (never for themselves). We are assessed and judged all the fucking time on what we look like from the minute we hit puberty (and before) and encouraged to not question the right of all these people to make assessments about our bodies. We're expected to make ourselves look different from what we look like by wearing make up, change our hair colour and make it a different texture, make our legs and armpits bare of hair. Lots of us actually feel as if we're not properly dressed if we haven't put make up on before we go out - almost as if we haven't brushed our teeth. The medical establishment often treats our bodies as if they're disconnected from us, hardly acknowledging our existence as they focus on whatever bit of our bodies they're examining at the moment.

And yes, what EatsBrainsandLeaves said - men are encouraged to see their bodies for what they can do for them, while women are encouraged to see their bodies for how they look. Hence the domination of sport by men - they are allowed to get hot, sweaty, smelly in the course of exertion, pushing their bodies to see how strong, fast, reactive it is, feeling totally comfortable in their bodies and their right to do this. They don't feel embarrassed about how red-faced, sweaty and whiffy they are if a woman observes them doing it. They feel proud of what their bodies can do. While we are supposed to be fragrant and elegant the whole time and it is impossible to be elegant while you're puffing and panting round a racing track and it is actually presented to us as unfeminine. And yet at the same time, if you don't do any exercise, it's very difficult to achieve that svelte, slim look that we are all supposed to be aiming for; so women are set up to have this contradictory need to be unfeminine in order to be feminine. Oh and another thing - men's clothes facilitate movement and comfort, even their formal ones, compared to those of women, which prevent mobility and comfort. We are encouraged to feel uncomfortable in our bodies all the time and if we do dress in a way which enables comfort, we feel discomfort because we feel like lazy slobs.

And we're encouraged to deny ourselves food from the start of puberty; the craze for going on diets starts young and women are encouraged to be disconnected from the pleasure of food, just as they are from sex. Guilt is supposed to spoil your enjoyment of a kebab with a poke of chips. You're supposed to feel that it's "naughty". We're supposed to prepare and serve food for other people, while denying it to ourselves. We're supposed to ration the pleasure we give our bodies (unless it's pleasure shared by men in sex, or it costs £400 in some fancy spa place where the searing agony of having your pubes ripped out from the roots is called "pampering". No wonder we're fucking confused about what's pain and what's pleasure and how our bodies are supposed to experience those things.)

It's not surprising that alienation from our bodies occurs. It is definitely a feminist issue.

Hope you're OK.

oh, thank god you are here basil

LOL, not for long, am off to bed with poorly DD. Was supposed to go about an hour ago, but she's been keeping me up. Sorry, I've gone on and on in that post, but there are just so many things that conspire to make women feel that their bodies don't belong to them, or that if they do they are traitors, not doing what they're supposed to do, which is usually something impossible.

< nods >

Thank you for your thoughtful replies.

I suppose in many ways I do engage with the ways to control my body because I do wear makeup, do my hair, wax my bikini line, wear fake nails (I had my toenails done prior to readmission because it is hard to do them here and I would not be without them done). I don't feel guilty about that although I do understand that my choices to do that come from society and not necessarily myself.

So I suppose the contrast for me is this careful control of my appearance, to the point of obsession at times (I can't go camping because I would not be able to make myself look right for example). And yet my self harm is destructive and ugly and I am very disconnected with that. My arms and thighs are full of scars and the one on my thighs from my more recent attempts are ugly and purple but I feel no connection or sadness about that. It is just something I have to do to myself, an endurance, and I wonder how I can feel like this. I have hurt my hand so many times I can't bend my fingers, I have cut deeper and deeper but that damage is not enough and t won't be enough until I bleed to death from it. I fantastise about cutting my finger off, about walking in front of cars to destroy my body. And yet, as I did, I would be perfectly dressed and made up. I wonder what happened, to me as a woman, to be so obsessed with the superficial and so unconcerned with my actual body, my blood and bones and muscles. Does that make sense?

I hope you make sense of it FDG. I think it is important that you have a mental health professional who is trained in working with people who self harm, because many people without that training will have misconceptions. It sounds from your earlier post that you have.

Something that is common in people who self harm (although it might not apply to you) is that they use the self harm as punishment and then this allows them to comfort/look after themselves as a compensation for the harm. So it would make complete sense in that context to be both cutting as a punishment and showering/washing your hair to look after yourself as the comforting side of those feelings.

And don't feel you should have to feel guilty about anything. We all do things that come from wider society. That is part of being human.

They have been nice, it was hard initially for them to recognise me as unwell, but we have got there (although now I am not allowed out so that is so frustrating).

I have struggled not to be boxed up into a perecption of self harm, a perception of it being a release, a punishment, to numb pain, to externalise pain. I am obsessive over it and I feel strong feelings of fear about what I ultimately must do to my body. I am shit scared but I know I need to do enough.

how are you feeling today, fluffy