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What is your opinion on self harm? Does it relate to academic expectations?


MayDreamer

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I'm actually quite interested.

My school has a rather high rate of self harmers, apparently because our standards and expectations are high, and that would make sense, because those expectations put pressure on you, and that pressure needs a ventile. And self harm is a way of coping. Not a good one, but a way.

So, I thought I'd ask what you think.

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I don't know. I think you need a certain mount of depression and anxiety before you start to self harm, simply stress won't do it. Of course, it may be that the people in your school take school too seriously and thus school makes them depressed and anxious. Simple stress in my opinion would not make people start to self harm, unless the stress feeds other negative emotions and contributes to negative self-esteem etc. You need to be pre-disposed to self harm before school makes you start it. If school is genuinely the main reason they start to cut themselves or whatever harm they do, they are taking school too seriously and may need to switch to a different program. School and a plethora of other factors may make a person depressed and make them start self harm. School alone however is not sufficient reason to start self harm in my opinion.

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Just for additional information, my school is not an IB school. It's a normal high school (in Austrian standards a very good one, even) with an IB branch.

Most of the students of this school are from well-to-do families, who sometimes are liable to expect too much from their kids. Or rather, the children think that a lot is expected from them, so yeah, there is quite a lot of pressure on them.

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I don't know. I think you need a certain mount of depression and anxiety before you start to self harm, simply stress won't do it. Of course, it may be that the people in your school take school too seriously and thus school makes them depressed and anxious. Simple stress in my opinion would not make people start to self harm, unless the stress feeds other negative emotions and contributes to negative self-esteem etc. You need to be pre-disposed to self harm before school makes you start it. If school is genuinely the main reason they start to cut themselves or whatever harm they do, they are taking school too seriously and may need to switch to a different program. School and a plethora of other factors may make a person depressed and make them start self harm. School alone however is not sufficient reason to start self harm in my opinion.

I find myself inclined to agree with you, but I do believe further academic pressure has some effect on the majority of students, because let's face it, no one wants to be bad at something. And if you are in school, chances are you won't get good grades all of the time. Increases stress, and if only a little additional stress from somewhere else comes in, added to a teenager who, perhaps, doesn't know how to deal with too much stress - voila! You've got yourself a time bomb.

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  • 2 weeks later...

There was a kid who committed suicide in my year group during ICSEs. But he didn't do so because of academic pressure, he was fairly bright actually. No he killed himself because of excessive bullying and because he was so far in teh closet, he was afraid of his own reflection. His parents are devout traditionalists. They didn't understand him. When he came out to them, they told him not to worry about it and it would go away in time. Also in school, there was a gaggle of mean girls who really pushed him to the brink. It didn't end well clearly.

Although, we didn't have many self-harmers in my school. We had to mandatorily attend stress-relieving seminars at the end of every week, it was pencilled in our weekly schedules. Kids who weren't good with their studies were given support and generally encouraged to find alternative venues to show their brilliance, be it art, music, sports, dance, theatre, writing, etc. So everyone kid of had a niche of their own and was happy.

But I would say though that a lot of kids were pushed to depression-like states from time-to-time because of the extreme groupism between the popular kids and the not-so-popular kids. It used to get pretty brutal and difficult to contain after a point.

It's funny to reflect about these things. It's been a good 5 years since I attended my old school and now I remember why I was so happy to leave it behind for a different school for the IB.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm actually quite interested.

My school has a rather high rate of self harmers, apparently because our standards and expectations are high, and that would make sense, because those expectations put pressure on you, and that pressure needs a ventile. And self harm is a way of coping. Not a good one, but a way.

So, I thought I'd ask what you think.

Self-harm can include many things, like cutting, taking drugs that would kill you eventually etc...

There are many reasons as to why someone may want to hurt themselves but I wouldn't say expectations are the only and main thing. However, combined with other aspects such as bullying, eating disorders, self esteem issues and others, it can influence someone to hurt themselves.

I think there is only so much we can understand and sympathize with someone who goes through self harm. Until we go through the same thing, we can never fully feel the same pain someone else went though (Empathy). That is why I do not like to judge someone really based on their actions. There may be a reason that further explains their actions.

I think self harm is a way a person copes with their problem by releasing the tension they feel inside which distracts them from the main problem in their life. It is a way to escape the deep distress and emotional pain like sadness, self loathing and guilt. And by hurting themselves, they feel better. But the problem is, this feeling is only temporary and can lead to other bigger problems in the long run such as depression and suicide.

I believe that self harm is never the answer because it doesn't help you with the issues that made you want to hurt yourself in the first place. So if pressure is the big problem here, I say they need to change their perspective on things. While their problems are important in their life, I think they need to open their eyes and see that there are other people in the world that go through way worse. So yes, societies' pressure for young students to excel well in their academics can be overwhelming but there are other worse case scenarios like starving children, sex trafficking, genocides etc that happen in our world today. Sometimes we are so occupied in our own lives, that we don't see the greater picture.

Ya that's enough for my rambling haha.

-Funny10sport <3

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People who self-harm do so as a coping mechanism for things they can't deal with - generally very intense emotions which are overwhelming for them. Self-harming for many people is a way to replace emotional pain with physical pain or to generate a type of emotional numbness. It's reasonable to say that any type of stress could potentially emotionally overload somebody that they feel they can no longer cope. I'd say it's just a general sign of not coping. Certain people are certainly predisposed to it - people with poor coping methods, for starters! People who haven't developed clear ways in which to relieve themselves of stress (such as having somebody they can share these stressful things with) or who have problems controlling the extent of their own emotions. Often it's people who have got no other outlet for whatever their problem is. The majority of people however probably do have adequate coping mechanisms without resorting to self-harm.

It's a sad fact that self-harm is so common. I'm going to be honest and say that certainly in my school, it was something of a fad. A particular group would all cut their arms and wrists together, which was more or less just attention seeking. An interesting story to read is that of Victoria Pendleton, a British cyclist who won a Gold in the Olympics and has come out with her own experiences of self-harm http://www.telegraph...-self-harm.html

People who self-harm need help. I feel sorry for them that they either don't have it within their own personality or something about their circumstances prevents them being able to deal with their emotions like normal people can - i.e. maturely and without feeling like the best option is to cut themselves up, literally!

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