When I said I would do a follow up to my post from Wednesday I didn’t imagine it would be so soon but somehow I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Mainly why it seems so common that “Emo’s” self harm, or that they talk about self harm, and why the media chose to pick on the socially awkward Emo group. I really don’t want to get into the debate about what is emo (yes I know it’s a music type, a fashion and that you don’t have to self harm to be an Emo blah blah blah) so I am going to give it a wide birth.
One thing that was mentioned a lot in the comments of the last post was what the media has done to Emo’s, and Goth’s before that, and another group before that. The media has picked an easy to identify group and publicised the worst bits about them. So what do they do (I know there is more than this but I am being simplistic); follow fashion, talk about how they feel, listen to certain music, get drunk, write poetry. There is nothing wrong with any of these activities and most of us do them, the things that what the media has done is pick up the worst features and publicised it- the self harm, the idea that mental illness is cool, the idea that they like to look sad. I would be surprised if the self harm and the glorified mental illness is actually as widespread as we are led to believe. What the media had done is picked up on something which are hard for us to approve of or to condone, making them a group hated almost as much as Burberry cap and tracksuit wearers. The daily mail could pick any group of people and destroy their credibility.
So why have people picked up so much on the self harm front of the Emo? I suppose there are five main reasons why there could be such a link; people who self harm gravitate towards the “Emo groups”, it is socially acceptable to discuss mentally interesting things as they have broken down stigma barriers within their groups, the media is correct and self harm is celebrated, people are only as happy as they chose to be so they make the wrong decisions, its all made up to sell a few newspapers. For what ever reason someone self harms it should be respected and all should be deserving of the same respect and help, I am sorry if my last post seemed like an attack on them. I suppose as someone who self harms and who really struggles with not doing it, I find it easy to attack groups who we are told celebrate such an activity.
Option one could be possible; I suppose the question is “what came first the chicken or the egg?” I bought My Chemical Romance’s last album, I liked it for a bit but quickly became bored of it. Was I gravitating towards that musical scene because I was searching for acceptance of self harm or purely for the musical education? Option two could equally be true, reports have said one in ten has tried self harm yet most people I know do not discuss anything, I am a silent self harmer and I know I am not the only silent one. If self harm was accepted and not seen as such a scary thing I might talk about it more. Certainly if everyone around me talked about it, I would so this could be a perfectly logical reason. Option three is if correct deeply worrying and would indicate that Russia’s most recent move to ban Emo was a clever thing to do. I certainly would never tell anyone to self harm, I can’t imagine why anyone else would tell someone to self harm, but then I wouldn’t tell anyone to eat egg because frankly I find it quite gross. Who ever suggested option four is an idiot and should be hit over the head with an eggy frying pan. It was Abraham Lincoln who said “People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” If that was the case I don’t think depression would exist. And option four needs no explanation, as we all know that the majority of what the Mail writes has no truth in it whatsoever.
Last Line…
Anyone who has been in an acute mental health ward or is interested in that kind of thing might want to read this. Its a rather interesting review on the state of mental health units in the UK, it was quite fun comparing my experiences to the stats they provided. Or maybe I just find boring things fun.
Yesterday was the first time I met other self harmers. One was rather open about her need to cut the previous week the other I noticed the scars on her arms…
I actually found certain songs from The Black Parade lifted my mood, the words and video to Famous Last Words actually helped me get through some very difficult times and I would actually sit and watch it over and over again because hearing it made me feel something.
I don’t self harm, I have been tempted when things have been extremely bad but instead I take the easy way out and binge eat instead which is one of my main issues.
“People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be,” is exactly the sort of thing someone who happens to BE happy and therefor thinks it must be a very easy thing to be would say. Bite me, Abe!
I do think, in my own life, there are decisions and “policies” I’ve made that have made it easier for me to be happy, but I call bullshit on the idea all that’s required for happiness is a decision to be happy. I think that idea is actually harmful, in that it reinforces shaming and blaming people for unhappiness. All beings desire happiness.
It’s funny though: it’s widely noised about in the US that Abraham Lincoln was bipolar. I don’t know how people think they can know that, but it’s a thing I’ve read and been told many times in the last decade or so.
As far as I can see, the band that most often gets pointed at (My Chemical Romance) generally has lyrics that discourage self-harm and suicide.
“People will be as happy as they want to be.”
Well, obviously someone who is already happy would say that. It’s about the same as someone shouting “Get over it already!” in someone’s face.
What bothers me the most is that these (emo)people DO tend to glorify self-harm. It makes one wonder if they’re just doing it because they think the scars would be a cool addition to the outfit.
Sorry about the confusing comment yesterday.
I guess this was a long running theme in group therapy. How the genuinely ill were deemed attention seekers because of past emo fashion bids. If only they knew x
I can honestly say I’ve never understood the appeal of self-harm. I’ve always been an eater myself – I found my comfort in food instead of in pain. I guess we’re all just wired differently.
A few thoughts on the emo thing, based on some random observations at my CAMHS clinic.
- I haven’t exactly counted how many emos come through our clinic, but it’s not that many, and certainly not out of proportion to the general population.
- Of those emos we do see, by no means all of them are self-harming.
- In terms of fashion trends, the one we see the most of is chavs, not emos.
- Of the self-harmers we see, a few are goths or emos, but the majority are not.
There is a recognised phenomenon in psychiatry whereby self-harming behaviours can be copied by others, either person-to-person in schools, inpatient units etc, or through media images of celebrities self-harming (e.g. Marilyn Manson, Richey Edwards from the Manic Street Preachers, or if you want to go back a couple of decades there’s the likes of Sid Vicious and Iggy Pop). It’s sometime referred to as “self-harm contagion” or “self-harm clusters”.
Thinking back to my experiences among the Manic Street Preachers fanbase back in the 90s and early noughties, there definitely was a self-harm contagion effect going on among fans, though in every case of it that I saw, the individuals in question clearly had pre-existing emotional problems.
My clinical opinion of self-harm contagion is that, yes, these behaviours do get copied by people in groups. But that does NOT mean that those doing the copying can be dismissed as “fakes” or “just attention-seeking” (whenever I hear the words “attention-seeking” and “self-harm” bandied about together, I reach for my Mighty Hammer of Punishment and Clue). It just means they’ve found a new outlet for their feelings, that might otherwise have been expressed by e.g. getting drunk, getting stoned, throwing up all their meals, going out and picking a fight with a stranger etc, etc.
Alison- my famous last words was a great track on MCR’s last album, its just a shame it was followed by “blood” which didnt do anything for the rumors surrounding MCR’s close links with emo cult stories.
Rose- the thing that made me giggle when I found out it was lincon who said it is that if he did have bipolar then he will have experienced depression, so why didnt he make up his mind to be happy
Mariah- your comment yesterday wasnt confusing, really it was quite a powerful way of convaying your comment. The whole its cool to self harm, or a true emo would self harm is what worries me about emo’s too. Imagine if you were one of those people desperatly trying to fit in and forced yourself to self harm.
Emma- I remember once needing to go to the GP, my stitches had got horribly infected and my main worry was looking like an emo, that I wouldnt be taken seriously. But people who do self harm for attention are just as deserving to recieve some help because they want someone to notice them for one reason or another, a session of talking to someone would probably really help them.
Erin- I suppose some of the reasons that make people seek comfort in food, self harm or restrict food are the same.
Zarathustra- its funny that I have never seen an emo at the CAMHS I go to that, just chavs and well I suppose people who dont obviously belong to any group. So you think that in groups of people who talk about self harm, those who listen are more likely to start having similar behaviour.
Glitter- what an interesting post, I kind of expected a former emo to say that self harm was just as difficult to talk about within that social group than anyone else but it was really refreshing reading something about the postitives of “emo”.
its funny that I have never seen an emo at the CAMHS I go to that, just chavs and well I suppose people who dont obviously belong to any group.
Yep. I’d say that’s a pretty accurate reflection of what you’re likely to find in the waiting room of any CAMHS clinic. More TK Maxx than Blue Banana.
So you think that in groups of people who talk about self harm, those who listen are more likely to start having similar behaviour.
To a degree. There’s been quite a bit of research on this question, and it’s been shown that people are more likely to self-harm if they’re aware of other people who’ve done it. Though obviously that doesn’t mean that anyone who hears about self-harm is going to do it – it just means that those people who already have emotional problems might pick up on it as a way to vent their feelings. Sometimes the way a person deals with strong emotions can go down cultural routes – so a emo might cut themselves whereas a chav might punch a wall (or punch someone else).
But I certainly don’t think we should try to suppress debate about self-harm or start demonising emos.
i self harm becuse i find it helps me cope and yes i am a emo but that not the reson i self harm i self harm becuse as i said it helps me cope