How to stop self-harming: Learn coping skills that help you thrive

Get the Full StoryEach year, Crisis Text Line exchanges millions of messages with people looking for help from the free mental health support service.

Nearly a quarter of its conversations with youth involve texters 13 years old or younger who've been hurting themselves. In other words, almost one in four middle-schoolers or elementary school children who reach out to Crisis Text Line are talking about self-harm.

Those children likely feel like they can't get support elsewhere, because self-harm is a vastly misunderstood phenomenon, even sometimes to those who engage in the practice. Bystanders often look at self-harm, which can include cutting, burning, or hitting oneself, and wrongly assume it's attention-seeking or manipulative behavior. They might mistake those acts as a form of attempting suicide, yet many people who hurt themselves have no desire to die and many are never suicidal. For the person who self-harms, it can be confusing and disorienting to find comfort in something that seems so destructive. Read more...More about Mental Health, Social Good, and Health

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