What self-harm is:
Self-harm [dictionary definition]: "deliberate injury to oneself, typically as a manifestation of a psychological or psychiatric disorder"
Self-harm [LifeSIGNS definition]: "Self-injury is a coping mechanism. An individual harms their physical self to deal with emotional pain, or to break feelings of numbness by arousing sensation."
Self-harm [my definition]: Self- harm is where a person physically hurts themselves for any reason ranging from mental illness to difficulty coping with stress to attention - even if a person is self-harming for attention, this is still a sign that the person is not coping for whatever reason and should be taken just as seriously as the self-harm of those who try to hide it.
Types of self-harm:
Despite most people thinking self-harm is purely cutting, there are several other ways people injure themselves:
- burning
- hitting themselves
- scratching or pinching themselves
- interfering with healing
- hair-pulling
- impact with objects (e.g. punching walls)
- impact with oneself (e.g. hitting yourself)
What is #nomorescars:
#nomorescars is a movement dedicated to stopping the romanticising of self-harm within literature and instead supporting battles against self-harm. Many books featuring self-harm as a running theme use this as a plot device to bring the main love interests together, or include the idea that self harm is beautiful and shows strength.
It does nothing of the sort.
Self-harm is a person hurting themselves due to the fact that they're hurting mentally, and this is not a beautiful thing.
A person bringing a blade to their skin, or pulling on their hair, or any other method of self-injury is not beautiful, or strong. It's wrong and harmful: it's a problem that should not be encouraged through it being romanticised in literature, but dealt with appropriately.
Any person who deliberately hurts themselves will more than likely not find love through this, or find a person who is willing to kiss their scars better and tell them that they're beautiful every day - that's just not reality, and so it should not be shown as reality within literature.
If a person is struggling with self-harm, they should be finding help and trying to stop - and this is the way it should be portrayed within books.
How you can help:
The best way for you to help is to spread word of this campaign, whether it be through shoutouts or chapter dedications or even creating a story in support of this campaign's message.
Tag any stories relating to this with #nomorescars and maybe add our campaign's sticker to the cover so that it can be found by others interested in helping to support our campaign.
Any support for this campaign would be greatly appreciated so spread the word!
