Disclaimer: We can't speak from a standpoint of experience, because we've never had any self-mutilating system members. That said, we've also read a lot of the older literature on trauma-based systems (or at least systems assumed to be trauma-based, but I'll take them at face value that they were), and self-mutilation considered to be prevalent among multiples, even a defining characteristic, seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon. There's nothing about it in Sybil or in any of the case histories predating hers.
If you really want my opinion, I think self-mutilating, especially cutting, is actually often a meme-- an idiom of distress among young women in particular. We have actually known people who never self-mutilated at all until they were in psychiatric wards with other people who did, found online support communities where other people talked about doing it, or just met other people who did it, and then became addicted to it as a release from pain, and then begged for support outside those communities asking someone to help them to stop it.
I don't think it has to do with multiplicity per se; rather I think this pattern of behaviour is expressed most often in people in general who have some kind of trauma backgrounds, whether they are multiple or not. Because so many of the multiples posting online do have trauma backgrounds (whether or not the trauma was the origin of the system), or system members with some kind of emotional issues, they're much more likely to have found the SI meme to be an outlet for their emotional distress. This isn't to say there aren't people who start doing SI of their own accord before knowing that others do, and are downright relieved to find out they're not the only ones who do it-- but there are also a lot of people we know who never started until they heard of others who did.
That said, this isn't a slam against you, but I get a little prickly whenever it's implied that it's 'normal' for multiple systems to have members who do SI. Remembering the person I knew who begged for someone to help her stop cutting, I kind of cringe at the idea that such a person might come in a multiple community looking for help and simply be told that it was normal for multiples.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-04-01 10:42 pm (UTC)If you really want my opinion, I think self-mutilating, especially cutting, is actually often a meme-- an idiom of distress among young women in particular. We have actually known people who never self-mutilated at all until they were in psychiatric wards with other people who did, found online support communities where other people talked about doing it, or just met other people who did it, and then became addicted to it as a release from pain, and then begged for support outside those communities asking someone to help them to stop it.
I don't think it has to do with multiplicity per se; rather I think this pattern of behaviour is expressed most often in people in general who have some kind of trauma backgrounds, whether they are multiple or not. Because so many of the multiples posting online do have trauma backgrounds (whether or not the trauma was the origin of the system), or system members with some kind of emotional issues, they're much more likely to have found the SI meme to be an outlet for their emotional distress. This isn't to say there aren't people who start doing SI of their own accord before knowing that others do, and are downright relieved to find out they're not the only ones who do it-- but there are also a lot of people we know who never started until they heard of others who did.
That said, this isn't a slam against you, but I get a little prickly whenever it's implied that it's 'normal' for multiple systems to have members who do SI. Remembering the person I knew who begged for someone to help her stop cutting, I kind of cringe at the idea that such a person might come in a multiple community looking for help and simply be told that it was normal for multiples.