Imagine you are feeling worthless.
That your whole life is falling apart.
And now imagine that you can't for the life of you find a way out.
And that then things even get worse.
There is extreme anguish in this. Anxiety. Panic. Sadness. Despair.
How can you possibly cope with those emotions?
Most of us will try to out-run them.
We'll suppress the emotions through alcohol, drugs, sex, endorphins, gambling ... (fill in the blanks) ... whatever we know.
Some of us will deaden the emotional hurt through self-harm. We will cut ourmselves, beat ourselves up, hurt ourselves to a point where the physical pain will drown out our emotional pain.
Physical pain acts like a reset button. We are conditioned to take body pain more "seriously" than mental anguish. For a brief instant, all we feel is the actual physical pain. The emotional pain moves into the background.
Viewed through that angle, self-harm suddenly makes perfect sense, hence my suggestion it may be a "normal" response.
Now before you start thinking that I'm advocating physical harm to help with psychological issues, let me clarify this:
Yes, it might be a normal or natural response, but that doesn't make it a good or a sustainable one. In the same way we can't drown our sorrows in the long term, we cannot self-harm our way out of mental anguish. Eventually, even our physical pain receptors will dull (that is our body protecting us from too much pain), and we would need to "up the dose" - of pain, of alcohol or whatever we use.
What I am advocating, is to look for:
1. healthy ways of dealing with emotional pain - crying, confiding in friends, writing about it, meditating etc. (each person will have their own combination that works for them)
2. different ways to lead your life, to remove sources of anguish (leaving the job where we are bullied, spending less time with the over-critical parent, not putting up with being put down by our partner etc.)
3. when 2. is not possible (for example in the case of grief over a beloved's death), working on ways to accept the new reality.
In other words, dealing with the emotions - not suppressing them.
My role as a therapist is to offer a safe space to do so, to explore the pain, and offer a reminder that you are not alone.