Is Self-Harm Okay for People with BPD?

It is not a healthy coping skill. Effective? Yes! Better than dying? Yes. But not healthy in the long term. Please don't interpret that as a doctor signing off on you SHing. Sometimes SH is harm reduction compared to other alternatives, but it's still overall very detrimental to overall recovery processes

obviously self harm is bad but i think she meant it’s better than suicide. i have a friend with extreme bpd and she claims that hurting herself is the only way she doesn’t kill herself. but it’s not encouraged in any way

It sounds like she could have phrased it better… even if it helps us, it’s still a maladaptive coping mechanism. It’s hard to stop something addicting like that so suddenly so a lot of health professionals won’t expect us to suddenly stop but it’s still unhealthy and always preferable that we don’t cut. I’m also in the process of recovery and trying to not relapse into self harm is really difficult, but one day we’ll get there! Good luck :)

her goal in saying that is to reduce the behavior, not stop it. cold turkey is really difficult with addictions, so she’s hoping to slow you down a bit, and sort of wean you off it. it’s easier to do and allows for healthy recovery. like i said, the end goal is to get you clean and stable, but this is a newer method being used by mental health workers (therapists etc) to combat harmful behaviors. sort of like how a smoker would slowly cut down on on cigs. i didn’t follow through with this method, but it helped get me onto a different path of recovery that ended up working. recovery isn’t linear! sending sm love!!!

I mean I personally don’t think it would be fine to do because there are a lot of other ways to release emotional pain. I do see her point in a sense I mean as long as your intention isn’t to off yourself then it’s not necessarily bad but also not necessarily good either because it is still considered a negative coping mechanism that can still be turned into a better more positive coping mechanism.