Hi welcome.

I am on both sides of the coin. I self injure and I have a loved one that self injures. From my side of it - sometimes I need that self inflicted pain. See if I am focusing on the pain that I am doing myself I don't have to feel the pain that someone else has inflicted on me. The pain of others on m e are memories and the pain I inflict is present and real. so its also a way to remind myself of which is real right now and which is the memory. Its also about choice. back then I didn't have a choice in what happened to me. But now Im the one in control. Im the one that says when and how I get hurt or feel pain. Its kind of like I tell my therapist about pain when I got hit by a car and she asked if I was in pain from it I told her - I don't have to feel pain unless I want to. Its the frame of mind that no one and nothing but me can hurt me now kind of thing.

Your friend is right all those coping tools are not going to help unless they want them to help Self injury is as much mental as it is physical. Self injury is an adiction just like drinking and drugs. The person must want and need to get better not only on the physical end but also on the psychological end before the intervention will help.

The coping tools are not helping the person because somewhere inside her/him there is something keeping the person from hitting that psychological rock bottom of needing and wanting to stop. The person may not even know what that something is yet because they are so full of other pain and memories burying why the craving and urge for harm is there.

On the loved one side of things yea it hurts knowing my own child is a self injurer and theres nothing I can do to help him, or stop him. All I can do is hope I don't get a call one night from DHS saying well he finally went too far we need you to make funeral arrangements.

You can talk until you turn blue red and purple and it won't do anything but make the person self injuring make promises they will not be able to keep and in the end hide what they are doing from you. The best thing you can do is leave that part of the persons life alone unless they come to you to talk about it. and when they do show you care but dont say anything for or against what they are doing. remain neutral. Like drug and alcohol it is the persons problem to take care of or not.

Hang in there. rock bottom and wanting and needing to stop does come but at the self injurers healing process rate.