This researcher who studies self-injury explains why people do it. And why he did it.
What do you think of when you hear the words "self-injury?"
You probably think of a middle-class, teenage girl cutting herself to get attention. That's the cliché, and it's all kinds of wrong.
Meet Dr. Stephen Lewis.
He's been researching self-injury — we're most familiar with it as cutting or burning — for over 10 years.
A quick definition: Self-injury is intentional damage to body tissue (that doesn't include body modifications like piercings, tattoos, and scarification) without suicidal intent. And far more people are doing it than you'd think.
What he and other experts found might surprise you: Self-injury happens equally across gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic lines.
It's not just an issue in the U.S. either. Self-injury has emerged as a major global mental health concern.
Here's something else that might surprise you: Lewis isn't just an academic expert. He's a life expert. He lived it.
He used to self-injure, and he shared his experience with the world in his talk for TEDxGuelphU.
It took some soul-searching before Lewis decided to tell his story publicly. In the end, he told me, "I wanted to convey a sense of hope to those who presently struggle. I wanted them to know they are not alone and that recovery is possible."
"There is light at the end of the tunnel. As dark as it may seem, if you keep walking — you can find it," he says.
Like Lewis (and myself), 1 in 5 adolescents has engaged in self-injurious behavior at least once, and a quarter of them have done it repeatedly. It can start as young as age 12.
As Lewis put it, "Self-injury provided needed relief from that emotional turmoil I was feeling inside. It conveyed the words I could not."
It's an attempt to relieve overwhelming feelings of sadness, distress, or self-loathing. Most often, people do it to externalize inner pain, to make it tangible, or to stop feeling numb.
The relief that self-injury provides is only temporary, though, and it can develop an addictive quality: The longer it's used, the harder it is to stop (or to find another way to quell the pain).
There's also a tolerance factor: The more you self-injure, the shorter the period of relief. It makes for a cycle that's incredibly difficult to break.
So, how can we help stop the cycle of self-injury?
Whether you're someone who has self-injured or not, one of the most important things we can do is educate ourselves: The false cliches and stereotypes we carry around about self-injury affect those who do it, too.
When we characterize people who hurt themselves as crazy, manipulative, or attention-seeking, they're more inclined to feel ashamed and isolated. They live in fear of judgment, and that fear creates silence.
This silence means that many people feel hopeless and alone. While self-injury isn't, by definition, a suicidal behavior, it does elevate risk for suicide.
Without help, that silence and that hopelessness can be deadly.
Self-injury is a habit that's hard to break. One of the first steps toward ending the cycle is for us to allow the conversation to happen.
Four little words are all we need: "How can I help?"
That's what turned things around for Lewis:
"For me, this involved a willingness to not just ask for help, but to accept it —something I was not accustomed to. This help, for me, came from professionals. It came from friends, and it came from my family."
His story ends well. My story — as a fellow self-injurer — ends well, too. All of these stories can end well.
"Recovery is a process," said Lewis. "And not a linear one. I had good days and bad days, and on some bad days, I self injured again. But those bad days became fewer and farther between."
Nobody should suffer alone. We all have baggage, but we each bear the weight of our burdens differently.
We can help each other bear that weight if we're brave enough to listen and brave enough to start conversations that matter.
This is how we find better ways to heal. This is how we create hope for those who need it the most.
Watch Lewis' full talk:
Want more information on self-injury? Take a look at the Self-Injury Outreach and Support website.
A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via 
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.