Today’s teenagers have been stereotyped as adventurous and harebrained individuals.  They are generally fond of experimenting with things until they get in touch with drugs, sex, guns, alcohol among others. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures, 16,000 young adults die each year from unintentional injuries and accidents.  The most common justification for teenagers’ care-free attitude is that their brains just aren’t developed enough to know better. However, recent research shows that in some cases the fact is just the opposite, the brain matures not too slowly but perhaps, too quickly.

According to a psychiatrist, an adolescent who engages in more dangerous activities have white-matter pathways that seem to be more mature than those of risk-averse youths.  White-matter is the brain’s wiring, the neutral pathways that connect the various gray-matter regions of the cerebrum that are independent of one another.  Having a mature white-matter is necessary because it allows faster brain processing speed.  Nerve impulses also travel faster in mature white-matter. Experiments also reveal that the more mature the look of the brain, the more adventurous the teenager tended to be.
Another possible explanation is that some teenagers whose brains develop more rapidly than others become uncomfortable and a little confused owing to the gap between their biological capabilities and the social norms they must follow as kids. Precocious development of these neural tracts may make some adolescents more susceptible to engage in behaviors that society considers too adult in nature for their chronological age. It is also a common notion that teens make dumb decisions because their brains are immature. In other words, having a more mature brain may actually motivate some teens to try out new and potentially harmful experiences.
For now, these theories are mere speculation, and the researchers concede that the interaction of white and gray matter is so complex that hard conclusions remain elusive. The results of the study are relatively bare and by no means conclusive. The human brain is so intricate in nature, and one has to consider the fact that there are other factors that come into play such as the environment and certain genetic predispositions that are equally complex to study.

Be very careful when searching the web for sites regarding self-injury.  Although they may mean well, many sites are very triggering to the self-injurer and may escalate or even induce a self-harm incident.  Many web sites warn prospective surfers that their content may be triggering.  It is important that an individual who is close to self-injuring stay clear of triggers and surround themselves instead with positive, affirming people and material. Here is a short list of websites that can actually help people who self-harm and their families.

www.selfinjury.com – S.A.F.E. ALTERNATIVES® is a nationally recognized treatment
approach, professional network, and educational resource base,
which is committed to helping you and others achieve an end
to self-injurious behavior.
www.selfinjury.org/ – Provides simple and clear definitions of what self-injury is, myths and information about why people injure themselves.

www.sisupport.org/ -  Describes many things you can do to help cope with the self-injuring tendencies.

www.aamft.org/ -  Provides a brief overview and also includes suggestions for parents on addressing self-injury with their child.

self-injury.net/ – Lets self-injurers know that they are NOT alone and provides information to help their friends and family.

Self-injury can start early in life, research suggests that early onset self-injury is common around the age of 7, although it can begin earlier. Most often, however, self-injury behaviors begin in middle adolescence between the ages of 12 and 15. This is also the time when adolescent mids are open to suggestion from outside sources most specially the media. The disturbing fact is that the media nowadays is filled with extremely negative influences that can affect they way children act. One of the most popular “forms of expression” right now is the emo scene.

Emo is a fad, a musical form, a fashion sense, a subculture and a lifestyle.  The name comes from the musical genre called emotive hardcore. The term Emo itself is usually seen as being short for “emotional.”  The people in this lifestyle are usually in their early teens through the early twenties.  The are most easily identified by their fashion, consisting of black clothes, straight black hair, usually covering one eye, black framed glasses, tight, usually dark clothing, makeup is common, but not required, in both sexes, and gender roles seem somewhat blurred, and great deal of androgyny being indicated.  Emo music often speaks of emotional pain, self-injury, suicide, hopelessness, and death.  Writing poetry is often a common trait among emos.  The poetry often touches on the same themes as the music.  There are, of course, variations, as there are in any fad, but the main themes remain.

The emo fad seems to be a bit different from other previous fads in several very important ways.  The emo subculture, in its glorification of self-injury, suicide and other negative thoughts seems to have caused an epidemic of self-injury among its followers.

Visit this site for more information about emo.

Self-injury, sometimes referred to as self-harm (SH), self-inflicted violence (SIV) or self-injurious behavior (SIB) is deliberate injury inflicted by a person upon his or her own body without suicidal intent. Self-injury refers more specifically to the practice of cutting, bruising, poisoning, over-dosing (without suicidal intent), burning, or otherwise directly injuring the body.

Self injury is a very private and intimate activity that individuals who practice it almost never let anyone else know. That is why the exact number of self injurers is still a mystery, but according to helpguide.org about two million people in the U.S. are self-injurers and approximately 1% of the population has inflicted physical injury upon themselves at some time in their life as a way to cope with an overwhelming situation or feeling.

The general reason for self injury is quite simple, it is a result of not having learned how to identify or express difficult feelings in a healthy way. There are, however more complicated and individualized reasons for self-injury that varies from person to person.

Self-injury can regulate strong emotions. It can put a person who is at a high level of physiological arousal back to a baseline state.

Deliberate self-harm can distract from emotional pain and stop feelings of numbness.

Self-inflicted violence is a way to express things that cannot be put into words such as displaying anger, shocking others or seeking support and help.

Self-injurious behavior can exert a sense of control over your body if you feel powerless in other areas of your life. Sometimes magical thinking is involved and you may imagine that hurting yourself will prevent something worse from happening. Also, when you hurt yourself it influences the behavior of others and can manipulate people into feeling guilty, make them care, or make them go away.

Self punishment or self-hate may be involved. Some people who self-injure have a childhood history of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. They may erroneously blame themselves for having been abused, they may feel that they deserved it and are now punishing themselves because of self-hatred and low self-esteem.

Self-abuse can also be a self-soothing behavior for someone who does not have other means to calm intense emotions. Self-injury followed by tending to one’s own wounds is a way to express self-care and be self-nurturing for someone who never learned how to do that in a more direct way.