The practice of self-injury is considered deviant and pathological, and the stereotype of a self-injuring individual is a young, white, middle-class woman. By using an autoethnographic approach, I elucidate how four women and I, aged 35–51, with experiences of self-injury in adulthood, use, internalize, and speak through dominant discourses of self-injury. The practice of self-injury is an embodied one, and self-injury is stereotypically associated with immature, irresponsible, and emotionally unstable young women. As adult women who self-injure, we use and speak through this representation, which, to some extent, affects our self-image and identity as we are often “misrecognized” as full partners in everyday social interaction or when we represent our professions. Still, we resist the idea of self-injury as stemming from immaturity, and we work to reclaim our bodies and agency from the medicalized, ageist assumptions of the practice of self-injury. By doing this, we can also rewrite and transform the meaning of this practice. Our self-inflicted wounds or scars do not define who we are nor our level of maturity, intelligence, and attractiveness. Thus, we acknowledge that we have the right to our own bodies and what we do to that body.

自残的做法被认为是异常和病态的，自残者的刻板印象是年轻的白人中产阶级女性。通过使用自我人种学方法，我阐明了我和四名年龄在 35-51 岁之间、在成年后有过自残经历的女性如何使用、内化和表达自残的主导话语。自残行为是一种具体的行为，自残通常与不成熟、不负责任和情绪不稳定的年轻女性联系在一起。作为自残的成年女性，我们通过这种表征来使用和说话，这在某种程度上影响了我们的自我形象和身份，因为我们在日常社交互动或代表我们的职业时经常被“误认为”是完整的合作伙伴。尽管如此，我们仍抵制自残源于不成熟的想法，并努力从自残实践的医学化、年龄歧视假设中夺回我们的身体和能动性。通过这样做，我们也可以重写和改造这个实践的意义。我们自己造成的伤口或伤疤并不能定义我们是谁，也不能定义我们的成熟度、智力和吸引力水平。因此，我们承认我们有权拥有自己的身体以及我们对该身体所做的事情。