I am shocked that so many people are shocked. Obviously there are a lot of misunderstandings in this thread of comments. I don't think anyone here is trying to say that all people who self harm are attention seeking. That would be very wrong. I think what people are trying to say is that not everyone who self harms is mentally ill, particularly those who make half hearted attempts, or do it in front of an audience when carrying out a threat. I can see the problem is that those who are offended by these comments are ones who have self harmed in the past and have possibly been accused of attention seeking themselves, but they were not, which is why these comments hurt. I can also see that the people who say that not all self harmers are ill, are the ones who have experience with others who were/are not ill, but self harm to control others. I know it's hard for people to understand why a person would ever do this, but there are lots of awful things that people do that I will never understand - it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. Fimb mentioned earlier that she works hard in trying to reduce stigma about this sort of thing. I think that task is made harder for her by people who self harm for attention and not through mental illness. I think maybe what Tom said is true - if it can be treated it's an illness, if it can't then it's not.