”Om jag blöder betyder ju det ändå att jag är levande” : En narrativ studie om självskadebeteende

This is a qualitative study aiming to illuminate and gain better understanding of deliberate self-harm. The study has a narrative perspective and is based on three women’s life stories, focusing on a period when they had an active self-harming behaviour. The study examines what the participants experienced as important to the initiation and the cessation of the deliberate self-harm. It is also examining identity performances and turning points which can be discerned in the life stories. The analysis is based on theories of the narrative perspective and on Erving Goffman's dramaturgical perspective. Our conclusions are that the participants of the study at the time prior to the self-harming behaviour felt as outsiders, and that they lacked strategies for dealing with emotions. We also found that functional relationships had an important role for the participants to enable the cessation of the deliberate self-harming behaviour. At the time when the participants managed to end the self-harming behaviour, they all had developed more functional relationships and did not feel the same alienation. They also feel that they have a different identity now than they had during the period of deliberate self-harm. Keywords: Deliberate self-harm, identity performances, turning points, narrative Nyckelord: Självskadebeteende, identitetsuttryck, vändpunkter, narrati