Debra Martinson

Abstract

Debra was a resident at Lutheran Compass Center (LCC) in November 1996, when the shelter staff informed me that she was willing to be interviewed. Debra had recently relocated to Seattle and only months before, in January of 1996, when she was still living in Chicago, she had launched “Secret Shame,” the first website directed toward people who engage in what is now termed “non-suicidal self-injury,” following it up in April of that year with a list serve and web board, both known as “BUS,” an acronym for “Bodies Under Siege” after psychiatrist Armando Favazza’s influential 1987 book Bodies Under Siege: Self-Mutilation in Culture and Psychiatry. Favazza’s book challenged dominant theories that saw behaviors like cutting and burning as evidence of suicidal intent and as symptomatic of “borderline personality disorder,” which was itself deemed singularly resistant to treatment.¹ The website “Secret Shame” includes links to articles positing theories about underlying causes and strategies for coping with the urge to self-harm, along with chat rooms to enable sufferers and survivors to critique prevailing theories and support each other in their shared struggles.