Faculty of Art

Drawing and Painting

Alexa Beattie

I Set Myself Ablaze Just for Warmth

Continuation of negative circumstances, a compulsion to engage with things that are knowingly harmful out of a false sense of comfort and security given from repeated exposure to these situations. Hurting ourselves becomes the safe and understandable thing to do when it becomes familiar, even if the person is aware of the reality/true harm of their situation, the brain associates this type of pain with successful survival and thus, self-destructive patterns become comforting.