Quick question

I dont think so... but thats not to say that a person who SI's isnt also depressed

hm. not sure I agree with that.
From knowledge I've gathered, its depression that starts the SI. But it is possible to SI and not be depressed.
But I personally believe they go hand in hand

just my opinion

I don't think so either. People who SI can also be depressed but they dont have to be. They can be perfecally healthy except for the SI.

Nat

I think that if a person is depressed, it'd be wise to check for not only SI, but also for suicide. SI and suicide obviously don't necessarily go hand in hand, but there is potential for either one or the other in a depressed person. So, it sounds like all of us see SI the same way.

Why do people harm themselves?

A person who self-harms is likely to have gone through very difficult, painful experiences as a child or young adult. At the time, they probably had no one they could confide in, so didn't receive the support and the emotional outlet they needed to deal with it. The experience might have involved physical violence, emotional abuse, or sexual abuse. They might have been neglected, separated from someone they loved, been bullied, harassed, assaulted, isolated, put under intolerable pressure, made homeless, sent into care, into hospital or to other institutions.

Experiences like these erode self-esteem. Emotions that have no outlet may be buried and blocked completely out of awareness. If a trusted adult betrays or abuses them, and there are no other witnesses, children will often blame themselves. They turn their anger inwards. By the time they become adults, self-injury can be a way of expressing their pain, punishing themselves, and keeping memories at bay.

There is often an absence of pain during the act of self-injury, rather like the absence of sensation that often occurs during abuse or trauma. The body produces natural opiates, which numb it and mask the emotions, so that little is felt or realised consciously.

A badly traumatised person may end up feeling quite detached from their feelings and their body. Some may injure themselves to maintain that sense of being separate, and to convince themselves that they aren't vulnerable. Others may injure themselves in order to feel something and know that they are real and alive.

Healthcare professionals have been criticised for assuming that people who self-harm require no anaesthetic for stitching wounds. This is just one of the myths exploded in new guidelines on self-harm, developed by NICE (the National Institute for Clinical Excellence). Similarly, professionals sometimes make assumptions about why someone has injured themselves, particularly if they have done it before. But the meaning is different for each person, each time they self-harm. It is not a sign, in itself, that someone has a mental health problem.

From www.mind.org.uk

I'd say if you SI, it's normally a sign of some other, deeper condition, which may be depression. For some people it is, for others it isn't, just depends on the case.

My mom asked me the same question when I finally confessed to what I had been doing (mind you this was after I received counseling and had dealt with a lot on my own while I was away at college). For me it wasn't that I was depressed. In fact, I was no more depressed than anyone you might pass on the street. But I think it's different for every person. I think it goes back to why it is that you are hurting youself and the roots of that. Just my humble opinion here.