Is it normal to progress from one form of self harm to another ?

This happened to me actually. And yes, I would say it's totally normal. When I was struggling with self harm, I often changed forms of self harm. I had my reasons but some of them were: 1) I didn't want others to realize what I was doing to myself so I changed forms of self harm to cover up that I'm hurting myself. 2) At one point I felt like what I was doing wasn't enough so I started something else that might have a better impact on me. But there were a lot of other reasons. I would say just this: please, if you're self harming, talk to someone. You can find a helpful ear here on 7Cups but it would be better for you to talk to someone face to face. Just find someone you can trust to. It would help you a lot.

'Normal' is different for everyone. What everyone thinks as normal for self-harm is cutting, although self-harm includes anything where you are intentionally inflicting pain upon yourself. I would say that it is common.

Self-harm can often function like an addiction. Sometimes in an attempt to stop one form of self-harm, a person may end up replacing the harmful behavior with a different one. What's most important is getting help and support for the underlying emotional struggle that motivates the self-harm, which should help to manage the harmful urges no matter what form they take on.

Personally, in my experience with dangerous situations and thoughts, as well as my knowledge on what some of my closest friends and family has been through, self harm is done as a form of self punishment or to relieve pent up aggression, anger, resentment or more. Sometimes, it is a way to express oneself, when they feel trapped and unable to communicate what they're going through or have been through. So I don't think it's unusual to go from one form to another, as they all mean the same thing when you are in this form of a headspace.

Yes, it’s actually very common in people with self harming addictions. This can happen for many reasons, some people find that they try to recover from self harm and just replace it with a different self harming addiction. Some people just find a method they use consistently to be less effective over time and need something different, some people are, for lack of a better word, just exploring what they can do. These are all normal things to experience when going through a self harming addiction, and often you’ll see people using many different methods at once. I hope this helped!