Supporting Someone who Self Harms

Self harm is something that affects so many more people than we realise, it is such a hidden and taboo mental health difficulty and I want this to change! As a suffer myself I have experienced my fair share of shame and absolute fear of becoming vocal about my experience of self harm

Self harm is used to describe a wide range of behaviours which someone carries out to cause pain to themselves, which is often a response to emotional pain of some kind.

As someone who self harms myself I can understand the difficulty of supporting someone who self harms, especially someone that you love and care about. Knowing what to say to someone who self harms is difficult, perhaps you don’t understand why, perhaps you want to help but don’t want to say the wrong thing, perhaps you just want to make your friend stop and their suffering disappear?

Here a few thing things that I believe you should or shouldn’t do when supporting someone who experiences self harm (in my opinion and experience, be aware that this might not be the case for everyone):

Mostly just let them know that you are there, be compassionate, be there to support them and hold their hand through their journey. Ultimately please understand that it is a long and hard journey to stop self harming and be aware that someone will only stop self harming when they feel ready and are able to do so and there will be a chance of relapse even after this.

I wrote this as a guest post for Rachel please check out here twitter here.

Do you have any advice on supporting someone who self harms, or if you have experience of it yourself what would you like to hear or your friends do? Please comment below.

Thoughts on my Self Harm story going viral

Sat having drinks with my friends in a beer garden I was weirded out when I realised I had loads of messages and notifications on my phone, I looked and my heart honestly sunk - Time to Change had shared my blog about self harm . I felt sick, I wanted to ask for it to be removed, I did not want so many people to know that I had experience of self harm. My friends? My family? My new house mates?

My "secret" was out and it was out publicly. 

Then my friend (she is amazing!!) took my hand and said you can do it, your story is amazing, I have read it and it is great that it will reach so many people. I was also then reminded why did you write it in the first place and put it on your blog - to help others of course?! So why would I take that away from people due to being scared. Looking back in hindsight (only a couple of days ago haha) and having the inspirational girl Lottie to help me find positives in this situation I now realise that it is very good that this decision for it to become so public is not one that I had to make, it was taken out of my hands and I would like to thank Time to Change for believing in me and feeling that my story could help others. 

Your kind words and heartfelt stories really have shown why I wrote it - to break down the taboo of self harm, which I think is still a massive problem and one that needs to be addressed. So how can we address it - by talking about it, by being open, by showing that it can affect anyone, at any time for any reason. 

Many of my friends were shocked - we didn't expect you to experience self harm, I know you campaigned for the removal of stigma for it but we didn't know you were personally affected. You never know who may be experiencing it - your partner, friend or family. It really isn't as rare as you might think. 

Being open, talking about it, and with the help of my wonderful friend Amelia and her support when I just wanted to burst into tears, her strength gave me strength to be brave and yes I do self harm, and I can say that outloud. 

Here are some of the lovely words and feedback that I am very blessed to have received, especially by those who know me personally:

 Thanks to everyone who made me feel brave enough to share my story, I hope it has helped others, even if it makes a little difference, helps one person then I feel like I have succeeded.

Self Harm Awareness

400 in every 100,000 people have been found to harm themselves (Mental Health Foundation). However, I believe this to be one of the biggest taboos of mental health. Why don’t we talk about it when it affects so many people?

It can be very hard to understand why someone causes physical harm to themselves. I even find it difficult to comprehend as someone who has experienced self-harm. It’s hard to explain that I was mentally hurting so much that hurting myself physically seemed like the only way to ‘cope’. Yes, I feel embarrassed and ashamed about it, it is not something I am proud of and of course I wish that I didn’t develop this ‘coping strategy’.

However, despite the extent of being ashamed of myself I am more scared of what other people may think, will people still think of me in the same way when they find this out? Will I lose friends? Will people call me an attention seeker? People judging me is 110% the thing I am scared of the most, and my stomach is in knots just writing this, let alone posting it. However, I do know that I don’t do this for attention; it is a very private thing that I have barely told anyone; even some of the people I love the most and am the closest to were unaware.

As someone who advocates talking and raising awareness of mental health it’s still something that I wouldn’t have even dreamed about discussing. However, I promised myself this year that I would make an effort to raise awareness of mental health. Therefore, I need to be open with everyone.

There are a lot of stereotypes around self harm, and some people may have a stereotype in their head of the kind of person that self injures…but this is exactly what it is, a stereotype. Do I fit the category of looking like someone who would self injure? No, because self injury can affect anyone no matter of their background or circumstances. Self injury affects more people than anyone realises, and there's isn't a one size fits all with this or any mental health condition.

I find it extremely hard to talk about and almost all the people I know were not aware of my experience with this, but I believe I need to help break down the taboo that surrounds self harm; how can I expect my friends and family to be able to understand and support me when I can’t even talk about it myself?

People may question why would someone who has amazing friends and family, is doing well at university, and has a good social life, feel so negatively towards herself that she has to damage her body? You may think, how will this even help? Isn’t that just a stupid thing to do? It’s understandable that these questions arise, but they aren’t the best ones to ask.

I don’t even understand myself why I felt the need to self harm and why even several years after I started I still struggle with it, but what I do know is that having people around me who love and support me is something that will always help.

However, sadly it took me years to finally seek help for something I had been doing for many years, due to the fear of being judged and what people might say. Honestly, it’s been hard and the people who I have told have found it very upsetting and difficult to come to terms with. From my personal experience one bit of advice I could give anyone who is supporting someone who experiences self harm is - please remember to look after yourself as well, admitting when it gets too much is something that your friend will be able to appreciate but please never turn your back on them, they need your support more than you know.

Despite a few bad experiences, happily with the right support; opening up to a friend, having someone’s support who had been there themselves, having the best mum in the world, having regular GP appointments, being on the right medication and receiving counselling, I can honestly say it was worth opening up and seeking help. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and if you are someone who is struggling or know someone who is struggling please support them and urge them to seek help.

 I don’t want others to hold the burden of “the taboo of self-harm” and feel the need to keep it a secret like I once did.

Self-harm isn't widely discussed in society let alone in the student population. Raising awareness about self injury is incredibly important- awareness leads to understanding and empathy, banishing judgement and fear, and reducing the number of people who feel alone and suffer in silence. Raising awareness is about educating people who do not self injure and reaching out to people who do.