Recent news of the increased number of gay suicides in the US have acted to make not only the US, but the world as a whole, aware of how many teens and young adults are dealing with serious issues like depression, anxiety, eating disorders and cutting, and the consequences of these if non one intervenes to help them.

Now the third leading cause of death  between the ages of 18 to 24 year olds, suicide is also the second leading cause of death amongst college students, and it’s something that needs to change. And Brittany Snow (Hairspray, Prom Night), Haley Hasselhoff (Huge), Harry Shum, Jr. (Glee), Melissa Rivers (television host and author), Stephanie Pratt (The Hills), Lucas Grabeel (High School Musical, Milk), alongside singer-songwriter Billie Myers have joined forces with The Jed Foundation for the It’s On My Mind campaign which wants to be central to that change.

Putting themselves forward for a $250k grant from Pepsi Refresh to help them do just that, the It’s On My Mind campaign will use the money, if they win, to produce a national print campaign shot by celebrity photographer Tyler Shields to create wider awareness of the issues, as well as an online resource center where people can learn more and find help, and online/mobile applications that help people explore their emotional health and learn how to help a friend in need.

A much needed project that has the power to change the lives of millions of teens, the Jed Foundation really wants to do all it can to help those who need support to get them through these dark, tough times, but it needs your help to do it, but the good thing for you is your part is super easy. All you need to do is click that big old “vote for this idea” button on the It’s On My Mind page on the Refresh Everything website.

Voting ends on 31st December so get clicking, voting and playing your part in making a real difference to someone’s life.

Click here to cast your vote for the It’s On My Mind campaign

Cyndi Lauper’s Give A Damn campaign has released it’s latest PSA featuring Lily Tomlin, Judith Light, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Mae Whitman discussing the issue of suicide. Scheduled to tie in with National Suicide Prevention Month in the US, the video highlights the higher risk of suicide amongst gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth and how the issue is not down to their sexuality but the feelings of rejection and loneliness that many LGBT youth feel.

Calling for people to support those trying to come to terms with their sexuality as opposed to turning against them,this powerful video from the Give A Damn campaign acts to educate those outside of the LGBT community that ignoring someone’s sexuality because you don’t know how to deal with it can have tragic consequences with Cyndi Lauper adding how:

“Rejection by one’s parents, one’s family and one’s community has to be one of the most painful and lonely experiences any person can be subjected to. So deep is the hurt that it causes these kids to think suicide is an option,”

I know it might not seem like it, but I tend to let a lot of things go, mainly because I haven’t the time, energy or lets be honest, passion, to get worked up about them.

However there are a couple of issues I’m not willing to be so laidback about, and one of those is the issue of depression.

Yes that’s right I’m going to drone on about depression again. I know you’re bored of hearing about it already. You’re fed up with article after article throwing statistics in your face of how many more young people are committing suicide than last year, how many relationships have been destroyed because of someone’s depression and how many people are on anti-depressants. Well this might surprise you, but I am too.

I’m bored with all the numbers already. Numbers do nothing for me. Numbers go in one ear and out the others. Numbers do the subject of depression a disservice. Numbers dehumanise the whole issue making it easy to criticise, so let’s stop with them already. Let’s make this issue personal.

Lets talk about what depression really is.

Depression Is The Thief That Snatched Away The Last Few Precious months A Dying Man Had With His Family

With just months to live, life should have been about grabbing all those opportunities to see all those things he’d always wanted to. It should have been about pulling those in that he loved most and telling them he loved them with every ounce of his being.

Depression being the cruel illness it is wouldn’t allow that though. Depression came in and threw the chance of those last few precious moments in the bin.

Depression gave this story a very different ending. Depression saw this terminally ill man withdraw from his family. Depression saw this man all too often being found sitting alone in dark rooms lost in his dark thoughts, a million miles away from where he and his family needed him to be.

Depression stole the moments this man didn’t deserve to have some cruelly taken away. And it didn’t just steal from him. It stole from his wife who didn’t get to grab every single moment that she needed before there would be no more to grab. It stole from his children who wanted nothing more than to stock up on as many memories as they could now because soon there wasn’t going to be a chance for any more.

Cancer may have been what killed this man’s body, but depression killed something worse. It killed moments of love, memories that never got the chance to exist. And do you know why he let depression have so much control? Because he believed the stigma. He believed, even as a dying man, that people would think less of him for being labelled as depressed. A word that should be about acknowledging something, but instead has become something to stigmatise people with.

Depression Was The Cruel Partner Who Kept A Young Woman Trapped In An Empty  Room And Turned Out All The Lights

Photo by iboy_daniel

Your twenties are meant to all be about having fun. About enjoying life.  About creating memories to tell the grandkids about. For this woman they weren’t. She found herself trapped in a controlling abusive relationship with a partner who controlled her every move. A partner who would confirm her every negative thought and suggest even more negative ones for her to dwell on. A partner who would in her darkest moments not look to pull her into the light, but wrap a cloak of darkness so tightly around her that not only could she see no way out, but she felt like she couldn’t even breathe anymore.

A partner called Depression.

And just like any abusive partner this wasn’t one willing to let her escape it’s grip. This partner loved the sense of control it had over her. Loved the sense of power. Loved knowing it had her trapped, and that now she was incapable of doing anything without it affecting her. And it knew it was sure of one thing, if she ever left it,  it wasn’t going to be for a happier freer life. It was going to be in a body bag.

And you know what? It got within a razor blade of its wish.

Not comfortable reading is it. Make you feel a little uneasy doesn’t it. Well don’t expect any apology from me. It should have. It should have because depression isn’t a nice subject. Depression isn’t as too many people imagine a throwaway word or an excuse. Depression is something very very real.

It’s Time To Change Our Attitude Towards Depression

Photo by Tela Chhe

Ever heard that someone is depressed and thought why don’t they just snap out of it? Of course you have.  You’re lying if you’re saying you haven’t. Everyone has, and you know what, there’s nothing wrong with that.

There’s nothing wrong about it because we’ve all been naive about what depression at some point. It starts being wrong is if you don’t educate yourself.  Let’s go radically off subject for a moment and talk about babies. Babies aren’t born walking, but I’m pretty sure these cute little things look up at us grown ups walking about and think “Hey that looks easy enough. I’ll just stand up and off I go…”.

Then they try it.

Within milliseconds their nappy wrapped bum has smacked down on the floor again. It wasn’t as easy as they thought. They realise it’s going to take a bit more learning, a bit more investigation to get those feet working one after the other to keep their bums off the ground.

I’ve no doubt I’m probably the first (and most likely the last) to compare society’s perception of depression and a baby walking, but you know what. It’s not so different. Babies don’t know everything straight away. They make mistakes, they get things a little bit wrong. But what makes them different from most of us is they don’t just give up on understand what’s needed. And that’s an example we all need to follow.

If you don’t understand depression you need to start being proactive. You need to start educating yourself. And you know why? Because one day that depressed person might be you. One day you might be the person whose mind has been taken hostage by a debilitating disease that wipes out all positivity from your life and fills every inch of it with solid, immovable negativity. One day you could be that person so lost that you don’t even know that there’s a way out any more. And that one day is when you’re going to need someone to intervene and get you out of it, and if they don’t understand it, don’t believe that what you’re feeling really is true because you’ve both never bothered to learn. Well the consequences of that are unthinkable.

Or think about it another way. Imagine one of the people closest to you, one of your siblings or maybe a best friend, telling you that they’re feeling down. They think they’re depressed.

Then imagine yourself telling them that they’re alright, they’re just having a hard time.

Imagine saying they need to snap out of it.

Imagine after that not seeing them for a while.  Imagine then starting to think that’s a little strange. Imagine finding out they couldn’t snap out of it, so they took the only way out they could find and became one of the 15% who are clinically depressed who go on to commit suicide. Imagine how sick in the stomach that is going to make you feel.

Now stop imagining and start doing. Start learning and start educating.

Lesson 1: Don’t Think That You Can Solve Depression With A Comforting Pat Or Two On The Shoulder

Photo by Kalandrakas

Did you know you can cure cancer simply by giving someone a nice old hug? No, well there’s a reason why. It’s a load of bull. As is the belief you can cure someone of their depression with a few reassuring words and a cute squeeze of the shoulders. It ain’t going to happen.

Don’t though take that to mean it’s best to leave them. Best not to say anything in case you make it worse. Do the complete opposite. Let them know you understand that all this, it’s not them, it’s the depression. Let them know you are the person that they know cares. Let them know you’te the person who will call them to check they’re okay and not give a damn that the depression that’s chewing on their every thought stops you giving anything back.

Start focusing on the caring, not the curing.

Lesson 2: Recognise That Dealing With Someone With Depression Can Be Frustrating

Photo by Insecto Perfecto

Dealing with someone with depression the right way doesn’t mean you need to turn into a matyr. You will get annoyed and frustrated. You will because you are human. What is important to remember is it’s not the person that’s making you feel like that. It’s the illness. So don’t feel bad about these feelings. They’re natural. They’re also real so make sure alongside supporting them you make sure there’s support for yourself, whether that’s just somene else to talk to or an actual support group.

And don’t stop at just recognising it’s not them who’s making them angry. Recognise and tell them. Let them know your frustration has nothing to do with them. Let them know you love them and nothing is ever going to change that.

Lesson 3: Help Them Understand That Something Is Wrong

Photo by KungPaoCajun

So I’ve done this in a bit of a higgledy piggledy order, but this is one lesson that can’t be missed out. It’s the lesson that points out things aren’t always black and white. The lesson that highlights it’s not only those who aren’t depressed who don’t get it. Just because you’re depressed doesn’t mean you’re going to realise or understand it either.,

Don’t get me wrong, people aren’t going to think they’re gorgeously happy and full of beans when they’re crying into their pillow and thinking what a treat it would be if today finished and tomorrow never came, but they also not necessarily going to realise that this behaviour, it’s not them. It’s the illness. Talking to them openly, and letting them tell you how they feel without judgement will put you both on a road together when you can show them something is wrong, and more importantly show them via getting professional help that it doesn’t need to be this way.

Lesson 4: Don’t Pretend You’re Their Fairy Godmother, But Don’t Be Mr Doom And Gloom Either

Photo by d4r3ll

We’ve established you ain’t no depression healer. You’re not going to be able to stick a few rhyming words together and make everything better so there’s no point pretending you can. But don’t go getting all scared about saying anything at all. You’re not going to be the cure as much as you wish you could be, but don’t take that to mean there’s no hope. Yes, depression can turn itself into a terminal disease that ends up killing its sufferers by suicide, but it’s not a given. In fact it’s a minority. People can, with time and treatment, find themselves in a better place. Let them know that they will reach that point too, and you’re always going to be around to help them get there and stay there.

Lesson 5: Make Depression Something That’s Talked About Not Whispered About

Photo by Joi

We’ve all done it. We’ve heard someone is depressed and we’ve suddenly stopped talking normally. The volume of our voices gets turned down and we start to talk in hushed tones. Hushed tones that are usually out of view of the person. Hushed tones that we think are protecting them.

We’re not. And we’re not helping them twice over. By talking about it whilst tucked in a corner, where no-one else can see us, we’re not saying depression is okay. We’re saying “better not say this too loud becuase this depression thing it’s a dirty dirty word and is going to reflect badly on us”.

We’re also doing the person suffering a disservice.

When you’re with someone whose going through chemotherapy or other cancer treatment you don’t ignore the fact and then phone up a friend later on to see if they know how they’re doing. You ask them. By not doing the same to someone with depression you’re doing them a huge disservice. In fact worse than that you’re reinforcing the stigma that tells them that this isn’t something they should be admitting to. That this should be something they should be hiding away. You’re doing them wrong.

And now for the moment it’s time to stop. Not because I haven’t got anything more to say on the issue. On this issue I could write for days. It’s time to stop because I didn’t write this to be just another depression article you skim over and think “same old same old”. I want this to be something that makes you gasp, something that makes you feel uncomfortable. Something that makes you think about this issue differently, because we need to. And I’m not going to shut up until each and everyone of us does.

Photo Credits: Brad K, iboy_daniel, Tela Chhe, D. Sharon Pruitt (first), Kalandrakas, Perfecto Insecto, Kung Pao Cajun, d4rr3ll and Joi.

When I wrote a piece of self injury a few months I wrote it for others who self harmed. It was to show that even people who seem relatively strong and sure of themselves on the outside aren’t always feeling that way on the inside. It was also to act to reduce some of the stigma about the issue and the belief it isn’t something that should be spoken about.

And in part the email responses I got from it showed that it had acted to have some impact with self harmers. However what surprised me more was the amount of response I had not from self harmers, but from people who had relatives or friends who had self harmed filled with questions about how, what and why.

Up until now I’ve tried my best to answer the questions on an individual basis but now I think it’s time to answer these questions more publicly and form some kind of resource that  people with questions about self injury that they don’t feel comfortable asking the person can refer to.

So let’s start at the beginning. You’ve been told by someone they self harm. Your head is now fill of questions and fear of what you should be doing.  Why would anyone act to intentionally hurt themselves? Is it all some big cry for help? Are they on the brink of something worse like committing suicide?

They’re all questions that you really going to want to ask but don’t know how or even if you should. The reality is you should. If someone has built up the courage to talk to you then they’re likely to be at the stage where they will not only answer the questions, but want to answer them, but if  you really aren’t comfortable doing that then let me, a confessed self harmer, try and do it for you, starting with the most important question of all.

Is someone who self injuries leading up to a suicide attempt?

No. Whilst they might seem closely related to the non self harmer, for somone self harms the two things are at complete opposite ends of the spectrum. Suicide is about bringing things to an end. If you’re choosing to  self injury, it’s not about ending your life. Self harm is a life saving reaction. It’s a way to gain control over the negative elements in your life and steer you away from things such as suicide.

Is it all a big cry for help?

I lot of people see self injury as attention seeking behaviour. Believe me it isn’t. Having spent many a Summer boiling to death because I need to cover up evidence of my self harming this is quite the opposite of what it is all about. Self harming is a very private and very personal way of dealing with negative situations and if someone is talking to you about it, it’s not because they’re after attention it’s because they need help.

Why would anyone intentionally hurt themselves?

If you’re someone who self injuries the reasons act to make perfect sense. It may not in reality be THE solution to the problems you’re facing, but it is a solution that works, if only in the short term.

If you’re looking at the act of self harm from the outside it’s a whole lot harder to comprehend how someone can seem fine one minute and is self injurying themselves the next. And there’s a reason why. This isn’t really what is happening.

Each case is an individual one, but for most people who self harm it follows a very strong cycle of events, something described very succintly by  Jan Sutton, author of the book Healing The Hurt Within, who breaks it down into six stages – Mental Anguish, Emotional Engulfment, Panic Stations, Action Stations, Feeling Better and Grief.

As words on their own they probably don’t make much sense so let me try and explain it with how it feels for me.

1. Mental Anguish

At this point in the cycle, self harm isn’t really a thought. Instead my mind gets stuck replaying negative thoughts and images with certain things keep replaying themselves again and again in my head.

As Sutton describes it, a  fire starts smouldering.

2. Emotional Engulfment

I’ll have been fighting with these negative thoughts for a while now and I won’t have been winning. This leads these negative thoughts to trigger more powerful emotions. For some people this will be a real feeling of dissociation from everything, for others it will be anger or fear.

Personally this stage manifests itself in a couple of different ways for me. If it’s been building for a while then I can start to feel in fear of my own thoughts. If however it’s been triggered by a certain situation it feels more like my whole body, including my blood, has solidified into one tense lump and is about to explode.

At this stage it is described as the smouldering fire turning into a raging inferno.

3. Panic Stations

Whilst at the Mental Anguish stage there is an opportunity to turn things around,but now it feels like it’s gone too far. The raging inferno of emotion is getting out of hand. For some that manifests itself in feeling totally out of control, for others it’s feeling extremely numb and detached.

For me it’s both. I feel like the situation and my thoughts are now totally out of control and on top of that I’m totally detached from everyone around me. They’re just a blur.

This is the point where self harmers feel a compelling urge to self harm.

4. Action Stations

Now we’re at the point where the self harming takes place because it feels there’s no other way to get rid of the fear, anger or detachment. For some people this will be done in a state of full awareness where the pain is felt or alternatively as with me, one where the harmer is in a dissociative state and feels nothing at all.

5. Feel Better / Different

This stage is the reason why self harmers do what they do. With the act of self injury over there will be a feeling of relief. The negativity that has been replaying in their heads has stopped. Things feel clearer. The physical injury feels like a small price to pay for escaping those intense emotions described in stage two.

6. The Grief Reaction

However it’s important to realise this relief doesn’t last long.  These feelings will soon dissipate and now with the realisation of what you’ve just done leading to feelings of shame, guilt, self digust or self hate, it’s very easy for the cycle to start  all over again, which is why it is most important when dealing with a self harmer that the focus isn’t on the harming action but working on creating better alternative responses to the Mental Anguish state.

Is this “Mental Anguish” all down to some horrible childhood trauma?

No. It’s a common assumption self harm is related to childhood abuse, and whilst the relationship can’t be denied when research shows 50% – 60% of self harmers,  it is important to recognise that still leaves 40-50% who are doing it for different reasons.

This is the same for alexithymia, a personality trait that sees people have “difficulty identifying feelings and distinguishing between feelings and the bodily sensations of emotional arousal”. Whilst there will be a high number of self harmers who score highly in tests for this, it again isn’t exclusive. There are a whole host of different reasons why people self harm so don’t immediately assume why. Work with them, support them till they feel they can tell you.

What can you do?

Discovering someone has self harmed is likely to come as something of a shock, especially if you discover it rather than them telling you about. It is important to remember though, someone who self harms isn’t doing it for attention, it is someone who is hurting and self harming is currently the only way they are able to express this. You being angry or denying it (as the first person I told helpfully did) isn’t going to help matters. In fact it’s likely to make it worse.

So first bit of advice. If you’ve actually discovered them self harming then their wounds are your first priority. Tend to them calmly and in a way that shows you care about the person, not that you’re scared and fearful of what they’ve done.

After that’s done it’s time to appreciate there is no quick fix to self harming. You’re in for a long journey that is likely to have many ups and down that’s going to need you both going to be strong. For you that means you need to accept what they’re doing. That doesn’t mean encouraging them to continue but it does mean showing you’re not angry or upset with them for it being the best way they can cope at the moment. Doing this will act to give them the confidence to work with you to try and find different solutions to dealing with their issues.

So what about me personally?  Where am I as a self harmer on this journey?

Whilst I would like to be able to write here that I’m a past self harmer to do so would be a lie.

I made the decision to write this piece in response to people getting in touch wanting to understand more about self injury following an earlier piece. In one sense it was a very easy decision – there’s a lot of misunderstanding and stigma about self harming ,and just like I as a gay woman feel it’s my duty to do the little I can to make a positive difference for future LGBT generations, I as a self harmer feel it is my duty to do the same.  For me both issues are bigger than me and if I am made to feel a little vulnerable and uncomfortable to do it… well so be it.

However saying that is easier has been a lot harder than the reality. I can be quite blasé with my feelings of vulnerability concerning gay rights. If I feel vulnerable it makes me feel I’m doing something that could act to make a difference. Writing and researching this article however made me feel a very different vulnerable.

I’ve been thinking about writing this for a while, but have been putting it off for a few reasons.  The first if I’m honest is because it makes me uncomfortable. I like to be seen as the strong, funny one, not the weak, self harming one. The second is because there’s so much misunderstanding about self harming that I didn’t want to jot something down that diluted the issue. I wanted it to be something that really would help educate others and so I started spending lot of time reading around the issue.

In doing so I saw one line time and time again -  ”Be careful. As a self harmer you may find this triggering” a lot. Now be honest the first time I read it I thought it was slightly odd and little silly. How can reading academic discussion of self harming be triggering, surely this must only be for people caught in a very intense cycle of self harming.

A few hours into my reading and my opinion had changed. I was now feeling seriously uneasy. I may have been sitting in a room full of people but I was starting to feel seriously detached from everything else and was soon finding myself  focusing on negative elements of issues I’m currently dealing.

I was definitely teetering on the edge of the Mental Anguish stage. So can I in all honesty tell you I didn’t do anything? Yes, but what I can also tell you is it wasn’t easy at all and it wasn’t as simple as flicking a switch. This was a few minutes of wrestling with the issue. I have fought against myself for at least a week and whilst currently I winning, it has shown me that whilst I have come far in my own personal journey I still have a long long way to go.

Image by josh.liba.

With all the reports of the amount of homophobia that exists in France, it doesn’t tend to pop into your head when you think of what countries are being most progressive in terms of LGBT rights, however it currently is being just that as France has become the first country to remove transsexualism from it’s list of recognised mental illnesses.

Announced last year by the France’s Minister of Health, Roselyne Bachelot, the decision finally came into effect at the end of February, with a campaign also launched in the country, endorsed by some of France’s leading minds, petitioning the World Health Organisation to follow suit.

Currently in France, both gender reassignment surgery and hormone treatments are funded by the state, however if their new gender is to be recognised, the French authorities state that the full surgery must be completed, leaving any transsexual who does effectively sterilised.

The change to France’s law comes at the same time as the American Psychiatric Association (APA) begins considering changes for the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Seen as the main resource for diagnosing mental illnesses, the current version sees transgenderism referred to as “gender identity disorder”, with a working group on the subject now suggesting the word “disorder” is dropped and “gender incongruence” put in the place of  “Gender Identity Disorder in Adolescents or Adults” and “Gender Identity Disorder in Children”.

Backing this recommendation up by saying it was more appropriate

because “[it] is a descriptive term that better reflects the core of the problem: an incongruence between, on the one hand, what identity one experiences and/or expresses and, on the other hand, how one is expected to live based on one’s assigned gender (usually at birth)”.

the working group also pointed to results of a survey of organisations representing transgendered people carried out by the APA that found the term was widely rejected “because, in their view, it contributes to the stigmatisation of their condition”.

Via Star Observer (story) and ell brown (photo)

None of us like to show our weaknesses, it makes us feel vulnerable to attack and that’s never a position anyone wants to be in, particularly me. In fact if I had my way I would like to retain an image of being a fun loving, occasionally funny and semi-intelligent person and leave it at that.

However sometimes self preservation is all too selfish a route to take, and it’s important to speak up and say something to make others realise they’re not on their own, and this is one of those situations.

Reading through a few news websites today I saw the same issue pop up more than once, self harm, and how Mondays are apparently are the biggest self harm day of the week, a day when people feel so unable to cope with things going on in their life that they hit, cut, burn, drink or take drugs in a vague hope that it’s going to make things feel a little easier.

Now I can’t say I feel any connection to Monday being any more difficult than any other day, but I do know how it feels to get to a stage where self harming seems like the only solution. For some people it can be because they’re feeling truly desperate about something, for others it’s to do with guilt or shame, many just feel completely detached from anyone and anything, and then there’s the people, like me, where it’s all about a feeling of intense anger that builds up to such a level that self harming seems like the only way to relieve that tension.

The most common form of self harming you will hear about is cutting, but that’s not it’s only form. Some people will drink a lot. Others will overdose on drugs. For me, when I went through a period of self harm, it wasn’t any of these. It was about scratching away at my skin till it was red and raw, and strangely for a person who could never hit someone however angry they made me, it was about beating myself up, whether that was punching walls or hitting myself against anything until it hurt. A lot.

What would be easy for me to say now is that there’s no point in doing it. It has no impact. But that’s not true. The release from seeing the blood rise to the surface, or the bruise form on my hand might not have lasted long but it lasted long enough to break the anger I felt burning me up inside.

But don’t take that to mean it’s right to do it if it helps you. It’s not. Whatever way you self harm you’re putting your body at risk whether it be from infection, or with cutting, something far worse and totally irreversible.

And you need to stop doing it, but those are six words that are very easy to write, and can feel near impossible to put into action. Believe me I know, and like an alcoholic is always an alcoholic you’ll never going to be completely free of it, something that became too obvious to me yesterday, when someone asked me about a scar I have. Now this scar isn’t huge, but if you’re sitting anywhere near me you’ll notice it, and it’s not a scar that’s due to one of a hundred reasons I will make up (in fact I’ve made up so many now I can’t actually remember what the first one was any more), it’s one I inflicted upon myself.

The reasons why I did it are many and complex, and much deeper than any mere stresses I have at the moment, but having had a bit of a bumpy ride of life over the last few months, as I looked at it I can’t deny I didn’t think back to the release I got doing it, and for a millisecond I thought about it and how, even for a moment, it could bring this little bumpy patch to a small halt.

But then as quickly as I thought it I let it go. The reason I couldn’t stop before was because I didn’t know what to do with the anger that I allowed to bottle up inside me. Now I do. Now I have coping mechanisms in place that stop me getting to this point, and instead allow me to get rid of that tension in different ways that don’t cause my body any damage in the process.

But getting to this point wasn’t an easy journey. For anyone who self harms  and wants to stop you’re going to need one thing in lorry loads – willpower. It’s like trying to give up drink or cigarettes. It’s something that’s become an important part of who you are and it’s not easy to just stop. For some of you it will take time, but it will be something you can do by yourself by working to recognise what is causing you to feel the need to self harm and looking at different ways to deal with those feelings, whether that be going out and hitting the life out of a squash ball in the local courts, eating a red hot chilli, or distracting yourself by music and films that can’t help but make you feel better when the desire arises.

For others of you doing it on your own isn’t going to work, you’re going to need help from others, whether that be friends and family, support groups, your doctor or medication. None of that is anything to be ashamed of. In fact it’s quite the opposite. Standing up and being able to say “I have a problem and I need you to help me with it” makes you one of the bravest people on the planet.

And the good news is that there is a huge amount of information available to you at your finger tips,  with one of the best online resources for young people in the UK being Get Connected.

Available to talk to you via telephone, email or webchat these guys are all about making themselves super accessible and even have an Emergency Exit button on their site that will quickly take you to a neutral site if you’re not ready to explain to everyone around you why you’re on a self harm website. As well as this there’s also the National Self Harm Network which helps to support both people who are self harming as well as those indirectly affected.

On top of this there is also an ever increasing collection of books on the subject for those of you who want to be able to learn more about how to help yourself without being in full view of everyone in front of a screen, but the most important thing to remember is you don’t have to do it alone. If you’re not coping on your own, go see your doctor, they are there to help you and they will be able to show you this isn’t a journey you have to make alone.