I Admit It I Didn’t Get That Scar Falling Over I Did It Self Harming

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.