In 2022 we invited people to write personal experience blogs about experiences of self-harm they felt were under-represented. We have been blown away by the response and the power and wisdom that has been shared by so many people. We feel privileged that so many people have chosen to write for this blog series and to be able to share these blogs with anyone who needs to read them. Our hope is that people feel less alone and more understood from reading one of these blogs and that every piece broadens the understanding of self-harm.
If you would like to contribute a blog to the series please contact us on: [email protected]
For twenty years I have not dressed according to the weather or the occasion. I don’t choose an outfit based on if it’s going to rain. My clothing is dictated by how much I want other people to know about me. I own a lot of cardigans. A t-shirt without a jumper is a luxury, a swimsuit an impossibility. Read more
When people mention the words “self-harm” people have a very set idea of what this means - for many it's an association with self-punishment, emotional distress, distraction, and the other causes that you see in almost all the self-harm awareness campaigns. What is almost never mentioned is the self harm and self destruction that can occur during psychosis. Read more
When we think of the phrase ‘self-harm’ or ‘non-suicidal self-injury’ (NSSI), there is a stereotype that comes to mind, a single “type”, a small number of similar methods, each with the same outcome, scarring to arms (and occasionally elsewhere). This is not only the public’s perception, but what we are taught as healthcare professionals, and if not explicitly, it is certainly reinforced in practice. Then, with little warning, I became an expert by experience. Read more
Sweating and shaking, my eyes burning. The people, the lights, the beeping, the smell of disinfectant. I gasp for air. I’m not here in A&E for me, and yet I tremble. The past is the present; the present is the past. I enter through the literal revolving door. The nurses all know my name by now. One of them tells me if I really wanted to die, I would be dead. Another tells me I have ruined my body, the patchwork of scars and stitches everywhere making any beauty obsolete. Read more
I’ve spent time deciding whether to get medical attention. I need it. I can’t talk about it. The words won’t come out. I’ve come up with a plan this time. I scribble what’s happened and where on a piece of paper. I get myself to the Emergency Department. I’ve been here before for the same reason I call it the walk of shame, I deserve the judgment I get. I’m dreading going in. It’s very busy and I think everyone there somehow knows why I’m there. Read more
For months I would go to the areas of town where lone women were told not to go. I would purposely go to the places and do the things that I knew were putting me at risk. I fooled myself into thinking I was in control, that it was a calculated risk. I wasn't finding people on a dating app, I wasn't going on blind dates or finding people through mutual friends. I was going to the bars that people would advise me to avoid and actively looking for a one night stand. Read more
Skin-camouflage practitioners have long acknowledged that people with obvious self-injury scarring are subject to the most discrimination in NHS of patients with scarring. Scarring changes our relationship to healthcare - assumptions of what, why, how, it can be a cause of diagnostic overshadowing. Read more
I never knew as a teenager that most mental health professionals view self-harm as a ‘hallmark’ of ‘Borderline Personality Disorder’ - BPD (also known as ‘Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder.’) I used to think that by self-harming, health professionals may take my distress more seriously. I had no appreciation that what I was doing to warrant care, and to express the total anguish I was going through, would gradually be used as a weapon to destroy my identity. Read more
I kept it hidden. It wasn’t meant to be seen. It wasn’t ‘a cry for help’ or ‘attention-seeking’. It wasn’t about communicating anything. It was about shame. Shame, that should not have belonged to me, but that I nevertheless was swamped by. Read more
When I was in the darkest of places, I didn’t consider that those bumps of scar tissue I had on my ears (and that one impulsive sternum piercing) would migrate to other parts of my body such as my thighs or arms. I didn’t consider that years later, my arms would show my frame of mind from some nights when I was feeling the lowest of lows. I didn’t consider that years later I would still have visible scars that I would feel the need to explain or hide. Read more
Let's be honest here, I am not a warrior and my scars are not beautiful. I am beautiful and I have scars, but I am not beautiful because of them. I would also be beautiful without them too. I am not minimising the role self-harm has had in my life, but it is not some metaphorical battle I am constantly fighting. I live with PTSD and sometimes it makes me suffer; but I am not constantly suffering. Read more
While the abuse laid the foundations for self-harm, living with disability has certainly sustained it. Feeling overwhelmed and lacking in control are big factors which contribute to my need to self-harm and these are part and parcel of living as a disabled person. I often feel at the mercy of others’ decisions: how much support I will get, what I can spend my money on, how many pets I can have, what work I can do. Read more