Today (1st March) is Self-Injury Awareness Day.

There are many misconceptions about Self-Harm. The two main ones being that 1.People only do it for attention and 2. People self-harm because they want to die. On the contrary, for many people it's a way of staying alive.
Of course there are people who do do it for the above reasons but they are a minority.

There are many reasons why people self-harm. It could be because they find relief in the pain or because it makes them feel alive when they feel detached from themselves. It could also be because they feel they need to be punished or because they find physical pain easier to deal with than emotional pain. There are many more reasons besides these, but these ones are just the most common. Every self-harmer has their own reasons for hurting themselves.

When people think of self-harm, they typically think of cutting, but it can also take many other forms. Some of these include burning themselves, being reckless and taking excessive risks that could end in them being seriously hurt, taking drugs, hitting themselves, by drinking excessively, starving themselves or binging. There are many more forms that it can take, but these are the most common that I have come across.
Some people may hurt themselves for a short period of time and then never do it again. Other people may do it more long-term as it may be the only way they have learnt to cope with their distress.
The important thing for these people is to know that they are not alone.

I was a self-harmer for 9 years. I was abused for 14 years as a child. The I was put into foster care and I felt like everything around me was falling apart. I don't know what made me pick up that blade but all I know is that I felt alone. I was hurting and in so much pain. I felt useless, worthless and I hated myself and my body. I had so much pent up emotion inside of me that I had to release it somehow and so, I cut myself. All I remember was that I felt relief. The physical pain was much easier for me to deal with than the mental torture I was going through. I carried on doing it for 9 years. It was the only way that I had learnt to cope.
I'm still in therapy and have been since I was 11 years old. I have something called Borderline Personality Disorder. It's characterised by extreme mood swings (being up one minute and then down the next), black and white thinking, extreme impulsivity and self-harm. I have also struggled with Anorexia Nervosa since I was 9 and I have OCD and an anxiety disorder.  I no longer self harm, or more like I haven't in months. I still get the urges alot but I saw how much it affected my husband when I did it. I used to do it on my stomach so that no-one would see, forgetting that my husband would and my stomach is the part of my body that he loves the most. It was so hard to stop something that had been my way of coping for 9 years, but with his support I have managed to stop cutting, although I still hurt myself in other ways, but I have a long history of mental illness and I am trying my hardest to get better and to be more stable.

When you self-harm, you don't think about the physical scars that you may be left with. It's all in the here and now. You just want to feel better in the moment. You don't realise how it might affect you in the future or how hard it might be to cover up.
Many self-harmers aren't open about their problem. Many people feel ashamed and keep it hidden. The fact is, you could think that you don't know any self-harmers, when you actually might do, but they just hide it so well that you don't know about it. it could be your best friend, or a family member. It could be a classmate or even a teacher.
Self-harm is a taboo subject and that's one of the reasons self-harmers find it so hard to talk about what they are doing and how they feel. People don't talk about it. People have those misconceptions that I spoke about at the beginning of this post. People who are self-harmers don't need people to shout or scream at them. They don't need to be branded an attention-seeker. They don't need people to threaten to commit them to a psychiatric untit. All those reactions aren't helpful. They need people to talk to them, to listen, to just try and understand. Even if you don't understand, it's important that you try.

For any self-harmers out there, you are not alone. You're not weak and you're certainly not a failure. I want you to know that there is always help out there - either through a friend, or a teacher, on forums or messageboards, through charities, through the mental health system, your doctor or even through me.
There are many different alternatives to self-harming out there. Some may work for you, some may not but I'm going to list the ones I know of, just to help those who may not know of some of them:

*Smash a watermelon
*Squeeze ice
*Draw on the place you want to cut with red marker, fake blood or food colouring
*Write about how your feeling
*Put ice on the place you want to hurt
*Snap an elastic band on your wrist everytime you want to hurt yourself
*Look at something that creates good feelings within yourself - whether it be an object or a photo.
*Count down from 10 (or whichever number you like)
*Give yourself permission to cry. It's okay to be sad.
*Throw things at the wall
*Squeeze a stressball
*Play the "10 minute game". "I give myself permission to hurt myself after 10 minutes" Then when those 10 minutes are up "I've gone 10 minutes. Let's try 20. I give myself permission to hurt myself after 20 minutes" and so on.

To friends, colleagues, carers and teachers of someone who self-harms - Please support them. Talk to them and acknowledge how they're feeling. Don't tell them that they're stupid for doing what they do. Every self-harmer has their reasons for hurting themselves, but please try to help them in any way that they need. Listen to them when they need an ear, accept when they don't want to talk and just give them your time.

To anyone who self-harms - it's okay to feel sad or angry and it's okay to hurt. It's okay to talk about how you feel and it's okay to not want to talk at all, but remember that there should always be someone that you can confide in - even if it's a friend on the internet or via a helpline. You shouldn't feel alone, because you're not.

Thank you for reading this. I know that it's very long, so well done if you got this far!

If you need someone to talk to then here are a few Charities/Helplines. I'm only familiar with the UK helplines and charities so if you live somewhere else and know of any charities in your area, then please comment with them.

Samaritans
Tel: 08457 90 90 90
Email: jo@samaritans.org
You can email or phone Samaritans about anything that is troubling you and all calls/emails are confidential.

MIND
[link]
Mind have alot of information for people who suffer with mental health problems and for friends and families of those affected.

Young Minds
[link]
Supporting young people and children with mental health problems

SANE
[link]

Rethink
[link]

Thank you for reading and please remember to support those with mental health problems and for sufferers, you are NOT alone. Ever.