Okay, so I've self harmed for about 4 years now, and I've recently made a new friend who's really lovely, and he saw some scars, and being the sweetie that he is, wanted to ask if I was okay. And I tried to say that they weren't important and that they were old etc etc, and then he pushed my sleeve right up and saw the new cuts.
He wasn't mean about them, more shocked than anything. He's a really nice friend and he said that he'd love to help me get through this, but he doesn't understand it enough.
So what I'm asking is, does anybody have any advice on how to explain self harm? Like, I don't always know the reasons why I do it, but I just mean the concept of self harm in general?
Don't spend your life waiting for the storm to pass, just learn to dance in the rain
When I have explained it to people in the past I have used the analogy of smoking, as this concept is well known and generally 'accepted'. Sometimes people start smoking as a response to stress/worry/etc as they find it calms them down. It becomes a coping strategy for dealing with stress, anger, upset, etc. After a short while, for some people, it becomes a habit and almost routine - they smoke every day even if nothing is particularly upsetting them, but then may smoke more at times of stress.
Sometimes I see self harm in this way. At first it is a response to a stressor and helps us to calm down, feel more in control, etc. Over time it becomes a habit and a routine, hence why some people do it even when there's nothing to trigger it - like how you said "I don't always know the reasons why I do it" - but it becomes more frequent at times of stress.
It can be an addiction, like any other - smoking, drinking, drugs. But the bottom line it is a way of coping.
Hope that helps! I'm so pleased your friend is really nice and wants to help you through this! That's so positive xxxx
And that smoking analogy, wow, you hit the nail on the head there! I copied what you said and showed him it and he just understood immediately, thankyou!!
Don't spend your life waiting for the storm to pass, just learn to dance in the rain
I don't know if this will help and I've never heard it described like this, but I was thinking last night that the urges are kind of like being hungry, like you need to eat to make it go away. Now I know you don't need to cut and I'm not saying that at all, but that that's how it feels at the time.
Also my therapist once described it to my mam as when you get angry or whatever and you shout to get rid of that feeling and then feel ok, that's what we do but we harm ourselves instead. Like as said, a way to relieve stress.
Hope I haven't said anything wrong here.
When people don't understand how someone can put aside the "keep-yourself-alive-and-safe" part of your brain (not the best way to explain that, sorry!) to self-harm I explain it like this...
If a child fell into a body of water in the middle of winter, you would dive right in to save them. You wouldn't think about how cold the water is, how you might get pneumonia or hypothermia. You wouldn't think about your clothes being soaked or your wallet in your pocket... You would run to the water's edge, jump in and save the child, no questions asked. Self-harm is often like that. You're in so much pain that you often don't think about the scars or the fact that if you go too far you could die. You don't think about the mess or ruining your clothes. You think about the fact that right now, in this moment, it hurts so incredibly badly that you need to do something about it.
At least, that's how I understand it.
It's the children the world almost breaks that grow up to save it.
-Frank Warren
