Helpful

[Wicked Lovely]

Let me start off by saying that I DO NOT think someone should keep it a secret, however you must be careful on who you tell and who you seek support from..
I trusted people about 7 years ago with my secret and they betrayed me and it ended up with me in a psychiatric ward. I am not saying all those places are bad for the people that truly need them however when it comes to a self mutilation it does more damage than good.. They locked me up like an animal for over 6 months and I began to loose my mind. Even to this day almost 8 years later I am still messed up from what they did to me in those places. I still wake up screaming from the nightmares, I still see things because of the drug induced psychotic break they forced on me as if I was nothing more than a lab rat for their sick exirements and supposedly "safe" drug trials, and the inner scars I carry from that place is much deeper than anything I could do with a blade. I will live with what they did to me and what they allowed others to do to me for the rest of my life.
If you truly feel like one of those places will do you good then good for you, go for it.. I will support you and your decision however I am speaking from personal experience that those places are not for people like us.
Just be careful to whom you tell these things for it may be the beginning of an unescapable nightmare..

[Horizon]

I'm sorry to hear that it was an unhelpful experience for you, but that was seven years ago. Policies and such change.

And it's different for each person. Maybe self-harming and being in a hospital environment is going to do some good for someone who self-injures. You never know.

I don't think it's helpful to basically discourage being honest to get needed help. Hospitals, in my experience, are certainly not places you want to be, but sometimes you need to be there for your own safety. And usually people aren't put in the hospital for self-harm. Usually there's another reason.

I've been hospitalized numerous times and some of those admissions have saved my life, especially ECT.

"those places aren't for people like us" - you are generalizing here. Not everyone is in the same situation as you, and you aren't in the same position as everyone else. Not everyone here just has a problem with self-harm, there are a lot of underlying mental health issues that sometimes require hospitalization.

[Colour Blind]

I can only echo Facet in saying I'm sorry you had such an awful experience, but every case is different, and discouraging people from accessing help could be very damaging.

Places and people and institutions change, and I feel that it would be very hard to deny that.

I hope you can find a way of dealing with what happened to you, and moving onwards and upwards.