7. Self Harm: Hurting Yourself & Helping Yourself.

- Self harm.

- This is something I just feel I NEED to discuss.

- I'm not sure how helpful it will be, nor how informative, it's more of a reminder that if you are encountering this then you are not alone. I just wish I had the insight I now have, before.

- I know people do it for many different reasons. I've been there, I really have. It just upsets me that people do it, it upsets me that I did it. I've got a pretty ugly purple mark of a scar accross my wrist that I am so self conscious of that I constantly wear my watch over it. This has it's disadvantages as when I take my watch off, I now have a ghostly white tan line, with a horrendous purple scar in the middle. When my arms tan, I have hundreds of thin white lines up and down my arm. I don't know, I'm not ashamed, I just don't want people to get the wrong idea. I was in a pretty dark place, but it wasn't a cry for help, it was a coping mechanism.

- I'm a pretty logical person, even though I was (upon reflection) depressed, I knew it wouldn't last forever, I knew things would get better, and I constantly told myself that.

- Whenever anyone thinks of someone hurting themselves, they think of little teenagers trying to get attention, going through an 'emo' phase. I'm not a teenager. I wasn't asking for attention.

- A couple of years ago I read an article about a woman who self harmed in order to cope, she claimed she thought her pain receptors weren't wired correctly; that hurting calmed her. I'm not sure how scientifically plausible that is, but to me it makes sense. It's not a desperate cry for help, it's the complete opposite, it's a way of dealing with your saddness yourself, without having to reach out to others. I'm not saying that it is a GOOD way of dealing with it, far from it in fact, and of course there are always people who do hurt themselves for attention. There are people who really do just want to hurt themselves, to punish themselves. For me, however, it was what kept me going. At a time where I felt so out of control, it gave me something to remind me I was alive, and I was in charge, that I could change what was happening.

- I'm more sympathetic to those who are having a bad time, I know that it is not the way to deal with things, but I understand more to why people do it, and how it helps them.

- I'm not condoning self harm, much the opposite, I think that if you are in a position where you feel that is all you can do, you really need to look at what is making you feel like that. You can't just stop hurting yourself, without stopping what is hurting you to begin with. More like, I'm saying if you know someone who is doing it, don't brush them off as attention seeking, they need to work on what is upsetting them, not someone jumping down their throats over how "stupid" "pathetic" and "childlike" they are being. I know that's difficult, it is, unless you have been there, it is hard to comment on.