When I was 12, I began self-harming. For me, this was for such a mixture of reasons as I am sure other people find too. I found it helped ease my extreme emotional pain at that time, caused by many confusing powerful feelings as well as from being bullied at school. Until I was 15, it remained my secret and no-one at all knew anything about it, not even family.
When I was 13, I began missing parts of days from school and this increased once I began the O levels as I found the intensity of the academic work too stressful. The head of year told me that if I stopped missing school she would not tell my parents about the self-harm, but by then it was the only way I knew how to cope. At that time my thinking was incredibly confused and I thought the only solution would be to run away to a nearby forest which I did. However, when it got very dark I was unsurprisingly scared so travelled into the centre of the large town and slept in some bushes. The following morning I went back to the school and after they called my family I went home again.
Nothing changed either externally or inside my head so a while later I ripped up all my books and ran away again to sleep in a cemetery that time. This time the longer-term result was that I was allowed to spend time in the special unit, that was luckily for me attached to the school, instead of going to lessons for the remainder of that year and to see the school counsellor. At that time, my self-harm was discovered too.
For me, though I am not sure how common it is, the self-harm became my first go-to behaviour for many years as I found it so hard to let go of. When I was 26, I was admitted to a psych ward for the first time due to an impossible build-up of stresses again. Back in 1992 when that happened, the mental health system seemed very different from how it is now, such that there would often be some people on the wards who had been admitted for ”respite”, to nip an episode of illness in the bud and many patients were in there on a voluntary basis.
Between 1992 and 1999 I was on assorted psychiatric medication, trying various combinations of drugs to see if they helped. Starting, stopping and trialling them took time but I was so fortunate to have a kind and patient psychiatrist at that time and eventually I found some that were helpful. For about the next 10 years I was truly a ”revolving door” patient, in and out a few times every year, until I had the amazing good luck to be referred to a psychologist in 2000.
With his help, plus a lot of hard work from me, both the admissions and the self-harm decreased steadily!! Without the relative stability the medication provided I’d never have been able to engage with the psychologist. I began to read around the topic of self-harm, and for me the idea that it could be like a way of communicating emotions and feelings was the turning point. I began to ask myself what I was trying to say every time I had the urges and to write those things down instead of acting on them, either to share with the psychologist or to keep for myself and later tear up.
In 2002 my psychiatrist said if I needed future admissions to hospital I’d only be able to be in there 2 nights each time. As I gradually learned more coping strategies outside of admissions, that helped me learn to cope better at home, though it felt really scary at first.
In this way I have now not self-harmed for over 20 years and in that time have only been an inpatient 4 times and all for very brief admissions. For much of the 90’s I never imagined that these things would be possible for me as I relied on both to such an extent!!
Another thing I managed to stop was my drinking binges, which was I still think one of my best ever decisions. At times I would think I was drowning my woes but in fact it magnified my problems and greatly worsened my decision making.
In 2010 I was fortunate to be able to do DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) skills training for 6 months and found that very helpful, especially the mindfulness aspects. I slowly began to be able to see thoughts passing by and I gradually learned to surf the waves of powerful emotions and wait for them to lessen rather than to get carried along with them.
Nowadays, my remaining ”unhelpful” coping strategy is using food to cope with periods of low mood or anxiety but I am working on that bit by bit. Although, as I have diabetes it is not without harms, I do feel it is less unhealthy or risky than heavy drinking or self-harm.
I do appreciate that I was very, very fortunate to be able to work with the psychologist but it is also true that I prepared for every session carefully and used time afterwards to digest what had been discussed, and worked with non-stop determination, resolve and a sense of hope for the future.
If someone had said to me in the darker times of the 90’s that I would now be able to enjoy going to Sheffield Flourish groups, making new friends and getting to know Sheffield I would have doubted it. I would really like to think that my story can give some hope to others as healthier, less destructive coping strategies are possible and changes too are possible over time.
