When I Self-Harmed

[Trigger/content warning for self-harm, refs blood]

I feel faint at the sight of blood. Mostly my own, occasionally other people’s, Game of Thrones is hit and miss. Some days a glimpse of an NHS Give Blood van is enough for me to need to put my head between my legs for a while and think of England, or biscuits, or a video of a puppy tasting a lime for the first time. Just writing this paragraph has actually been pretty rough going — I had to take a break until I couldn’t feel my pulse thumping in my hands anymore.

This is all started when I got my first tattoo at 19. Never a rule-breaker, I followed instructions and chugged a sugary drink and ate a small meal before taking a needle to the arm — but five minutes in I fainted anyway. I woke up surrounded by the entire staff of the tattoo shop and promptly vomited both the sugary drink and the small meal into their sink. Ever since then my body has decided it doesn’t get on with minor injuries, and sends out pretty regular signals that I should invest in a Victorian fainting couch.

It’s strange that I’m so strongly affected by blood now because from roughly the ages of 12 to 18, in moments of anger or upset or overwhelming feelings about the unfairness of the world as it related to me, I self-harmed. I won’t go into specifics because I think it might hurt rather than help some people reading this, and my injuries weren’t at all serious, but over the years I saw small amounts of blood on a relatively regular basis.

When I first self-harmed, it was out of grief. A family member had died and I wanted my sadness to go somewhere and feel concrete and real. I did it in an obvious place, some friends at school noticed and I felt a deep sense of shame and regret. After that I always self-harmed in the same place, rarely visible to anyone else. The injuries were minor, but over six years since I stopped I still have faint scars that haven’t completely faded.

I honestly didn’t see the problem at the time. In my mind I wasn’t hurting anybody but myself, I wasn’t causing serious damage and I had an outlet for my worst feelings. I knew logically that what I was doing wasn’t okay, but I couldn’t translate that when it came to my actual experiences. I liked feeling physically rather than emotionally wounded. I’d carry pain around with me all day like a trophy.

It took me a long time to see my self-harm for what it really was — thousands of tiny acts of hatred and violence against my own body. I thought I was letting things out and releasing them, but really I was setting the dogs on myself. I was one of the lucky ones — I stopped on my own, and things never got really serious. Even on my worst days now, it’s not an option for a number of reasons. It’s not like that for everyone.

My story feels like a pretty mild one — but any degree of self-harm is a problem. If you’re struggling with it I know that it’s incredibly hard to form the words to speak up, but there are people who want to hear them — friends, parents, guardians, counsellors and charities like Mind or Childline*. I spoke to my family about it today, and it was hard, but it was the right thing to do. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You deserve to reach a place where you feel you can be kind to yourself, and you deserve help along the way.

I try to find little ways to love myself now, and I hope you can too. Whatever age I am, I always want to scoop up my past self at her worst moments and wipe her tears and feed her chips and tell her everything’s going to be okay — so why is it often so hard to give my present self that same love? I think I’m getting along better with myself now, even if some days it takes work. Sometimes you need to hold your own hand. Not literally. But maybe literally, if it helps.

*Mind hotline: 0300 123 3393 Childline: 0800 1111