Mental Health

What Every Survivor Wish You Knew About Self-Harm

How I stopped seeing my self-harming scars as shame

Photo by see plus on Unsplash

Let’s say I didn’t have the easiest childhood. And as you can guess, that difficult start didn’t exactly set me up for amazing mental health.

But somehow, I stayed here, breathing, trying, and looking for hope in even the darkest places.

Like most others, my teenage years were quite messed up. For me, it remained the darkest phase of my life, and my mental health hit its lowest point.

That’s when I started self-harming.

I didn’t have anyone to talk to in my family. So with a weighed-down heart and loads of self-doubt, I ended up surrounded by people who just walked all over me. They were my “friends” who never really had my back.

Then there was my boyfriend at the time. It took him almost a YEAR of convincing before I let him in my life, and when I finally did, he presented himself as this ideal “nice guy.”

Sure, little red flags were slipping in here and there, but I was too naïve to see them.

And once he knew he had me under his control, everything changed.