I'm just back from my holidays.
I believe that the theory is meant to be that holidays are relaxing but I've not totally got them sussed yet, as being away from home tends to make me a bit tense (and I'm definitely not the only one). Still, I did manage a good bit of lying around doing nothing, a fair bit of reading and quite a lot of swimming.
When we first arrived people kept saying, "Ah, you're Scottish", they claimed this was our accents but I think our Pictish blue skins gave us away. After a week of Mediterranean sun, I now have an almost-tan.
I like to get a bit of a tan and I like to walk around bare armed. However, this has not always been the case. I used to cover myself in high factor sun creams and wear sleeves that covered not only my arms but half my hands as well. I was a bit of a Goth when I was younger (I still have trouble applying make-up that does not involve first drawing a big black line round my eyes so I know where they are) but that was only part of the reason for the sun cream and the sleeves. The main reason was to cover my scars.
I am less bothered about covering my scars now, but, as I mentioned the other week, there are some things even I am not that keen on blethering on about, and my scars fall into that category.
However, they are part of who I am and with all the recent press coverage on the subject of self-harm, it's maybe time I brought it up.
I spent years hiding my scars. I was terrified they'd lock me up. They weren't done for show. Given that most of my scars are on my arms and is a relatively visible spot, this may seem unlikely, but really, when I reached the point where I would harm myself, I wasn't thinking about what I was doing, nor the long term consequences. Often I don't even remember doing it all. Arms are just easy to get at.
When I have a tan, they do become a bit more noticeable and so I tend to get asked about them more often. I have to admit that people asking generally annoys me. Most people can tell how I got them just by looking at them. Because of where they are and the pattern of them, I would have to either have done them myself, had them done to me by someone else or else had a bizarre accident involving a threshing machine and/or a tiger.
Yet people always ask, "How did you get those?"
Fair enough I suppose, people can't help being curious but they tend to ask in front of other people. If I did want to discuss it, which I generally don't, I certainly wouldn't want to discuss it in front of a room full of people. They often don't take the hint if I don't want to talk about it.
If I do tell them, their next response, about 6 times out of 8, is, "Well that was pretty stupid." Pretty stupid? Really? Well thanks, I feel much better now. If only I'd realised that at the time. The course in counselling clearly worked out well. Now, this might all seem a bit harsh. It probably is.
The point I'm trying to make is, if people do self-harm, it’s not always because they want you to ask them about it. It may be a cry for help, it may not be, but if it is, being judgemental probably isn't the help they were crying for.
If people were to ask me why, and for some reason people rarely do, but if they were to ask, then I'm not sure what I'd say. It's complicated. It makes me feel better, it's an addiction, it's a punishment, it's a release, it's an endorphin rush that makes you feel better temporarily, it's frustration, it's fury, it may have been a cry for help but as in my case I spent years hiding them from everyone, it was a very quiet one that I was hoping would mostly go unheard. Mostly, I do it because sometimes I just can't help it.
I don't have a magic cure for self-harm. I can't claim to be cured of it because, although I rarely do it now, I still do and, even if I don't, I often want to. When I was on anti-depressants the urge to self-harm went away and it was a real relief, like taking away white noise that you didn't realise was annoying you until it finally stopped. A therapist suggested I try snapping an elastic band on my wrist. If I remember an elastic band, sometimes it helps a bit but mostly I just try and ignore it or I might try to distract myself in much the same way I try to deal with panic. I approach it the same way I approach my mental health in general, by trying to keep an even keel, plenty of exercise (which, like self-harm, produces an endorphin rush that can relieve the symptoms of depression), enough sleep and not too much alcohol.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this really. These are just my opinions on the matter from a very personal point of view. I think it is probably better that the subject has been getting more publicity as it is a difficult issue to understand and it is often misunderstood. As with other issues, such as eating disorders and addiction, it can be really difficult for others to understand why someone would self harm and if you care about that person your immediate instinct is to try and stop harm coming to them. They probably do need someone to talk to and they probably do need to know that people care. However, confronting someone head on, or publicly, may not be the best way to go about things.
Week commencing 22/05/06
Medication: Roman chamomile tea, 10 mg Valium.
Exercise: 5 hrs of mostly walking and a bit of swimming. NO strenuous exercise permitted because of my hip.
Alcohol: 17 units (I was on holiday and it was my a birthday!)
Anxiety: Moderate level of anxiety but I'm getting better at airports.
Anxiety Level (0-10): 3
Number of Panic Attacks: 0
Severity of Panic Attack (0-5): 0
Depression: Apart from a few unhappy half hours not bad at all.
Depression Level (0-5): 1.5 Mania: Hard to tell when you're on holiday. Mania Level (0-5): 1
Summary
A bit of a hard week to quantify seeing as I was away from home for half of it, seems not too bad in hindsight, though.
