On Living With A Self Harmer

Massive trigger warnings for self harm apply.

Don't really know where to start with this post. Gonna be a whole heap of personal as usual and for once I sought permission to write it.

Permission? I hear you ask... Who on earth from?

@spaceviolin is who.

She self harms. And I am her mum.

She writes her own blog on her mental health issues and today she wrote this amazing post on self harm. In fact, her whole blog is amazing. You should check it out.

But I procrastinate... as I have been for a very long time. The posts I write about myself are somehow easier, I can distance myself from the things I describe because they happened a long time ago. I have distance and perspective on them. This is happening NOW so if this post becomes muddled, I apologise in advance.

So yeah, my daughter self harms.

It's hard for me when she does it for many reasons. One, I am her mum and I don't want to see my baby in pain. Either the pain of the cutting or the psychological pain that makes her do it. I understand why she does it logically and intellectually but seeing it makes me want to wrap her in cotton wool. Hide her away from the world and protect her so she never has to feel any pain again. And I can't. I can't take that control away from her as it would lead to even more problems. And I wouldn't want to as that would be a life half lived. And what would be the point?

I believe in personal bodily autonomy, so intellectually it shouldn't bother me that she self harms. But it does. I don't own her, I don't believe that just because I gave birth to her that I have any entitlement over her body at all, but she is my darling baby girl.

I don't try to stop her doing it. If I find what she has been cutting with I remove it but she will inevitably find something else to do it with. I can't keep her away from everything sharp in the world. Last time I tried she ended up punching herself. And if she couldn't do that she would find another way.

It's hard you know, leaving sharp things around so she doesn't feel like I'm babying her, or not trusting her, all the while hoping against hope that she'll stop.

I try to be supportive. I try not to guilt her when she does as I know that makes it worse. I try to smile so she can't see a little bit more of my heart break when I see fresh cuts. I'm grateful that she is honest about it now in a way that she wasn't at first but I am scared that by normalising it she'll never get better. I tell myself that I'm doing all I can and by giving her a safe space to talk about it and taking her to her therapy sessions so that when she knows how to feel anger, knows how to feel that it will calm down and eventually stop.

I understand that this is not a suicide attempt, a way to manipulate, a cry for attention. I understand that when she does it that it gives her relief from her pain, gives her control and is a pressure valve.

I am not angry with her.

I love her.

Sometimes it's just, you know, hard.