achievement

On Sunday I reached a goal, something which I honestly never thought I would achieve. I got to 250 days clean from self harm. 

I've been harming myself in so many different ways for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of me harming myself, how fun. It's just something I've always done. I never realised it was self harm until a few years ago, but now when I think back to what I used to do, I recognise that it is self harm, but what shocks me is that no one noticed, and if they did, they only saw it happen once or twice. I guess I was always good at hiding it, even from the age of four. 

With that in mind, I'm sure you can understand why keeping clean from self harm is a very difficult task for me. It's something I've always been able to do. So during those 250 days I had to learn to cope in different ways. 

The first five or so months were awful, I really struggled to get through them and I was very close to giving up many times. 

Lots of people speak to me and ask me how I've done it, and I don't know how I have. Most of the people who ask me only started self harming within the last year or two and I can't help but believe that it would be easier for them to stop than for me as they have known life before self harm and I have not. I know that some things are easy for some but difficult for others. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that if I can do it, anyone can. 

the bystander effect

'Help me'

If somebody said this to you, would you help them, or would you turn away and pretend you didn't hear them? Would you message them or would you scroll past and ignore them? 

Psychology and many studies have shown that you would ignore someone in need of your help. It can be through the diffusion of responsibility, where you believe that someone else will do something to help that person, or it can be through pluralistic ignorance, when you think 'if no one is helping then why should I?'

But when is this ever okay? Someone is very clearly in need of your help and you're happy to just let them suffer? Put yourself in their situation, then act. 

sympathy

What use does sympathy have? It's not going to help to solve the problem. If anything, it's delaying the process of solving it. So why do we give sympathy to those who crave it?

Sometimes it's because we don't know what to say, but sometimes it's because we know they won't listen to any advice we give them, so, by giving them what they want it'll keep them happy for a little bit. 

But, in the long term, sympathy won't help. That's why I'm quite harsh when it comes to giving sympathy. It's a rare event for me to be sympathetic towards others. This isn't because I'm a horrible person, it's because I'm realistic and I would rather help someone get through what's going wrong than heartlessly repeat the basic sympathetic lines such as 'oh that's awful'. Well of course it's awful, otherwise the person wouldn't be crying out for help. 

So why not try to help them instead of stating the obvious?