This blog post was requested by someone via twitter. They asked me to discuss what I did when people found out about my self harm. I decided to also speak a bit about what I did when people found out about my mental illnesses.
I'm an honest and open person, when you ask the right questions. I don't often give away unrequested information about myself, and everyone who is close to me knows this well. It's not that I want people to ask, it's just that I don't feel that certain things need to be discussed unless prompted. For this reason I was actually quite open about my self harm. I kept it to myself for a long time, but after a few years, my friends started to ask me questions about why I would always cover certain parts of my body and why I'd always have to have 'time to myself'. Even though I didn't particularly want to, I told my friends about what I was doing and explained my reasons. I had mixed reactions from friends about it, some (to my suprise) understood as they had gone through it before, but I'd never known because we never spoke about it, and others said it was stupid and that I shouldn't do it. This didn't really bother me because that was their opinion and I respect that. They weren't rude to me about it, but they just didn't really want to know about it.
I remember a couple of years ago at school I went to the bathroom and my friends were going to come with me because it was lunch time and they were bored. I asked them not to. So I went to the bathroom and just sat there for a while. I had planned to do something but then I heard the door open, I saw two people walk in but they weren't speaking. I knew it was them so I had to just walk out as if I'd been using the toilet and act suprised to see them. But they saw right through this act and asked me what I was doing. I got angry, not so much at them, but at myself for not being able to hide the fact that I was feeling really bad. They kept asking me questions and when they finally let me get a word in, I explained what was happening. They were shocked, but they asked to see what I was talking about, so I showed them, just because I knew they'd end up seeing them anyway when we got changed for PE. From that point onwards they both watched out for me a bit more, making sure I was okay on days when I didn't seem so happy. Although I didn't want them to find out, it actually helped me to feel a lot more relaxed at school.
Sadly things didn't continue so well at school and soon enough it had become a rumour that I was self harming. At first I didn't like the thought of everyone knowing, I decided to hide everything a lot more. But that just wasn't working out for me, so I began to stop covering things up. I got some stares in lessons, particularly from the people who had been spreading the rumours, but strangely enough my open attitude towards it all seemed to stop the rumours. I had a couple of people speak to me in lessons, asking why I did it, trying to understand my reasons. A couple of people asked to speak to me privately and they told me that they'd had friends who had self harmed before and that they wanted to try to help me. I really appreciated their offers but at the time I didn't really want to stop.
I never showed off my self harm for attention, and everyone knew that. People knew that I felt comfortable dressing in a certain way which included wearing short sleeve tops. And I would never have my self harm on open display- I'd just treat it as if it wasnt there and so I'd actually end up hiding it through standing or sitting in certain positions. Of course, the people at school didn't see all of my self harm because most of it was hidden under other clothes, but the ones that were easily visible, they saw.
After a couple of months I started to get some negative reactions from some people who really hated me, and they were actually the reason that I stopped self harming to begin with. I thought that if I let the self harm heal and prove to them that I didn't need it that they would leave me alone. It didn't work, but I had to continue to keep clean, just so they couldn't use it against me. That's why I stopped self harming, and the threat of them using it against me again continued for many more months, which forced me to keep clean all that time- after about five months though it got easier and I decided to do it for myself.
The people at that school found out about a couple of my mental illnesses at the same time as they found out about my self harm as this information was spread around with the rumours of my self harm. None of them knew about all of them, just two of them. I wasn't happy about people finding out because I was expecting people to use it against me, but no one ever did. It was odd. No one really mentioned anything about it to me, I guess people were just too afraid to ask.
I'm now no longer at that school and I don't even want to think about how the rumours may have progressed, but those rumours mean nothing to me because I know I'm recovering.
Telling my friends outside school about my self harm was a lot easier because they all knew me so well. I felt that I could really be honest with them. I told them about it one day a couple of years ago during the summer, and they were very helpful to me, and still are.
It was a bit more complicated telling my best friend. He found out in the worst way possible.. I don't really want to say too much about this, because it's not something that I feel the need to share, so I'll just say, I regret the way he found out about it. I now very rarely discuss the topic with him.
Finallly, my parents. It was very difficult to tell them about my mental illnesses and depression. I got my friend to help me write a letter to them explaining everything. I gave it to them. They said they expected one of the mental illnesses, as I was at a genetic disposition to develop depression, and they knew that I had been bullied so it was really a matter of time. They didn't expect the other mental illnesses though, and weren't sure whether I self harmed or not. I didn't like telling them because I knew that at some point they would use this information against me, but I needed help and I didn't know how to get it, so I needed them to know. Sadly my parents did use this information against me at many times, but I'd expected them to so I'd been able to prepare myself for it.
I'm glad that I've told my friends and family about my self harm and mental illnesses. By telling them about it, although I didn't like it at the time, it's actually helped me a lot. My friends in particular have been there for me no matter what, and because they knew what was going on for me, they could help me, and I could talk to them openly and honestly about it. As mentioned before, a couple of my close friends thought that all of it was silly for me to have and do, so I never mentioned it to them again, however a couple of times since finding out, they've just asked me how I've been getting on with everything. It really meant a lot that they asked, because I knew how much they didn't want to hear about it, but they cared more about my wellbeing.
I think the fact that I was willing to be so open and honest about everything (when prompted) really helped me out, because my friends who have no expereince with mental illness or self harm sometimes come to me for advice on how to help another friend. My friends and family all know that I haven't self harmed in a long time, so we don't discuss it anymore. We treat it as something that is in the past, and I like it that way. I occasionally speak to one of my friends about my self harm when the urges return, but it's mainly a way of just venting out my emotions, and she knows that I won't do it again.
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