My Experience

About 3 years ago I spent a Christmas suffering from insomnia, and then suddenly about March it went away. I thought it was just a phase and ignored it. But then the next year I started feeling a bit low, a bit down, but again ignored it. Then the next Christmas I was having a really bad time at school, many of my friends were self-harming, and I was feeling totally worthless and alone. People were so wrapped up in their own worlds that I felt that I was insignificant. That’s when I started to self-harm. People immediately spread rumours, said that I was attention-seeking and copying other people to be part of the fashion. The school assumed my parents knew and so told them. My parents immediately hit the roof, and so I told them that I had stopped. This, of course, was a total lie. I carried on, again until about early April, when I suddenly started feeling better.

This year I felt awful, I suffered bereavement, I was friendless, I had numerous minor surgery procedures (but my phobia of needles made this stressful) and a major operation and the pressure of exams was awful. I decided something had to be done. I was tired of hiding my arms, tired of lying, and tired of bottling everything up. I went to the doctor; she was very understanding and said that she would ring me that afternoon. This posed a problem as my parents had thought that I had stopped cutting over a year ago, but I told them, and they again went ballistic (saying that I should trust them and talk to them, but all I could think was… well when you react like this then what do you expect). Anyway the doctor never called back, and left me with “well it sounds like SAD (seasonal affective disorder)”. So now I still feel the same worthlessness, and its getting worse.

I am self-harming again, and I am now trying to fight of suicidal urges. I changed school, am preparing for AS exams, have few friends, and its getting to me. I have no professional help, and I am worried that I will turn to alcohol again (as I have in the past). Most of the stories you hear about self-harm are caused by really serious problems, like abuse, and it made me feel insignificant because when I look at my life I have had a good education in a private school, I have never been in need of anything. But somehow I still feel down. And that makes me feel guilty and selfish because I have no reason. This will probably make people angry, as I have not been abused, or suffered any really serious events. But well there it is, sometimes there is just a medical reason, and it makes things harder in a way, because you cant put your feelings down to 1 event or reason. Maybe one day I will pull through, I hope you all do to :)

Ellie