Helping yourself

This section is about helping yourself to stop self-harming.

Understanding why you do it

Stopping is easier if you can find other ways of expressing or coping with your feelings. To do this you need to try to understand what makes you do it. Lots of people don't know why they hurt themselves so it may be useful to think about:

• What was going on in your life when you first began to harm yourself
• How you feel just before you want to hurt yourself
• Whether you would find it useful to keep a 'mood' diary,  writing down your feelings at different times
• Whether you are always in the same place or with a particular person
• If you have any bad memories or thoughts that you can't tell anyone.

Thinking about other things

When you feel anxious or upset, doing something you enjoy or trying to think about other things can be a way to help you stop hurting yourself. You could try:

• Phoning a friend
• Writing down your feelings in a diary
• Listening to music, drawing or reading
• Going for a walk or a run, dancing, exercising or playing sport
• Counting down slowly from 10 to 0
• Breathing slowly, in through the nose and out through the mouth
• Focusing on objects around you and thinking about what they look, sound, smell, taste and feel like.

I had been a self-harmer for three years but I realised that what I thought I was controlling was actually controlling me. It was and is hard and I sympathise with anyone trying to stop or anyone still harming.

My parents have never found out and I think that is why I have found my stuggle hard, although it is hard for anyone.

My advice to anyone would be to find someone who can help you and who won't judge you to help you back on the right path to do what you dream of doing. I want to be a teacher and hopefully I will be one day but self harm was holding me back and making me live in the past - somewhere where no-one should be.

If you still want to hurt yourself

If you still want to hurt yourself try:

• Finding a safe punching bag like some pillows
• Putting your hands into a bowl of ice cubes for a short time or rubbing ice on the part of your body you feel like injuring
• Using a red felt tip marker or lipstick to mark your body instead of cutting
• Putting a rubber band around your wrist and flicking it
• Putting sticking plasters on the parts of your body you want to injure.

It can be hard to stop

Self-harm can be really hard to stop. It may take time and there are likely to be ups and downs along the way. Sometimes, however hard you try on your own, you just can't cope with your feelings.

If you can't stop wanting to hurt yourself it's best to get help from someone you can trust. This means finding someone who you can talk to about your problems and who can give you practical help.

> If you do not feel ready to stop self-harming
Harming yourself may have become a way of dealing with your feelings that you find hard to imagine coping without. If this is how you feel, here are some ways to help you look after yourself.

Talking to someone

"I self-harmed, thinking it was the best way to cope with emotional pain / stress. I thought it would be a lot easier to stop then I thought while doing it, however when it came to admitting I was a self-harmer was a big turning point because I suddenly realised what I was doing. Not hurting myself was the hardest thing because that seemed to me to be the easiest way of coping.

I finally decided to stop after talking to someone and kept active to keep my mind of it. Nights will be the worst because there is nothing to keep your mind off it, but keep positive and you'll get through it. I did, when I didn't think there was any way out, I'm so much happier knowing I can do other things to cope with emotional pain.

Things can always get better."