The truth about self-harm.
Hello and welcome.
If you've discovered that your child is self-harming,
First of all,
I'm really sorry that you're dealing with this.
It is such a shock.
And secondly,
You're not alone,
Even though it feels like it.
There are people out there that can guide you.
Before we begin,
I'd like to mention that these talks are for educational purposes.
And they're designed to help parents better understand the emotional experiences of teenagers.
They're not a substitute for medical advice,
Diagnosis or treatment.
In this talk,
My aim is to look into what's going on for a teenager when they self-harm.
There are sometimes comments made by people about self-harm being for attention.
Which in some ways sometimes a person is so deeply in sadness or anxiety or they're suffering that they may need someone to notice.
But teenagers don't decide to self-harm as a look at me to get more attention.
Probably the opposite is true.
They'd be happier if they were just invisible.
Today I'd like to offer you a different way of looking at self-harm.
Not to minimise it,
But to understand it.
Because understanding changes everything.
One of the biggest shifts that I hope parents make is this.
Instead of asking why are they doing this,
Try asking what is this doing for them?
Because behavior always serves a purpose.
Self-harm isn't random,
It's helping a young person cope with something that feels impossible to cope with in any other way.
For the teen it temporarily quietens overwhelming emotions and for others it interrupts racing thoughts.
Some describe it as giving emotions somewhere to go and others say it helps them to feel something when they've gone emotionally numb.
It may not make sense to us,
But it's the solution to them.
The more we understand what the behaviour is doing for them,
The more likely we are to help our teenager have a different relationship with their emotions.
This is why simply trying to stop self-harm doesn't work.
If we remove the behaviour without helping the young person to see what's going on.
We're taking away the one thing that's felt like survival.
They're doing something to avoid feeling the way they're feeling.
Each young person will have their own narrative around this,
The thing that shows up on a regular basis.
It might have a slightly different storyline,
But there will be similarities every time.
Underneath the storyline will be a belief that seems 100% true.
This belief might be something like not feeling good enough.
Or that they have problems with friendships or money.
Or there could be a million other options that tell them that there's something wrong with them.
And then this,
If this is the filter that they are experiencing the world through,
Then the thoughts,
Feelings,
And behaviors will just keep showing up.
Until they start looking in this direction.
The things a parent can start to do to help them see this is first of all introduce them to the fact that their feelings are safe.
They don't seam it.
But why were we born?
Be born into the world in the most amazing way.
Completely equipped with everything we need to keep our body functioning.
Which we often take for granted because it's just running.
And then hit teenage years and suddenly get given a huge amount of thoughts and feelings that shouldn't be there.
And we have to somehow get rid of them.
It doesn't make any sense.
So what if even the suffering was perfect?
Humans have just been taught along the way that something is wrong.
What if those feelings were actually there to help them?
If they knew that those feelings were there to let them know that they've got caught up in their stories.
Then they wouldn't even want to get rid of them.
If we can help them.
To not be afraid of their experience.
This could change everything for them.
They would have nothing to soothe and wouldn't need to self-harm.
Thank you so much for spending this time with me.
I hope this talk has helped you to feel a bit more informed.
Until next time,
Take care of yourself too.
