The Cutting Board http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:01:16 +0000 60 http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php/topic/33946-medics-and-self-harm/


I’m a self harmer and I’ve decided I want to use my experiences to try to give health care professionals a better understanding into self harm. I am not sure how to go about this – so maybe you could be of some assistance.

In no way is this letter meant as a complaint for the treatment I have received – I am very grateful for all the medical help I have received and have a lot of respect for medical professionals, I just want to use my experiences to help other people. I have needed medical treatment on numerous occasions after cuts, burns and overdoses and whilst I’m very grateful for time and effort put into my treatment I feel that a lot of health care professionals completely lack understanding of self harm.

Most of the doctors and nurses who have treated me have been professional and helpful however on occasion I have come across doctors or nurses who really have no understanding of self harm at all. They’ve talked down to me, talked to me as if I’m stupid and wasting their time and treated me like I’m attention seeking. They’ve made me feel so stupid and pathetic that it’s just made me want to go straight home and self harm again.

I feel guilty for asking for help after self harming and I appreciate how hard and frustrating it must be to repeatedly patch up people like me after self harm, who medics know will be back time and time again. I always feel the need to apologise for taking up time with something that’s self inflicted when the time could be used to help someone who is ill through no fault of their own. I realise doctors are trained to save lives and make people better, and doctors in A & E deal with serious illness and horrific accidents, so it must seem perplexing why someone would want to deliberately injure themselves.

Some of the comments made by medics I’ve been treated by have actually left far greater scars (emotionally) than the physical scars left by my self harm. Here are a few examples of things that have been said to me: One psychiatrist said to me I’ve had years of therapy and I was getting all the help available so he couldn’t understand why I still wanted to self harm which just made me feel pathetic and a time waster. A doctor in A & E told me not to go back there after taking tablets. Several nurses have just put on steri-strips without closing up a gaping wound and one nurse told me there was no point in having steri-strips or stitches as I am already badly scarred. I have been told my behaviour is attention-seeking. I have been told I’m selfish and manipulative. I have been made to feel like I’m a time waster when I’ve overheard nurses and doctors in A & E saying things like “oh its her again, what stupid thing has she gone and done to herself this time”. A GP from my surgery once said to me that I must like feeling how I feel as I just keep self harming and don’t do anything to make myself feel better, which was rather demoralising and untrue. I’ve overhead paramedics talking about me while they were waiting to hand me over to the nurses saying how people like me are time wasters and how we don’t help ourselves. Such comments just discourage me from seeking help again.

I am sure all self harmers know what they do to themselves is wrong and a maladaptive coping mechanism but when someone feels bad enough to want to hurt themselves the last thing they need is to be told they’re stupid for hurting themselves, to be told they’re attention seeking, to be told just to stop doing it. If it really were that simple, people like me would just stop self harming overnight. I certainly don’t self harm for attention, a lot of the time I don’t get medical help for what I’ve done, including overdoses.

I am sure this is true for a lot of people who self harm, but I have very low self esteem and self worth and being talked to as if I’m stupid and attention seeking just adds further to an already delicate frame of mind. Self harmers need to be treated with privacy and not have their self esteem and confidence knocked down even further. Whilst a stony silence while you are being treated feels awkward and uncaring, after self harm most people probably do not want to enter into an in-depth discussion of why they did it and their life story and why they started self harming in the first place. It is often just enough to check that you are getting the right help for the problem.

I was treated at the walk in centre yesterday for a burn and the nurse I saw was most professional and helpful. She asked me why I did it without probing too deeply and upsetting me further and she checked I was getting the right help and fully explained what she was going to do and gave me advice to follow to look after the wound. She didn’t make me feel like I was wasting her time or feel guilty for asking for medical help. If only more medics treated self harmers in such a way.

I am unsure sometimes of the reason why I self harm but I, like a lot of self harmers have been subjected to years of sexual abuse. My reasons vary from self hated and wanting to punish myself, to being addicted to self harm and needing a release. The reason for self harm is often part of a deep routed psychological illness or past trauma and some health care professionals just have no understanding at all of mental health problems and I’m sure they wouldn’t get away with treating a physical illness with the same lack of respect and hurtful damaging comments.



In conclusion, the main problem is when a self harmer is treated, who responds to distress and upset by injuring themselves, when the medic treating them makes damaging comments which upsets them further and they responds to this upset with further self harm.



]]> Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:01:16 +0000 http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php/topic/33946-medics-and-self-harm/ http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php/topic/33828-i-needed-to-dump-this-somewhere/ Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:00:56 +0000 http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php/topic/33828-i-needed-to-dump-this-somewhere/ http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php/topic/33736-just-wondering/
because my counsellor did and it really kinda upset me for some crazy reason and i pushed the boundries of his permission going really deepp

:/



]]> Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:51:31 +0000 http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php/topic/33736-just-wondering/ http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php/topic/33629-flipped-out-saturday/ :Trigger::Trigger:


I flipped out.
Yup.
There's something about when major stuff gets moved in the house that makes me feel like my brain has just been stuck in a blender.
There's a certain point at which the things-not-being-in-the-right-spatial-location-ness just sends me into a fit.
Clutter, mess-that I can stand, so long as it's immobile clutter. New or migrating clutter is not good.
I don't know why I am like this.
I wish I weren't.

So I'm stressed. Biology class, a Psych paper I have to do, Mom moving out and leaving us to pay for the utilities ourselves now, having to go to Mexico for surgery.
Then my wife "moved some things" while I was at work.
As in, she tore apart three rooms, leaving random tools/dumpster-dived stuff strewn everywhere across three rooms.
Threw my art supplies in a box in our bedroom,
Blocked access to one of the refrigerators and left it that way...
She warned me, I tried to be calm, but then when I got up to go to work Saturday I couldn't find some of my allergy meds, found my brother had taken my shampoo with him, tripped over a bunch of crap left on the floor, had to fight with junk to get my food out of the fridge...

So my wife had asked me to figure out where I wanted things and leave a note.
I left a 4-page screaming nastygram.
With knives driven through each of the nastygram pages into my desk.

That wasn't enough for me-I still had this insane, buzzing rage...
So I grabbed my spare computer keyboard and smashed the living daylights out of it.
Not enough.
So I pulled one of the knives out of the desk, stabbed at my left arm with one of the (very dull) knives,
Then stuck it back into the desk surface, as it wasn't what I wanted.
Then I went, broke the blade out of one of my razor cartridges,
Did a whole bunch of slicing into the skin of my leg.
Nothing that won't fade in a few months, no stitches necessary, etc.

I was very much relieved afterwards.
I put my uniform on and went to work,
Although I deliberately made myself not eat.
Since my usual coping skill is to binge,
So I did the opposite.

I don't think I've cut in over a year. Sigh.
And I'm bruising so easily I'm beginning to wonder if I'm anemic.
My razor cuts turned purple at the edges.
Plus, my wife thought I was threatening her with the knives.
I was just being emphatic, I wasn't thinking about threatening her.
I will never harm her.
I was just going temporarily berserk and committing some property damage on the desk
It's my stuff (including the kitchen knives). I reserve the right to smash it in a foaming fit.]]> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:37:25 +0000 http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php/topic/33629-flipped-out-saturday/ http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php/topic/33610-appointments-with-regular-doctors/
Has anyone had any similar experiences?

-C]]> Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:37:41 +0000 http://www.crazyboards.org/forums/index.php/topic/33610-appointments-with-regular-doctors/