We have the chance to feature in a magazine that champions diversity and the BME community.

So, we’d like to ask if you, as a member of the BME community, if you’d be willing to provide a quote about your experiences. We’d only need your first name, no picture.

• Perhaps you’ve felt it’s harder to ask for help?
• Perhaps you’ve experienced prejudices about self-injury from within the BME community?
• Perhaps you’ve experienced prejudices / racism outside of the BME community, and this has affected your self-injurious behaviour or the ways you seek support?
• Perhaps you prefer online help as you’re unsure how to access support in real-life?
• Perhaps you’re worried about how your family would feel about your SI?

Please <strong>email</strong> me now with a couple of sentences about your experiences or your fears: Wedge@firstsigns.org.uk

Sadly, there isn’t space to publish a lot, so I really would appreciate if you could send me a very short email with a ‘quote’ the magazine can use. Something short.

Please state your name in the way you want it published, just your first name if you like.

Thank you very much

Wedge@firstsigns.org.uk

Jeremy Vine

• Monday 16th November 2009, 1pm
• BBC Radio 2 , Jeremy Vine

We blogged a little when we noticed that the newspapers were calling it ‘assisted’ self-harm which we feel is a confusing term. No one is suggesting that health-care professionals should help a person hurt themselves, rather, we are simply saying that health-care professionals must recognise that they cannot tell a person to ‘stop‘ hurting themselves without first supporting that person to develop and learn new ways of coping with distress.

Self-injury is a valid coping mechanism, and when a person has nothing else to rely on, we should respect that the person has a right to hurt themselves, and that other people do not have a right to stop them. Other people’s care and concern should be expressed in positive support, not negative denial. Positive support includes helping a person move away from self-injurious behaviour over a period of time, learning new things to rely on, and working on the underlying issues.

We must not over-simplify this complex issue; we must focus on the underlying cause of distress and not merely the act of self-injury as a person seeks relief and release. We shouldn’t just assume this is all about cutting either – self-harm is a wide topic, and self-injury can take the form of banging and other ‘easy to do’ behaviours, so it’s not right to focus on ‘giving people razor blades’ because that’s not the whole story here.

Wedge will be saying that it’s not about being ‘allowed’ to hurt yourself, it’s about recognising that we shouldn’t tell people to ‘just stop’ before they’ve been given alternative ways of coping.

It’s a complex subject; certainly people in care need help to move away from self-harm, but forbidding people to use self-injury isn’t the only way forward.

No one is suggesting the need to hand out razor blades carte blanche. We are saying that, as a part of a written and agreed care plan with the patient, there may be times when a person hurts themselves, and that occurrence shouldn’t be punished or forbidden. No one is saying that self-injury should be an easy option, no on is saying that self-injury is the right choice; we’re saying that as a last resort, after discussion, after alternatives have been tried, after counselling, after time, after thought, after all the steps in a person’s care plan have been addressed, self-injury (and then self-care and med attention) may be a stage a person needs. The next stage would be emotional debrief, lessons learnt and counselling.

As part of a structured care plan, created with the individual for the individual, self-injury (and the reduction of reliance upon it) has to be dealt with in a positive manner, not simply denied as if it doesn’t exist.

Ingrained behaviour, habitual long-term behaviour cannot be changed  on ‘Admissions Day’ – these things take time. It is wrong to dis-empower a vulnerable person and forbid them their release and relief before supporting them to make new choices.

We can leave self-harm behind; it takes time and effort, but we can make new choices for ourselves – please help us make these choices, don’t make them for us.

]]> http://blog.firstsigns.org.uk/2009/11/firstsigns-on-bbc-radio-monday-16th-nov/feed/ 4 http://blog.firstsigns.org.uk/2009/10/assisted-self-harm-isnt-assisted-at-all-uk-news/ http://blog.firstsigns.org.uk/2009/10/assisted-self-harm-isnt-assisted-at-all-uk-news/#comments Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:25:01 +0000 Wedge http://blog.firstsigns.org.uk/?p=767 The Guardian, and other newspapers, are reporting that certain hospitals and mental health centres are ‘assisting’ people to self-injure, and going so far as to provide tools to hurt yourself with.

• Link

This is sensationalism. The newspapers are whipping up a storm. We have advised the NHS for many many years that when supporting a person in long-term care that it’s impossible to deny that person the right to hurt themselves. Yes, the right.

It’s counterproductive. If you take their control mechanism away, they just rebel and find other ways to hurt themselves in desperation. By recognising that self-harm a coping mechanism, health care professionals can then provide new ways of coping, and empower a person to make new choices.

FirstSigns supports the idea of respecting people’s choices, even if that choice is not ideal in the opinion of the doctor. FirstSigns supports the idea of providing privacy, and clean tools and materials for self-care after self-injurious behaviour. FirstSigns believes health care professionals should be protected from the distress caused by a person’s self-harm.

(Wedge]

Research research research – we need research – hard facts and data to interpret, to inform and change our behaviour. As a society, our Government, or employers, our health-care workers, need evidence to base their actions on. It makes perfect sense of course – we can’t take action based on whims – we need to know what we’re doing and why. We need to know what has the biggest impact for the buck, so we can spend money wisely and reap the best rewards. But whose statistics do we trust?

Those skin-care adverts on the tele say that 73% of women tested agreed the cream made them appear youthful. Then you read the small print and you find that they tested 35 women. What’s 73% of 35? Hmm, so basically *some* women liked this product after we gave it to them for free for a month, and some others didn’t. It’s hardly relevant to the whole country is it, when they only ask a handful of selected people.

At FirstSigns, we never claim to know how many people in the UK or in the world self-injure or self-harm. We’re asked for the stat a lot – as if knowing whether it’s 100,000 or 150,000 people will help us reach those people.

At FirstSigns, we look for better ways to support our members and help the many thousands of people who visit our websites. So yes, we sometimes ask research questions, and yes, we get statistics from these. We learn a little more about self-injury, and a little more about our members, but we don’t go around claiming that answers from 1000 people represent the country.

We know that there are no statistics that will help an individual in distress.

This isn’t a numbers game; we’re in this because we know, from the inside, how lonely and despair-filled self-injury can be.

So, is the UK happy or sad? With all the research going on all the time (and yes, 3^rd year University Pyschology Students often want to study depression and self-injury) do we know if the UK is getting happier or sadder?

Well, the Guardian commissioned Echo Research to look into boys’ lifestyles and found that:

• 95% believe their career prospects are good;
• 94% are happy in their home and family lives;
• 93% are happy in their social lives;
• 91% are happy in their school and work lives.

Based on 1000 boys.

That sounds pretty happy to me; sounds like parents and teachers just need to worry about less tha 9% of boys then – that’s just three lads per classroom.

The NSPCC might disagree.

The Telegraph reports that the NSPCC finds that 33% of 11-16 year olds are ‘upset, depressed, angry or stressed’.

Well, if the boys are happy, does that mean that the girls are depressed? I don’t think so. I think we’re looking at research bias. I think the Guardian with Echo Research have ‘found’ one thing in one area of society and the NSPCC have found something else in another area.

The NSPCC found that 49% of girls were emotionally distressed ‘most of the time’. Everyone deserves the space to experience sadness, stress and even anger at times (we are emotional creatures after all) but ‘most of the time’ (if true) is worrying.

I’m not going to remind you that ‘more girls turn to self-harm than boys’ because we don’t think it’s true; see our male pages here and our factsheet for men. Stats tell us that more girls hurt themselves than boys, but of course those statistics are created when a girl tells someone they have hurt themselves. What if boys just don’t tell, and just don’t get counted? Anyway, I digress.

The NSPCC found that 20% of children (1,200 children) said it was easier to talk about their true feelings online. At FirstSigns, we’ve always understood this. Self-injury is the ‘hidden affliction’; self-harm is the ‘silent hurt’. We don’t talk. We don’t tell. But we can find space online to open up, to look at ourselves and even inspire others to reduce their self-harm. That’s what our Message Board is about, and we’ve had a fabulously supportive and active community for many years now.

{Wedge}

Of course FirstSigns agreed to help (we always do!) and we sent out a media request straight away. We had a good response and Rosie came back to me to say she would be interviewing one of our members, Izzy, who had kindly volunteered. Rosie also wanted to interview me to get a feel for what FirstSigns does and to chat about our views on self-injury.

Rosie and I had a long chat and discussed many different areas surrounding self-injury, but considering the main focus of the article, I’m not surprised by the quote Rosie chose to publish. I feel the article clearly demonstrates the pressures people can face when they have such very high expectations of themselves, and how that pressure can lead to self-injury.

At FirstSigns we know that perfectionism and the pressure to maintain impossibly high standards is immense, and as nobody is perfect then failure is inevitable. Self-injury can release some of that pressure and provide a sense of relief.

There might be some who would criticise the article for focusing on women, for focusing on only one reason for self-injury, and for predictably printing a picture of Amy Winehouse(!) But although at FirstSigns we see the bigger picture on a daily basis, the important thing is that self-injury is being talked about; and in one of the glossies too!

Yes, we know that there are likely as many men who self-injure as women; we know that there are endless reasons why a person might turn to self-injury in order to cope, and we know that statistics can be questionable. But not so long ago the only media coverage of self-injury was in the tabloids and equivalent magazines, and it almost always focused on teenagers. And before that it was non-existent.

There’s nothing wrong with an article focusing on one area of self-injury, especially one that’s been frequently ignored in the past. So I for one am very proud to be quoted, and for FirstSigns’ web address to be printed, in a mature and awareness raising article, published in a quality magazine. Who knows, maybe it will encourage those male magazines to think about how many of their readers might be hurting themselves too.

Thank you to Rosie for taking the time to talk to FirstSigns and to our member Izzy for volunteering.

If you’d like to read the article you can find it on pages 85 / 86 of the September issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine (out today), and maybe you’d like to share your own thoughts and experiences with us. Your comments are always welcome.

Wedge founded our organisation over seven years ago; and we really are changing the world :)

Audio Comments

Listen to Wedge talk about our new blog and our appearance in Cosmo.

The journalist would ideally would like to find a female participant. She would like to speak to a young person *and* her family about the support they have received to tackle self-injury. Alternatively she would like to speak to a woman who self-injured from a very early age and has now moved away from self-injury.

We are told it will be a very positive article focused on the treatment and recovery process and, if published, the agency will make a donation to the volunteer to thank them for their time. The participant and her family will be able to read and amend the text before publication to ensure they are completely happy with it.

The interview will involve a friendly chat and some photographs in London. However, if the volunteer doesn’t live in London then the interview could take place over the phone and a photographer* would be sent to visit the family pretty much anywhere in the UK at any convenient time.

The volunteer would also need to supply some old photographs* of themselves which would be copied and returned to them.

*FirstSigns does not support the publication of pictures of scars / injuries and we will make it clear to the journalist that no such photos should be taken.

If anyone is interested please email Jules@FirstSigns.org.uk for further details.

Many thanks,

Wedge and Jules

The Solas Theatre Company is performing at The Pleasance Theatre in Islington, and we’ve got tickets for you and a friend / loved one for opening night on Tuesday 10th of June (7:45pm) – all you have to do is agree to review the play (just a few paragraphs) for us – email info@lifesigns.org.uk with the subject of ‘PLAY‘ and we’ll email you back with details.

“A Short Swim in the Air”

Ideally, you might already know The Pleasance and be confident travelling around Islington and London yeah? As we’ve got two tickets for you, we hope you’ll take a friend or loved one, and that you’ll travel together and keep each other safe and secure. No doubt the play deals with the harsh realities of life, and of course it may well be triggering in parts.

Small Print

LifeSIGNS cannot be held responsible for your night out in Islington, we offer these free tickets in good faith, on an understanding with the Production management.