Self-harm harm reduction resources (Tumblr post version some links are broken on this version, sorry)
This blog provides information for individuals who self-harm on harm reduction, also known as harm minimisation. Self-harm can never be completely safe, but even small changes can make a big difference. My website also has information about self-harm reduction.
Harm reduction can be useful to people who cannot or do not want to quit self-harm yet as well as people working to quit self-harm.
I am not a medical or mental health professional. Non-recovery mental health/vent blogs/etc. are safe to interact with this blog.
F.A.Q. - Please read before sending an ask
[PT: F.A.Q. - Please read before sending an ask]
Q: "What kind of asks do you answer?"
A: This blog is primarily for asks about self-harm harm reduction, but other asks relating to sh are ok as well. Please check your question isn't already answered in the F.A.Q. below before sending it. If your looking for emotional support as opposed to practical advice you would probably find better support elsewhere, check out the resources linked at the top of this post.
Please do not include specifics about injures or how you've hurt yourself unless necessary for the question. If I think an ask includes too much detail that could be triggering I will answer it with certain parts removed. Do not send asks with images of SH or SH tools.
Please make it clear if you would/would not like advice! [Pt: Please make it clear if you would/would not like advice! /end PT] - you can do this by asking a specific question or saying something like "I am/am not looking for advice on this".
Q: "When will my ask be answered?"
A: its currently taking me a week or longer to get to an ask, off topic asks will take longer. Do not send me urgent asks, instead talk to a medical professional or someone else who can help you more immediately.
Q: "Do you answer asks about eating disorders/substance use/etc?"
A: I don't know as much about these things and it's not the blogs focus, but I will try to answer asks about things beside SH. Please do not include specific numbers about eating disorders. You can find info on ED harm reduction here and here.
Q: "How do I treat a cut/burn/etc?" "when do I need to go to hospital?"
A: Info on first aid for cuts, for burns, for bruising, and for bites. If you have poisoned yourself/overdosed call poison control, emergency services (112, 911, 999, 000, etc.), or go to hospital. If you think you need urgent or emergency medical attention, seek it.
Q: "is this infected? How do I treat it?"
A: Information on infections/when to seek care here
Q: "How do I avoid/quit SH?"
A: Check the tag #avoiding sh on this blog or you can find resources for avoiding sh here
Q: "What happens if you go to hospital for SH?"
A: It varies from place to place, but here's how it generally goes based of my own and others' experiences.
Q: "Does XYZ count as self-harm?"
A: If your hurting yourself then yes, even if it doesn't leave a large or visible injury.
Q: "Is it normal for shallower cuts/burns to hurt more then deeper cuts/burns"
A: Yes, closer to the surface of your skin there are more nerve endings which send signals to your brain to make you feel pain. If you cut through the nerves these signals travel along your brain won't receive the signals and won't feel as much pain. These nerves can often heal themselves but sometimes the damage can be permanent causing numbness, chronic pain, mobility issues, etc. If you suddenly stop feeling pain or touch or are unable to move any part of your body after harming yourself seek immediate emergency medical attention.
Q: "Is it safe to injure [part of body]?"
A: Self-harm is never safe (even if your injuries are minor, accidents can still happen) but some areas are safer then others due to having less risk of nerve damage, serious bleeding, scars that affect mobility, etc. Here is a diagram of safer/less safe areas, the outline on the left is a front view and the outline of the right is a back view.
Q: "How do I store/clean my sh tools?"
A: Here is info on self-harm tool safety.
Q: "How do I fade/hide and accept my scars?" "How did I prevent my scarring?" "Why are scars 'bad'?"
A: Here is info on scars.
Tags
[Pt: Tags]
#Off topic - posts/reblogs not about self-harm harm reduction
#Experiences - asks/posts of other people sharing their experiences with self-harm
#Avoiding sh - advice on how to avoid or quit self-harm, such as ideas for alternatives or distractions
#Self care - posts/reblogs about self-care while living with a psychosocial disability/Madness
#Positivity - positivity for people who self-harm or live with a psychosocial disability/Madness
#Polls - polls about how this blog and the website are run
#Maintenance - posts about the blog/website themself
#Asks
#Anon
Trigger warnings tagged as "#tw [thing]", for example "#tw spiders". Self-harm is not tagged for, but "#tw injury description" is used for more detailed description of injuries or sh that may be triggering.
Disclaimers:
This blog does not endorse self-harm, eating disorders, or other behaviours that can be harmful to someone's mental or physical health. Recovery, mental health treatment, and cessation of self-harm is also supported and advocated for (when it is right for the individual) on this blog. Harm minimisation has been recommended by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence as a technique for people who self-harm.
This blog's generalised information is a limited summary of diagnosis, treatment, and/or medication information. It does NOT include all information about conditions, treatments, medications, side effects, or risks that may apply to a specific patient. It is not intended to be medical or mental health advice or a substitute for the medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment of a health care provider. Patients must speak with a health care provider for complete information about their health, medical questions, and treatment options. This information does not endorse any treatments or medications as safe, effective, or approved for treating a specific patient.
probably the worst attitude tumblr unintentionally cultivates is "the world out there is completely dangerous for you and no one can possibly understand you, so you should isolate yourself from it and avoid interacting with it as much as possible"
The main reason I’m pushing for people to stop using the term ‘pedophile’ and instead use the term ‘child sexual abusers’, is because since all discussions of child sexual abuse focus on this idea of an evil person who is just out to get kids because they are sexual attracted to them, it makes it hard for kids who where sexually assaulted by people who don’t fit that description to realize they were sexually assaulted.
It didn’t register for me until recently that my experiences of being forced to strip naked multiple times at the mental hospital to be ‘checked’ when I was 14 was sexual assault, because the people who did it were nurses/doctors who clearly didn’t find me sexually attractive but instead used it as a form of humiliation and control towards children they deemed as ‘unruly’ and ‘uncooperative’ (ie. children who asked to be treated like people). I thought only people who fit into this idea of a child attracted pedo could be child sexual abusers, so I thought my experience didn’t count.
Stepping away from the idea that there is a pedophile boggieman and instead highlighting that anyone can be a child sexual abuser will help more people realize that their experiences are sexual assault.
my stepfather would openly sexually harass me and my siblings at dinner while also loving the fantasy of killing pedophiles. whether he personally found our abuse sexually gratifying was frankly irrelevant to whether it traumatized us. whether he would be considered a pedophile or not doesn't change that he committed sexual abuse of children
I think in his mind there was a type of horrible person out there who does horrible things, and because he didn't think of himself as fitting that category, his actions could not be judged
[Image description: a screenshot of tags thats read "#and hopefully it will also help adults to realise that doing thay shit to kids is **not okay** #the kids you abuse are not going to be insulated from the trauma just because you personally are not experiencing what you are doing as sexual." /End ID]
strong reminder that everything doesn't "happen for a reason". a lot of the time things happen, and it's not a test or a punishment or predetermined. sometimes you get cancer or lose the ability to eat or can't walk and it doesn't have any greater meaning. i know as a species we love pattern recognition to try and avoid bad things from happening but that doesn't mean whatever explanation people make up to rationalise the fact that anyone can be disabled no matter their status or moral character any more truthful
the psych industry and society as a whole is not normal at all towards people who self-harm. people view it as attention-seeking. mental health professionals view it as justification to send you to a “higher level of care” aka incarcerate you. it is seen as a bad/negative behavior that needs to be fixed.
in reality, the concept of self-harm is heavily socially constructed and an issue of bodily autonomy. as humans, we seek out physical pain all the time. we eat spicy foods. we get tattoos and piercings. we engage in BDSM. so why do we forbid self-regulation through pain?
when people are told to cover up their scars, when people are kicked out of DBT support groups for self-harming, when people are conditioned to lie about their self-harm to avoid getting sent to the psych ward, you are telling them that their body is not their own.
the last time i cut myself was roughly a year ago. ironically, after adopting a bodily autonomy mindset around self-harm, i stopped having urges to cut nearly as often because i’m no longer engaging in a power struggle with my own mind over trying to avoid doing a “bad” behavior. i don’t feel like doing it today, but if i do tomorrow, that is okay. because it is my choice to decide what i do with my own body.
the psych industry and society as a whole is not normal at all towards people who self-harm. people view it as attention-seeking. mental health professionals view it as justification to send you to a “higher level of care” aka incarcerate you. it is seen as a bad/negative behavior that needs to be fixed.
in reality, the concept of self-harm is heavily socially constructed and an issue of bodily autonomy. as humans, we seek out physical pain all the time. we eat spicy foods. we get tattoos and piercings. we engage in BDSM. so why do we forbid self-regulation through pain?
when people are told to cover up their scars, when people are kicked out of DBT support groups for self-harming, when people are conditioned to lie about their self-harm to avoid getting sent to the psych ward, you are telling them that their body is not their own.
the last time i cut myself was roughly a year ago. ironically, after adopting a bodily autonomy mindset around self-harm, i stopped having urges to cut nearly as often because i’m no longer engaging in a power struggle with my own mind over trying to avoid doing a “bad” behavior. i don’t feel like doing it today, but if i do tomorrow, that is okay. because it is my choice to decide what i do with my own body.
forgive yourself for the strange things you say, do, the lengths you went to just to isolate yourself or do what you thought was "right", the ways you might've even hurt people during episodes.
you may feel embarrassed, ashamed, guilty. forgive yourself. beating yourself up helps nobody. you're gonna learn to live with it eventually, my lovelies. i promise.
Saying "no" is allowed, saying "no" is important, no matter how someone might react, it's not your job to make everyone happy and go along with every wish people have. Be ok with telling people no.
the more time you spend in active recovery from any given self destructive behavior or addiction the more you understand the common conception of the "relapse" as defined by a broken "streak" to be, like, so bad for one's own well-being that it would be funny if it weren't resulting in just a lot of misery and death
I told my girlfriend to think of quitting vaping as training her endurance by seeing how long she can run before she gets tired, then doing it again and hoping to go further next time. She said it really helped her.
something I've recently learned: if outright positive thoughts are too difficult for you, you can try something called "bridge thoughts" which are essentially thoughts that aren't really inherently negative or positive. things like "maybe im not as embarrassing as i think I am", "maybe im not as ugly as i think" or "maybe someone could possibly find me likeable". if you try to go from "everything is terrible and i want to die" to "i love life and i want to live!" cold turkey a lot of times its just ineffective. you need to take those small steps towards changing your mindset first, and then eventually you can say "i love life and i want to live!" and actually mean it.
If you have a disability caused or worsened by self-harm, eating disorders, substance use, or a suicide attempt you are just as worthy of resources as any other disabled person. Just like how disability has no morality, neither does the cause of your disability.
