self harm

(Guest post by Tinkerbell)

I read a posting on the site about a person not sure about doing mental health nursing course due to their self-harming scars.  To put your mind at rest (hopefully!) you wear your own clothes at work so can wear long-sleeved tops.  In first year in England we have insights in to adult nursing which does mean you wear the nursing uniform but it is not for long (8 weeks) and just remember what the final goal is that you have been inspired to do this type of work.  Also, the insight in to this issue will give you understanding and compassion of people who struggle with themselves with mental illness.

I also have some scars on my arms and I won’t say that it has not caused me at times distress and regret.  However, I never ever thought in a million years I could train to be a mental health nurse as had a very chaotic life that involved an eating disorder and addiction.  What helped me was that I wanted a normal life and had to try to not prevent my arms from living life to the full. 
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Following on from my earlier post about emo, I think I’ve give a real-world clinical example, dealing with a self-harming emo kid.

A quick caveat before I do. Teenage self-harming is not an “emo thing”. We see plenty of cutters in CAMHS, and the bulk of them are not emos. Chavs cut themselves too. In fact, some kids cut themselves despite not being part of any fashion clique at all. It’s almost as if self-harm were a mental health issue rather than a fashion trend. Strange, that.

Anyway, let’s bring in our emo. He’s 15 years old, and in honour of My Chemical Romance, we’ll call him Gerard.
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Here’s an unusual research paper from the British Medical Journal (PDF file) entitled, Prevalence of deliberate self harm and attempted suicide within contemporary Goth youth subculture: longitudinal cohort study.

Yes, it’s a research study undertaken to find out whether or not goths really do cut themselves and attempt suicide more than the rest of us.

And the results?
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I thought we could have a category entitled “Great stupid ideas in mental health.”

To get the ball rolling, let’s have a look at that fantastic invention, the No-Harm Contract.

If you haven’t come across these before, this is a bit of paper that patients are asked to sign, promising not to kill themselves or self-harm.

Because if there’s one thing we can’t have involved in psychiatric services, it’s people who are a risk to themselves.

To give an idea of what they look like (and I am not making this up in any way shape or form), I’ve copied and pasted one below:

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