When I first started working in mental health back in 2013, I was warned not to tell my personal story as I risked being ‘the case study’ not ‘the expert’.
‘Do you really want to be known as self-harm girl?’ asked a former colleague.
‘No,’ I lied.
The truth is, for years, that label was the closest I ever came to feeling like I had an identity.
*Content warning: This article contains information some readers may find triggering.*
Fast-forward to now, and the headlines around self-harm are depressingly familiar to what I experienced growing up – a lot of horror but little understanding.
Recently, a primary school in Dundee was forced to send letters home over a self-harm game where children were competing to see who could ‘cut the deepest’.
Similarly, several UK secondary schools sent letters home over fears of a Russian suicide game, the Blue Whale Challenge, spreading here.
This competitiveness to outdo others now has its own name – ‘upping’ – where more extreme acts… Read the full story
from Metro http://metro.co.uk/2018/03/01/self-harm-awareness-day-mental-health-issues-can-become-competitive-7349882/
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