Hello
Thank you for your letter. It’s hard to know what’s been happening for you from what you have said. It sounds like there are some tough things going on for you at the moment. I’m glad that you have decided to get in touch to ask some of these questions and tell me a bit about how you have been feeling.
You have asked “what if the person who is harming you is yourself” sometimes people use self harm as a way of coping with difficult feelings. You can find out more about self harm on the ChildLine website.
When someone is self harming it’s really important that they manage to keep their wounds clean and dressed so that they don’t get infected. It’s always a good idea to run any cuts under fresh running cold water.
You are also wondering about how you “overcome” something like self harming? Everyone has different ways of controlling their self harm and managing to stop. Sometimes people use self harm as a way of releasing feelings. You might want to think about talking to one of the counsellors at ChildLine if you feel like you want to hurt yourself and see if getting your thoughts and feelings out by talking about what’s been happening for you might help you to feel calmer and keep yourself safe.
It sounds like you have been having some negative thoughts lately that make you feel as though they are pulling you down. You mentioned voices and said that you seem to have a loud one. Sometimes people hear a voice or voices that are not their own which say negative things. This might not be what’s happening for you. Voice Collective is a project set up to support young people who hear, see and sense things others don’t.
I’m really glad to hear that you feel as though to can stand up against these negative vibes and fight back against your low self esteem. It sounds like there has been a lot going on for you. Childline counsellors are always there for you if you want to talk about anything that is concerning you. They want to be there to support you.
You can contact a ChildLine counsellor 24 hours a day 7 days a week by 1-2-1 chat (like instant messenger) or you can call 0800 1111 (this is a free number even from a mobile and it won’t show up on your bill).
You can also get peer support on the ChildLine message boards. There are lots of encouraging messages on there and ideas from other young people about ways to distract yourself from self harm. Hope that you have found this helpful.
Take care,
Sam