My own personal battle with self-harming is no secret and something I have openly discussed here, on my personal blog, and also on ‘Reson8 Freedom‘ (a fairly new blog dedicated to this specific subject) and to helping others who battle with this.
Additionally through following the blogs of Guild Members I am also aware that several other members have or do battle with this issue and so I thought I would share this article with you all.
NHS Choices – The UK’s National Health Service website – published an article stating that…
“Children bullied during their early years are up to three times more likely to self harm than their classmates,”1
This is it seems taken from a BBC News Report which is…
based on a study that assessed whether children were bullied at several points during childhood, as well as whether they had self-harmed in the months before their 12th birthday.statement made 1
The study in question was …
carried out by researchers from King’s College London and other institutions in the UK and US. It was funded by a number of organisations, including the Medical Research Council.
The study was published in the peer-reviewed British Medical Journal.1
Self-Harming affects more people ( of various ages) than we know and is a very real issue which, in the opinion of this writer, still has associated with it a great deal of stigma and misunderstanding that mental illness has suffered and which has since been reduced in many areas.
I would encourage all members who are interested to check out this article.
Mental Health Writers' Guild 
Reblogged this on Reson8 Freedom and commented:
This article comes from the Mental Health Writer’s Guild and demonstrates that we are by no means alone in our battle with this.
That breaks my heart. Bullying is so rampant right now.
Hi bm
Yes I totally agree. It is so very sad. My son was bullied at school by ojne of his teachers when he was younger and it completely changed him and took us months to get him back to his old self.
Bullying is such a terrible thing.
Thanks for that Kevin. It’s interesting and sad. You know for some reason I have yet to write about my self harm in my blog. I run a FB support group for people who struggle and are trying to recover with it, and I have sure battled it myself but it is the one thing I can’t quite bring myself to write about. Not sure why but I guess I’ll get there one day.
Hi Cate,
I think I understand your not having written about your battle with self-harm and I think may folk still don’t write about it for numerous reasons. Some for fear that to do so might put them back into an unsafe mindset, some for fear that it might put others into that mindset, some because when not doing it they want to remove themselves from it completely and some because of the shame and stigma attached to it.
For me personally I thought lkong and hard and struggled with it for a very long time and even though I do mention it from time to time on my personal blog and even set up a blog dealing with it, it is still possibly the one thing I write about the least. I think writing about it is as counter-intuitive as doing it in many ways.
I am very encouraged to hear about your FB support group and hope you continue in that for a long time. It is desperately needed.
Kind Regards
Kevin
Thanks for your comments Kevin. That actually helps in my thought process over the whole thing and I think your ideas are quite valid. I will keep challenging myself and maybe one day…