No, Self-Harm Isn’t 'Only for Teenagers'

Most people think that by the time they reach 40, they’ll have their life planned out and their goals on the way to being reached. The peak of adulthood seems to be 40. You’re not a young adult who’s not sure of the world but you’re also not ready to retire and settle in to enjoy the life you created.

I’m not sure that any child plans to one day look at their arms as they approach their 40th birthday and see it covered with fresh wounds and old scars.

If we believe the stigma, self-harm is something that teens do out of rebellion. I remember the first time I shared with my therapist that I had purposefully harmed my skin on my hand. “Oh,” she said as she shrugged and pulled her shawl closer to her, “I have a lot of teenage clients that do that.” I don’t think she knew the weight of the words that she dumped on me. There I sat, an adult with teenage daughters, who was struggling to breathe and feeling like an absolute failure as a mother and adult. At that time I was struggling to work, couldn’t remember to make my kid a dentist appointment and some days only got out of bed to make sure my family ate dinner.

I felt like I had waged too many battles to be put back on the level of a teenager, but at that moment it confirmed to me that the war I was currently battling was defeating me. She quickly ran through some different coping mechanisms that might help. I could wear a rubber band around my wrist and pop it really hard when I felt the need or place ice in the palm of my hand to get the same sensation. And yet, I was stuck in a place of shame because those simple words confirmed that I was not capable of acting like an adult.

The wounds on my hands and arms got worse, drawing looks as my arms stayed covered by long sleeves in the middle of the Houston summer. My friends and family silently panicked, not knowing what to do or say to help. It’s easy to hide the depth of emotional pain until it becomes physical. Self-harm made it easy for everyone to see how much I was struggling yet few could accept it. It was in those moments I realized the stigma that surrounds self-harm is extremely fear-based as people stopped being supportive and reacted by walking away or by deeply hurtful responses.

Self-harm is a struggle that few ever experience. It’s not something someone typically wakes up and looks forward to doing on a really great day. Most importantly, self-harm is not discriminate of ages. The emotional pain that makes you want to hurt yourself to help that pain doesn’t just stop making sense when you turn 18. Becoming an adult doesn’t mean that your world suddenly stops hurting and coping skills aren’t magically going to appear when you pay your first rent payment or water bill. Self-harm can happen at any age and people at every age deserve to have the pain they’re walking through acknowledged and supported.

Last year, I changed therapists. Anyone who has ever had to do that knows how stressful and potentially shameful it is to put your deepest hurts and the harmful ways you cope with them out before someone new. I wish I could say that I boldly filled out the intake forms with a full description of the ways I hurt myself when I filled out my age and diagnosis, but I didn’t. Weeks later I stopped hiding the ways I was actively harming during a session and let my therapist see, testing the waters. She didn’t say anything until the day I brought it up. The proof was easily seen on my hands covered by bandaids or the cuff of my long sleeve shirt pulled down to my fingers but she waited for me to speak. Shame flooded me as the reminder that it was only something teenagers did sweep over me time and time again until the day I finally said something.

At that moment, I found the exact support I needed in a few simple words. “I understand,” she calmly said. Blown away, I asked what she meant. Slowly she took the time to educate me on how self-harm works — by releasing some of the pressure and making it easier to keep going during very hard times. She explained that it’s not something she will ever condone but that she’s never going to judge me for it because she has faith in me that, over time, I will develop healthier coping strategies and chose to use them instead.

Many times over the past few months, we’ve had the same conversation. I slink into her office, filled with shame about a self-harm episode that week and she gently leads me through the same reminder. Never have I been treated as a child, or made to feel as though I’m not a grown adult. Week after week, I’m met with care and compassion by someone who isn’t afraid to meet me in the darkness and slowly add a little more light.

Self-harm isn’t bound by age and it’s not healed by shame and condemnation. Walking the halls of my elementary school in the late ’80s, you wouldn’t have seen a crayon drawing of a little girl that said, “When I grow up I want to be in severe emotional pain and have scars on my hands and arms.” This is not what I wanted but this is where I am.

It might have taken me almost 40 years to start working through my childhood trauma but it doesn’t make me less of an adult or make me deserving of shame. If anything, I hope people will educate themselves about self-harm so when they see my scars, they know that I’m a warrior, fighting an extremely hard battle. If you see self-harm scars, whether they’re on a 15-year-old, a 40-year-old or a 65-year-old person, know that they are extremely strong because they’ve fought a war that few would be able to withstand. When someone trusts you with seeing their scars, they are giving you their ultimate trust to see the outward depth of their inward pain. I hope you honor that and them, regardless of their age.