Would you judge self harm scars?

Posh area of S England here. In my fifties with self-harm scars on my arms from teens/twenties. No-one has ever judged me, not to my face anyway. Only comment has been from a former manager who said in clear compliment that she was "in awe of how strong I am" having been through it all.

They are not exactly badges of honour @AliceAbsolum - but you are here, you're one of the ones who has made it through those storms, and you are mighty. We all have some sort of scar, whether it's visible or not. I wouldn't judge you. You have absolutely nothing to be ashamed about.

I hope you have lots of lovely times ahead in your new home and community. x

I'd feel sorry for you - but the realistic response is that I'm not a 'Surrey Mummy' where I imagine-on the surface at least-everything has to be nice.

Sorry, OP, in your shoes, I'd cover up.

Great job bringing up kids by avoiding any kind of difficult subject, I’m sure they will become empathetic adults 🙄 If they are tiny, brush it off and they’ll forget in minutes.. if they are older then talk to them about it. It’s not hard to parent well.

I would hope they are doing better now

Im glad things are better for you now

Oh, that sounds complicated, and must be so tough to deal with.

Thank you for sharing that - and I can totally understand that desire. It's not mad or weird at all. I think it speaks volumes about how much you care, and how driven you are by that. It's lovely that she has you - there's nothing quite like family, when you love each other through thick and thin!

Haha, well, I suppose it could be worse than Slimer! (Maybe) 😂

That's kind of you to say, thank you - we have tried so hard, we really and truly have, and it still goes on to be honest. It's complicated because she has had three different mental health diagnoses over the years and rejected them all. She is highly intelligent and that makes it harder, and also has an alcohol and drug addiction - mainly under control - but relapses from time to time.

I have done all I can to understand how she thinks and moves through the world. Haven't told many people this... but I have two (what I call) tiger stripes on my thigh where I even cut myself with a kitchen knife to try and really get to the bottom of why it felt like a release to her. I bet that sounds mad and weird, but when you see someone in pain, that you love, you want to do everything to get on their wavelength in order to try to help. That's how helpless you feel and how much you would do to try and crawl inside her brain and help her.

I'm about to pop into town to send her a birthday card. Even without all of this we are chalk and cheese people - you would never guess we were related and probably wouldn't be mates if we met randomly! - but I love her nonetheless and when my parents are gone, I will be all she has left and I have already have conversations with my folks about the fact that I will do everything I can to keep her safe once they are gone.

Tattoos are fab... but don't go to her tattooist - she wanted one of a 'hungry ghost' as in the Buddhist tradition... but it looks like Slimer from Ghostbusters...

You seem like a great support for her, from what you've written. I kept it hidden from my mum due to complicated issues, so she's very lucky to have you and your understanding. I hope she goes from strength to strength and can look back one day with acceptance, from a place of happiness.

I work with kids and occasionally see someone that has self harmed, it makes me want to cry for them. Obviously I don't! I treat them like everyone else and report it so they can hopefully get some support. I hope you have a lovely afternoon OP.

Thank you for sharing that. It helps me to know how to help DD2 move on and know what to say. She is still very young and ita still very fresh so am sure she will learn herself how to deal with it.

Thank you - that's very kind. I'm glad that your sister is working through her feelings around the scars. It really is a difficult thing to wrestle with in the aftermath, sometimes for years. There can be a lot of anger and frustration for a very long time, as you come to understand that you've moved on and begun to heal, yet you've permanently inscribed this pain into your skin - there's always a visual reminder.

Tattoos are a good way to soften that, and something I'd consider if I had the money.

It sounds like you and your family have been amazing supports to her, which can make such a difference

My sister calls hers battle scars... although has covered them all up (to an extent and on one arm) with tattoos. I think she's very conflicted on how to view them. Totally agree with that point about pride - it is a double-edged sword.

Acceptance and neutrality with sadness is one of the most profound things I have ever read on here. You write so succinctly yet brilliantly.

I really hope that if I met you in real life I wouldn't even think about the scars, I would just say hello to a fellow human.

I don't think saying people should be proud of their scars, or consider them battle scars, is always helpful, either (although I understand it may be for your DD).

I'm certainly not proud of mine - they represent the immense pain that I suffered through as the result of CSA and other traumas. I'm not proud of something that I only did to myself because I was sexually abused as a child, even though I got through it.

Acceptance and neutrality, with a dash of sadness for young me, is where I've landed after two decades, and it's the healthiest place to be.

Being proud of the scars in any way is (for me at least) also dangerously close to seeing that destructive coping mechanism as positive, and that could potentially cause relapse if a trauma ever occurred to stress me to that point.

Your whole post is judgemental - how can you not see that?! You would 'know what they meant' - no you don't, people self-harm for different reasons. You can't see inside people's minds to know how or when or why they self-harm. All you can possibly know is that at some point in time, that person was distressed.

And as for people failing in their life - my sister has scars... she was all we spent time and money on for twenty years - so how dare you even think that people who self-harm don't have family love or support. Same goes for health services - guess what, people can have all the access but don't engage with services,

Your whole post is judgmental and it's really pissed me off - clearly in your mind there is only one type of person who self-harms for one type of reason who has no family or mental/physical health support. How bloody wrong you are. And frankly offensive in your ignorance.

My sister is 46 and has serious scarring up both arms from self-harm. Whenever I see others I just think as I do of her - thank goodness they are here and alive. And that is where my speculation ends. My sister tried to kill herself seven times - twice were very nearly successful, touch and go in A&E. You are entitled to exist in the world however you wish and if others judge your scars, I imagine they are the same ignorant people who think they can write your life story for you. Who say "the reason(s) she did this must be X!" and they are the worst, most unfeeling and self-centred people. There are a million reasons why people cause harm to themselves and they do so in many ways. Battle scars are battle scars - none of my business how they came about.

I would think bravo you for coming out the other side clearly healthy and functional.
My DD2 is also covered in scars and I know the distress and awful mental health that went with them, and am so very proud she has come out the other side. I know she still battles it every day but with age has come better ways of dealing with her distress. I tell her they are battle scars that she should be proud of.
And so should you 💪

Judge isn’t the right word. I would notice and know what they meant.

If you just met me or my daughter, you would think we were just privileged women with all the stereotypes that come with that. In many ways we are. We are also both autistic and struggle with serious anxiety. Really the only thing that sets us apart is the ability to access mental health support in a timely manner.

Most likely I would be thinking about the fact that the people in your life and the system failed you. When you needed a better solution, it wasn’t available.

Someway I agree with this too. I have gone through a lot, I don’t have visible scars but if someone comes to me, after knowing my story, saying they understand what I went through and they admire me so much, especially if they say “I don’t know how you coped, I wouldn’t have survived that”. I don’t feel compassion, I feel pity and with that an urge to retort with something unpleasant.

@neverbeenskiingYup of course I would be fine with being near her in a public space, and my children being near her (as Ive said three times now) and I agree that your answer to any questions is a good one! What I wouldn’t do, is explain to my young children about self destructive coping mechanisms like self injury. They don’t need to know about that until much older and I think it’s wrong for the OP to take issue with that.

People definitely do judge & it's not a minority of people either.

You only need to read through the threads where BPD or EUPD comes up to realize the scale of stigma of women in distress.

To be fair I don't think parents who think self harm means "chopping yourself up to feel good" should be teaching their children about it, since they clearly don't understand it.

No one is forcing you to sit your small children down and have a conversation about self harm purely by existing in a public space with scars. If your child asks a question about someones scars you could simply say "I don't know why that person has those scars and it's none of our business", both of which are true.

I think it's interesting the assumptions people make -

That someone is 'extra' strong for self-harming? Not necessarily.
That they were abused? Possibly not.
That they are brave? Maybe they just don't care.
That they are in a better place now, mentally? They might not be, but just use different coping mechanisms.

I would not judge. But you cannot control how other people are. The fact is some will note it, gossip, or otherwise be unpleasant. You won’t change them so I would get on with it. Very few us see out life without some trauma, but getting on with life is better than hiding.

What you say to your kids about anything isn’t other people’s problem. Sure, avoid whoever you want, as is your right. I know who I’d want to avoid in this scenario ✌🏻

Of course! I totally agree. But we are talking about self harm, which is not synonymous with mental illness. We should not shame parents for not wanting to teach young children about self harm, as the OP did when she essentially said that shielding young kids from knowing about self harm is akin to avoiding talking about people with disabilities.

I stand by my original comment which is supportive of her wearing what she wants- but I don’t agree with her challenging parents who don’t want to teach children about self harm. Let parents be the ones to navigate this with their own kids.

I saw the comment before it was deleted.

My mum has a similar view and misunderstanding about SH, and is why I kept it hidden from her for years and still hide it even now.

Comments like that just show stigma about poor mental health is still alive and well. I hope PP's kids don't end up suffering themselves and find themselves not able to open up to their own mum because of her archaic views.