Please be gentle - self harm as a feminist issue

I wish you all the best Fluffy. I am glad you feel a bit brighter today. I hope that feeling lasts.

Dear Fluffy, I am glad you are feeling a little better. I hope all goes well with the nursres later.

Dear fluffy :) I don't want to try and influence your thoughts or anyone else here; I really just wanted to wish you well.

Susie Orbach's work was very impactful for me in my younger days, when I had eating disorders, and did actually lead me to fix all my self-harming behaviours (except drinking and smoking, but they weren't damaging my life like the other stuff.) I'm impressed your psychologist recommended her; none of mine have thought to!

It's great to hear you're getting good care and are engaging with it - willingness to learn is what makes the difference :) Go well.

You are embarked upon a long road Fluffy, no doubt about it but exploring the feminist perspective will only increase self autonomy, not decrease it. But it is something to be explored slowly, thought about and discussed at length with all sorts of people.

You have said previously that you have a tendency to intellectualise. You no doubt have explored why this is so be on your guard that feminist reading doesn't become part of this defense mechanism against feeling things rather then knowing them.

Your psychotherapist/psychologist can hopefully share your reading exploration with you in such a manner as to encourage you to start to engage with the messier feeling parts of your womanhood. You are the bare bones (the objective 'cleaner' bits) of your self. But all the messier bits are in there too. And they can be and feel really good too.

I send you love and light Fluffy.

I think it would be a very good idea to share with your care team some of the specifics of this thread. I hope you are feeling stronger soon.

Crossed thread. Good for you fluffy.

We all have a right to our privacy, yes.

But fluffy be cautious about compartmentalising any further than you already have.

Your engagement with your care team is a two way street. They cannot work effectively alongside you if you do not do your utmost to be open with them. By all means keep certain thoughts and feelings private until you feel able to discuss them. But the danger lies in being more open with people who whilst they wish you well and want to support, step over into a level of psychological analysis that suggests a knowledge of you and your situation (as it evolves) that is not really there.

I am not being territorial. It is about you developing and nurturing therapeutic relationships with those in your care team and your family/friends that are not potentially compromised by well meaning people on the internet.

I won't engage in a discussion with other posters about this because it is inappropriate on your support thread. i just wanted to offer my regards and suggestions to you fluffy.

I'd say invalidation of children's feelings is mistreatment of them, even if it's not deliberate, fluffy.

I don't think the care team should be told about this. People, even people who need a lot of help, have a right to their privacy.

Have you told any of your care team about your posts here, Fluffy?

I would encourage you to if you have not because otherwise it could be another way of compartmentalising.

I think general support and a listening ear as offered here is good but beware of criticisms aimed at your care team, family or others directly known to you or involved with you by people who do not have all the information to hand.

It may alienate you from your psychologist and others involved at a time when you are very vulnerable and looking for 'reasons' to disengage.

I wish you luck ( i am an rmn).

I haven't had to deal with self harm, but I have had to deal with rape and also mistreatment in childhood, including complete invalidation of my feelings. I don't think it's possible to walk away from these things unscathed, although I do think it's possible to heal from them.

They know, but your psychologist is telling you to read books like Women Who Run with the Wolves? Hmmm.

The feminist approach would be to deal with and work to heal what actually happened to you and your body, not explore metaphor or myth.

Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery might offer you some insight and support.

Another word for ritualised might be compulsive. The behaviour of people who commit sexual attacks is often compulsive, or at least appears to be.

It's all very well them talking about how you treat your own body including objectification, but the initial lesson to do that most likely came from someone else, most likely the person who hurt you. Where did you learn not to value your own self and body, because that's something that has to be taken away from us, not something that happens naturally.

If you don't mind me asking -and as usual, feel free to ignore me- why do you think that your self-harm has nothing to do with the sexual assault you suffered?

I guess from your response to Nyac that you don't talk about it much. Again, I wonder if you allow your self to talk about it? Do you perhaps that the incident(s) weren't "serious" enough for you to merit sympathy? Or have people been less than sympathetic or understanding about it? Have the doctors brushed it aside as not important?

I am sorry if these questions upset you, I was very sorry to hear that you hurt yourself again last night. I ask only because I would never have linked my own self-harm to the abuse. I never realised that the two had begun almost immediately. It was in the context of me seeking help -I tried hypnotherapy- that I made the connection.

I am also sorry to hear the comments you have received from the nurse. I think they are unacceptable. I am glad that you are strong enough and wise enough to recognise that these aren't helpful nor of any use to you.

Just to add - the objectification and alienation from women's bodies is created by our patriarchal society in order that men as a group (not all men by any means) can physically harm women through rape, domestic violence, sexual assault, child sexual abuse and other forms of violence, without comeback.

Turning a person into an object, means destroying their humanity and denying their feelings. Once that's done to a person, pretty much anything after that is seen not to matter.

Do the medical people treating you know about what happened to you? Or your psychologist?

I'm really sorry that that's happened to you.

Have you considered that you might be reenacting someone harming you in a very ritualised, very controlled and controlling way? Traumatic reenactment is a recognised response to the experience of extreme harm. Not saying that's necessarily the case, but whilst you're looking for answers it might be something worth exploring.

I hope you don't mind me asking you these questions, but you were asking for the feminist angle on it, and that would be from where some feminists would approach what you're dealing with.

So have they said what they think you are about and what your "processes" (is that their word or yours) are about?

I'm really sorry about your hand and that you hurt yourself.

Agree that the nurses suggestions don't sound very helpful. If taking time off work was all that was required then I'm sure your husband would have done it.

Fluffy, this is a hard thing to ask, but self harm is often correlated with experiences of rape and sexual abuse. Have any of your doctors or psychologist asked you about that? Do you have any experiences of those things in the past?

If they admit to have "missed" you (and I am taking you to mean misdiagnosed or wrongly assessed) I think you are right to be upset. Especially if you have to stay in longer.

If you think that they are not listening to you or taking you seriously, it is probably because they aren't. From what I understand, you have had to fight hard so far to get the help you need, it must be incredibly frustrating to still feel that you are not being heard. It must be very hard for you, and I am sorry you going through this.