Would you judge self harm scars?

[AliceAbsolum]

Had a hard time as a young person, unfortunately used self harm to cope and now I have hundreds of visible old self harm scars down both arms. Impossible to hide without long sleeves.

Fast-forward 20 years and I live in a niace part of Surrey with DD and DH, Surrey mummy's you know. However....with the weather getting nicer I just cant wear long sleeves everywhere, nor do I want too.

We moved house recently and our road is having an afternoon tea thing today - I'm just going to have to turn up and deal with the looks aren't' I?

What would you think if you saw a 40 year old with old, but significant self harm scars?

Sadly people will judge. I have a long scar from an accident as a teenager on my right arm, and people definitely stare and comment. So I wear long sleeves when out. Linen shirts are my friends in the summer.

According to the NHS:
"Self-harm is most often described as a way to express or cope with emotional distress."

Unlike you, I suffered a number of traumatic events when young. I didn't self-harm, I used other coping mechanisms at the time, none of them healthy. So when I see self-harm scars that makes me immediately empathetic towards that person. It doesn't make me judge them in a negative way or view them as a 'victim.'

My lovely boss has self harm scars and to me I have always admired how she has done so well in life considering how she's must have felt back then. My DD has scars that she tries to cover with tattoos. I wish she didn't.

How would you glean all that from seeing someone’s scars? I’m all for not judging, but I also wouldn’t make up a heroic story, because I simply wouldn’t know the details.

Vile and uneducated way of putting it. Try educating yourself before speaking to your kids about it.

I would think- that poor person has had some trauma. But they are obviously strong and got over it. I’m happy they seem to be in a good place now. In the past I have asked people about their scars, because I’m genuinely interested in people’s stories. I’m respectful if they don’t want to talk about it, but I haven’t had that experience yet. Xxx

I wouldn't judge at all. My daughter has a lot on her thighs and people stare on holiday but thats up to them only we know what she went through and at the end of the day she is here and well and that's all that matters.

Well I think it is vile and uneducated to compare conversations about people with disabilities to conversations about self harm. Disabilities are a fact of life and are not disturbing in the same way that wilful self injury is. If you cannot comprehend the difference then perhaps you need to educate yourself about both topics.

Your comment being deleted for being vile says all that needs to be said. And I wasn’t even commenting on your opinion on whether the two are comparable or not, I was commenting on your disgusting and inaccurate description of self harm.

@ToKittyornottoKittyOh so it was tone policing rather than making a point of any substance. got it!

Not your tone, your words. Clearly it was caused by your total lack of reading comprehension.

Mental Health issues are a form of disability and also a fact of life.

I would think that I hope they’re in a better place now mentally and they’re not struggling anymore. And I’d feel happy for them that they didn’t feel the need to cover up in this heat and instead they wore sensible and comfortable clothes for the weather.

I shared because I still did them because someone else was doing them.

I still have the scars.

I still get treated the same horrible way and receive the same comments or get looked at with pity.

Why I did it doesn’t take away from the treatment I get for it.

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.

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.

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 ✌🏻

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.

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.

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.

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.

@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.

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.