How to broach issue of self harming with DD

[Greenplant7]

Started secondary school in September, bright friendly girl, reasonably high achiever. For reasons I won't go into (to avoid outing her) I am pretty certain that I have just discovered evidence that she is self harming. I am in tears and wonder how I broach it with her when she gets home from school shortly. Any suggestions gratefully received

Have a look on here for advice for what to do (and not do)
happymaps.co.uk/help-directory/help-in-a-crisis/self-harm/

💐

Thanks will do now

I know it's a shock but they seem to go through this phase where it's the 'done thing'. hopefully it's not as serious as you think. When my son was that age most of his friendship group were doing it and it seemed to be an attention thing
Hope she's ok op

Thank you pigwood. She came home with a friend and has gone to the park which is probably for the best really as I need to be more calm and collected when I actually talk to her about this. For reasons I won’t go into I was already feeling emotional today, so need to be able to separate out the two issues. My other child has had mental health issues for some time which has taken a huge amount of effort and patience to deal with and I can’t believe that we are now going to go through this, feel so overwhelmed

She’s denied it all (sweared on her/my/siblings etc lives) despite me looking and following the guidance, acting calmly, not telling her off. Not sure where I got from here, other than being viligant.

How is it going ? Maybe your discovering it has given her the jolt needed . Honestly, they do stuff like taking pictures with blades etc to post to friends . I'm really hoping it's just this and nothing more serious. She's probably mortified you found the evidence

Thanks @pigwood for following up. I remained calm and showed her the evidence and she refuted everything. She said that she had fallen over at school and these had caused the cuts, and also cut her finger on a separate occasion. We had a traumatic family event when she was 7 and she pulled out her hair then, so I always wondered whether she would do something similar again. She however seems happy at home and at school, nice friends and we have a nice life, but she can sometimes feel left out in our large family so not sure if that could be the cause. I’ve updated the controls on her phone so will keep an eye on her social media use.