My journey of discovering, learning and investigating is slowly coming to an end.
When I first started this process, my personal experience was what motivated me to try to better understand the complexities of self-harm and how best to support somebody struggling. It’s now been 5 months since my initial idea started to formulate in my head, and I feel like my knowledge and understanding really has skyrocketed since then.
This project has been both emotionally and mentally straining- thinking about and researching self-harm for months on end was always going to be tough. I wanted to focus on a topic that I’d felt had been under-covered in the media, something that would make me step outside my own comfort zone and really challenge myself in my abilities. This process has taught me how to remain professional in a sensitive environment, and how to stay detached from the stories I was hearing first hand- although this was one of the hardest parts.
Meeting Satveer Nijjar at the very start of this process was the first true learning curve, where she and I exchanged personal stories and I really felt a shift in the way I thought about self-harm and the deeper meanings it can have for somebody. Speaking with a self-harm expert was exactly what I needed to aid my own understanding, which put me in the right headspace for what was to come.
There were a few key points I’d learnt from Satveer which stayed with me, one being that self-harm is just a display of deeper and underlying distress. She placed emphasis on seeing beyond the self-harm, meaning we need to look past the physical injuries to be able to tackle the underlying issue. I felt these points in particular were vital for being able to support somebody in the right way.
I also found out that self-harm has a specific function for each person, for example a release, a self-punishment, a communication, a control. These could differ for every individual struggling, and this helped me to learn that every story is different, and that in turn means that every recovery will be too.
It wasn’t until I started to hear from the women I’d spoken to with self-harm stories that the realisation hit. A study published in the Lancet Psychiatry says that only half of those who self-harm get help, and it was really quite troubling to know that there are people all over the country with similar stories who are still to this day in distress, and could be dealing with that alone.
My end goal to this journey has remained the same throughout this process, and that is to be able to help somebody who is currently, or might need to in the future, supporting someone who self-harms. I hope my documentary can increase their understanding like it did mine, so that we all feel like we can support someone in a better, more effective way.
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