Sarah describes her older daughter as a delightful, lovely child who changed when she was fourteen into a sad, moody, introspective person. She had moved into the senior school where she behaved in an angry, attention seeking manner. She started pushing some of her friends away and had a troubled relationship with a boy who was an Emo and encouraged a dark outlook on life. One night Sarah’s daughter called Childline saying she was going to harm herself and the police came to the house, although by then she was asleep and had not hurt herself. Soon after this Sarah noticed scratches on her daughter’s arms. She says this was horrible and frightening as she had no previous experience of self-harm. Sarah was reluctant to go through her GP as she did not want her daughter being labelled, and she wanted to get practical help straight away. She consulted the school nurse, who was very helpful and put Sarah in touch with a private psychologist. Sarah says it was good for her daughter to be able to talk privately to someone she had confidence in; Sarah herself felt she was included as much as she needed to be in her daughter’s treatment. Her daughter is now much happier and has not harmed herself for several months, although Sarah is worried that she may revert to self-cutting if things go wrong.

Sarah has always had a good relationship with her daughter, so found it difficult when she did not want to talk about her problems. They set up a diary system whereby if Sarah’s daughter was feeling unhappy or tempted to self harm, she would write this down and leave the diary on her mother’s pillow. The family also devised some useful distraction techniques, including giving her a bag full of different gloves which she had to put on in order if she felt like harming herself.

Sarah’s daughter’s self harm has had a big impact on the family. All three children go to the same school, and Sarah’s younger daughter, who hates any kind of attention or fuss, is uncomfortable when other children ask her about her sister’s visible wounds. Sarah and her husband are reluctant to leave their daughter alone so they think twice about going out for an evening or an overnight stay. All the family find it hard to understand the behaviour. Sarah says her husband finds this particularly difficult and copes by ignoring it as much as he can, although he is a very loving father and their daughter knows he is supportive.

Sarah hasn’t talked to many people about her daughter’s self-harm, partly because it’s embarrassing and she feels there’s an implication of failure as a parent, but she has some really good friends who have been very supportive. One of her friends is a GP, who reassured her that as her daughter has had a good start in life she is likely to get over the self-harming behaviour and return to being well in future. Sarah finds this very comforting. She started looking on the internet for information about self-harm, but found many gloomy and depressing forums which did not offer any constructive advice and made her feel worse. At one point she telephoned Parentline when she needed to talk to someone, and found this a very positive experience.

Sarah would have liked more accessible information about self-harm, and resources with practical guidance about what is helpful, and what is likely to happen if you consult your GP, including how you will be treated as a family and the implications for other children. She says it would be useful to hear about other people’s experiences, and to know that children do get past this to give you a bit of hope from the depths of despair’.