Vicky

Self-harm was never brought up in school. I remember a girl at school committed suicide but still no-one talked about it. I never really felt like I could talk to anyone about that sort of thing, apart from my twin sister.

When I was 16, I dropped out of college, and started drinking a lot. It was pissing my Mum off, and made it hard to talk to her. A lot of really bad things happened to me over the next couple of years, but I just kept it to myself. I thought everyone else has their problems, what’s so special about mine? Slowly it got worse and worse and worse, because I was just feeling sorry for myself all the time; I wasn’t breaking the cycle. But I didn’t realise what I was doing to myself at the time.

I moved to uni, and found myself feeling like I had no-one to talk to. I went from sharing everything with my twin, to being all on my own. It was really hard to adjust to, so I became more and more introverted, which really meant I had no-one to talk to. Everyone else was enjoying themselves and I couldn’t. I felt like an outcast.

I started feeling suicidal.

I just lost motivation and drive to do anything. Get out of bed, wash. Go and buy food to cook and eat a meal. I didn’t feel lIke I cared about myself any more. I just hated myself. I can’t remember how it got that bad. I didn’t notice it happening, it just spiralled really quickly out of control. I think it was that I was in my comfort zone; I was so used to feeling that way, that I was frightened to feel any other way. I knew I was in a bad place, but I couldn’t think of how to put that into words to other people. I struggled seeing everyone else so happy while I was at rock bottom. I just couldn’t relate to anyone around me.

I can’t talk to helplines, because you can’t see their reactions. I’d rather talk to someone face to face. My current housemate, feels similarly to me and so she knows how to react to me whenever I’m feeling that bad. That’s been really helpful.

I don’t know why I stopped myself from self-harming, because I really wanted to. I remember just lying in my room for hours and hours, for weeks on end, just thinking to myself, staring at the ceiling and thinking “dont dont dont”. I just had to sit there and focus all my energy, all my self control, on not doing it.

I finally spoke to my tutors at uni, who got me in to see a counsellor. It was something to keep me going. I felt accepted. I felt like I was allowed to talk about everything to her.

Because of issues from my childhood, they then referred me to psychologist, who gave me psychodynamic psychotherapy. It sounds fancy, but it’s basically where you project your feelings on to the therapist and then deal with those feelings. It was really hard, but I was excited to finish my sessions, and get out there to face the world.

The psychology sessions helped me to accept that bad things had happened, and deal with how I felt about them. It made me think: “I’m letting this define my life. I don’t need to anymore. I can either let this define my life, ruin my life and continue to ruin my life or I can get over it, get on with it and find a way to get through it.” And I did.

I had to learn how to not be the way I’d been for so many years, and figure out how to be a different way. How to not feel and think the way that I was used to, and break my cycle of thought. To do something else. But the most difficult bit was: “What do I do instead of that?” So instead of feeling sorry for myself, I made the decision to not feel sorry for myself. I had to tell myself “Is this worth it? No.”

I started being sure of myself, not doubting my own thoughts and choices.

Now, I know that if I need to be sad about something, I’ll let myself be sad about it. And I don’t punish myself for feeling like that. I understand now: it doesn’t matter, it’s done. I can’t change that; it’s happened.

You know in the film ‘Cool Runnings’? There’s a bit where he looks in the mirror and says “I see pride, I see power. I see a badass mudda, who don’t take no crap off nobody”. I say that in my head! Over and over again. It makes me feel like I can do anything. It sounds really cheesy, but it works for me.

I remember when I felt so down, and people were saying these kinds of things to me, I couldn’t believe them, because I thought I couldn’t get there. I thought “I’m never gonna get to that point, I don’t know HOW to get to that point.”

There’s a big mountain 30 miles down the road. I didn’t think I could get to the top of it, but I made myself climb up it. I got half way up and thought “Oh my God. I can’t do this.” But then I told myself: “No, you need to do this. Because you will have achieved something today that you didn’t think you could do.” I told myself that all the way to the top.

I apply that to any situation. I tell myself, if I can climb that mountain, when I didn’t think I could, then I can deal with whatever it is I’m going through today, however bad.

I think you can do anything if you believe that you can do it. You have to have a lot of belief in yourself. That’s the hardest part, I’ve found.

I do hospital radio. It helps people feeling ill, which helps me feel better. I like to think that I’m keeping people alive. I love playing songs that might help people in hospital keep going. I’ll play anything from The Beatles to The Cure, from Architects to The XX.

The best realisation I’ve ever made was that I’m NOT the only person who feels like this. It helps to know that there’s someone out there who’s been through similar experiences.

– Vicky