Understanding Self-Harm:
For many people, harming themselves helps them manage difficult emotions, uncomfortable memories, and/ or challenging circumstances. The methods people use, and the reasons people harm themselves can be as varied as our fingerprints.Many who access our service seek support to understand what fuels their self-harming habits and aim to either manage it more effectively or to find alternative strategies to help them overcome these tendencies altogether.Through Harmless support, many clients successfully work through their concerns and learn new techniques that work for them. With this success, it may sound odd that some people may miss self-harming.
“I Really Miss Self-Harming":
Recently in a session a client remarked “I really miss self-harming”. This is what we call disenfranchised grief: Disenfranchised grief is a term used to describe grief that is not considered socially acceptable.Together we explored what they missed about self-harming and discussed alternative measures to satisfy those needs. For anyone who has had similar thoughts, it is important to recognise those emotions, decipher what aspect of self-harm is being missed, and then to explore alternative ways to satisfy those needs.
Any Emotion We Experience is Valid:
It is important to highlight that any feeling or emotion we experience is valid, even with the emotions that others may not understand. There is no shame in missing something that has helped us through a tough time.
By Timothy Jinks – Pluralistic Therapist
Original post: https://harmless.org.uk/2022/11/21/i-really-miss-self-harming-a-note-on-socially-unacceptable-feelings/