Help your parents to help you.

When my dad and I were working towards recovery together we had many many fights about me harming. He couldn’t understand how I was feeling and in turn I couldn’t understand how he was feeling. He helped me to understand how he was feeling and so i had to help him understand how he was feeling. Because he had never suffered from self-harm he was not able to understand and after a while I began to accept that. He did not know how to help me and so it was my job to help him to help me.

To do this i had to explain to him why i was self-harming even if he wasn’t able to understand it I had to tell him why so that we were able to talk about things. Once we were able to talk about self-harming we began to talk more. He moved on and began to not get angry and annoyed at me for harming but he showed me how upset it made him, he showed me that he cared and he showed me that he wanted to help me. That was enough for me to be able to decide that I needed to help him to know how to help me.

You need to write down what you think would help you and how your parents can help you. Let them know that if you look sad or upset what you would like them to do to help you. Talk to them about how you would want them to react or what they should ask you if they see now scars or fresh self-harm marks. Let your parents know how much information it is ok for them to share with people who ask about marks they have noticed, let them know if they are allowed to tell people or if you would rather tell them yourself.

It’s simple to help your parents help you. You just have to think about the ways that they think that they are helping you and whether or not it is really helping you. Don’t be afraid to tell your parents what they can do to help. It won’t upset them because most of the time they are confused about what they can do to help. Sometimes they might just need you to tell them what they can do to help you.
Think of all the ways that you would like to be helped and write them down. Show your parents and ask them if there are things on the list that they would be able to help you. Helping your Parents to help you will make things easier for you and less stressful between you and your parents. From my own experience I found that me and my dad began to fight less because we were on the same page and we both worked together to help me overcome my self-harm.

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