Friday 5 November 2010

Self-harm

I found this flow chart of the Serenity Prayer posted on Father Simon's Blog .  Having had a lovely lie in this morning trying to finish a great novel that I have been reading for a few weeks.  I got up after the children had all left for school to find my dear husband in a bad mood.  One of the things that was bothering him was the fact that our two girls had assured him last night that they had both cleared their 'floordrobes'.  This morning he had discovered that they hadn't.  On further investigation of the state of their rooms he found a pair of scissors in our Eldest's bed.  She has been known to self-harm in the past before and around the time she came to us 18 months ago.  We have been able to talk about it in the past, she has recently asked me about getting stuff to try and make her scars less obvious.  My husband then tells me that she seems to be continually asking if we are going swimming at the weekends and saying she doesn't want to (not something we do at all regularly).

So - do I add these things up, scissors in bed + talk of not wanting to go swimming + talking about self-harm = self-harming again?

I have spent the last two hours wrangling with this, how am I going to approach it?  I was completely convicted at the youthwork summit a few weeks ago when a speaker for a self-harm charity showed us some videos.  I realise that my attitude to it in the past of being purely an attention seeking, doing it because others are doing it, has not been at all helpful.  Having this attitude made me deal with it in a very strict 'do it and you can't do that' sort of way.  If she is self-harming again can I really do what all the charities advise me to do - just listen and support her to find distractions?

Then I looked at this flow-chart.  My thoughts have been all about what can I do,  I have not stopped once ask God to intervene.  If I am to receive the serenity of knowing I can not resolve this issue for her then I must trust God to do it - so maybe I have finally found the WISDOM I needed this morning.  Thanks be to God! (and to Father Simon for posting that prayer!).

4 comments:

  1. So hard for you, so worrying. I will be praying for wisdom for you and healing for your precious niece. XX

    ReplyDelete
  2. Joining you in prayer, dear Jane. Thank you for your honesty and vulnerability in posting this. I have two boys who seem to have this proclivity, and I would appreciate your prayers for us and them, too.

    With an across-the-pond hug,
    Susanne

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for your loving thoughts ladies, Susanne I'm sorry to hear about your boys and certainly will be praying.

    Just to update we have had a conversation and it the self-harm has returned very dramatically but we have talked and not shouted, praying that this continues.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Continuing in prayer for your family, Jane.

    With hugs and prayers,
    Susanne

    ReplyDelete