My experience has been that professionals like therapists and doctors react to being told about my SI much less than I expect. Neighbors and other laypeople who don't have any experience with it are the ones who freak out. My most recent T knew about my self harm from the beginning, but really never focused on it. At one point I was cutting more and more, and my depression got pretty bad, and he might have asked about SI a couple of times then and maybe once later on. He did want me to see about getting on prescripton medication, so I made a doctor appointment to discuss that. My doctor asked about my symptoms, and I told her that I was a self injurer. She didn't say anything about that, or ask questions about it or want to see wounds and scars. In fact, I told her that I didn't really want to be on medication and that I was only there because I told my T that I would go to the appointment. She didn't pressure me about meds or anything - just said that she would like to help me if I wanted help, and that was it.

For a while my T even said that maybe cutting and scratching was just a quirk that I might decide to live with. He never pressured me to stop until it started escalating. Then he did tell me I had to stop doing it.

The only time when anything happened to me that was against my will was when neighbors saw me after I had scratched up my face and they called the police. That was a low point for me and I was actually suicidal, but had chosen SI instead and worn myself out with that. They put me in jail for a couple of hours and brought in a counselor, who said that they should let me go.

They can't force you to be hospitalized unless you are a danger to self or others, and as long as you are not threatening to damage yourself seriously right away they aren't going to force any kind of treatment on you that you don't want.

<font color=orange>"They accused us of suppressing freedom of expression. This was a lie and we could not let them publish it." ... from the Director of Censorship...

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