I'm really lucky both my T and my pdoc are very well educated about self - injury and don't treat it as a big deal. They both simply see it as another of my maladaptive coping mechanisms. I feel totally comfortable saying that I'm having a lot of urges to cut with them and then talking about the feelings associated with it.

Biut I'm very oppen about my history of cutting and that's occassionally caused some awkwardness when I've been in treatment centre's for my alcoholism. I've had staff totally over react.

When I'm talking about self harm in any of my therapy groups or at AA I usually use the term self-injury. I know it sometimes makes the other people in the group uncomfortable, but I'm not prepared to hide what was once a big part of my life.

I think the reason a lot of T's don't deal well with talking about self injury is that they haven't been properly trained to deal with it.

For the record I hate the term "cutter" too. To me it's defining a person by only one aspect of their behaviour, and because it's too narrow a definitiion of self injury.

---splitimage