In need of an empathetic friend. Dunno where else to turn for some support now.

Okay so, here it goes...

Ive been with my gf almost a year now, were pretty much the same age around 18 yrs old, shes a year younger.

I always knew something was being kept from me, like a gut feeling or something, i saw cracks but i cudnt see inside and i didnt know what was wrong with her. 6 months ago she told me that she self-harmed, that shed get depressed and have no where to turn, that she hated everything about herself and she had different sides of her that were bad and that she didnt want to show anyone. She did well to tell me this as shed only been able to tell a couple of close best friends shed known for years before.

My immediate reaction was fear, i cried a little, im quite sensitive and i love her very much. I accepted it and it seemed as though me just being there helped and stuff, she writes poetry to vent her moods, most of it is about pain and suffering or being lost. I try hard to understand and to be able to relate, i know there are more things i dont know about it and i just feel lost with my thoughts, i need to talk to someone who knows about this stuff well or has dealth with a family memeber, close friend or girlfriend/boyfriend and has been in my shoes.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and if anyone can offer any help il be greatful.

Thanks

 

i know almost exactly what your going through. i went out with a girl who i was and still am completley in love with. we had a falling out due to a huge mistake on my part that i dont want to get into, and she turned to self mutilations and i turned into a "druggie" . I dont know about your gf but this chick had been umm molested by her biological father at a young age and her mom remarried to an alchoholic, whos family hated her and her mother. In saying that your gf might have some things she is still hiding and you need to help her get those things out but without forcing her. But you likewise have to tell her about just about everything thats going on or has gone on with you. i dont know if you have already done this but it has (in my opinion) helped out a great deal. She needs your love and support, which it sounds like your giving her. thats just my opinion and i assume other people on here will probly have better ones. good luck man

peace & love

 

As a former self harmer, I know that love and support is the best thing you can give her right now, like the above person said. I know it hurts you badly, and it hurts her too for you having to know it. Be strong, support her, and get support for yourself. Hang in there!! Good place for more information is http://www.recoveryourlife.com/

Much love,
~Nova

 

Thanks for your replies, ashbury I know a lot about her and its strange she comes from a very secure background, a tight close family that gets on well, i think it is stress related and i know its a lot to do with peoples expectations of her. The first times it began to happen was when she was taking her first serious exams at school. I feel bad but i actually know of a forum she has posted on and have seen things she has said...she doesnt know iv seen it. I feel bad but i feel by understanding her that i can help while not wanting her to feel exposed. Anyways, i know she wants me to know these things, in one post she said about her online diary and stuff and she said "I would really like to be able to show it to my boyfriend one day, id like that alot, but there are still many things i havent told him yet, just be too painful." Sooo maybe there is some truth in what you were saying ashbury....Ive seen that website too, maybe i should check it out some more.

Thanks everyone who posted and if anyone has any other suggestions or can just offer some helpful words, thatd be nice.

 

i can totally dig the high expectations thing, that had to do a little with this chick i know. Some people might disagree with me but what I would do is tell her not to worry so much about what people would think about what she has or hasnt done. Just to kinda go with her own flow, and do things at her own pace. With the exams almost everyone gets anxious and stressed close to testing, some worse than others. If shes worried about doing bad try to convince her that she is going to do well and not to worry too much about it. It sounds like your doing a kickass job man just keep it up she needs you.

 

Yeah it backfired once when i learned something new i was trying to encourage her saying shell be fine and shes going to do well and stuff and that i know she can do well and she kinda felt like she didnt want me to want her to do well incase she fails, shes told me how its felt before when shes self-harmed where she felt that she had the strength to take the pain and that she can prove to herself shes strong. I feel like her parents are a lot to do with this, she has parents who are very lets say keen that she gets work done and does well and stuff....she got like all A's in her exams when she was 16 and she felt that she hadnt done her best because theyd said she would get A*'s....the hardest thing is that she knows it hurts me that she is feeling pain...i mean what am i meant to do when she tells me its happened....smile? I am continually greatful for your support.

 

To the OP, your girlfriend needs professional help. Your support will be valuable, but she needs more help than you can give her.

 

Surely a stranger who doesnt understand her poking into her life isnt going to work, shes known me a year loves me and still has things she cant tell me despite wanting too so much....do you think some stranger with a degree is going to be or more use, the trauma of telling her parents making her problem public will pull her into a shell and destroy any chance of opening up the real her. I had the same reaction when i found out, i was thinking she needs help its the only way, it took me sometime to understand that isnt what she needs.

 

Now, that is the art and skill of such stranger with degree, not to poke but to understand instead.
I know what you mean, don't get me wrong, it's a highly emotional subject, this.
But I know what I am talking about if I say, she really does need professional help, there are things she cannot tell you, and that has nothing to do with love or trust, there's often shame and fear and a prof knows well, how to gently, slowly open her up, to read the invisible signs she sends and to simply understand.
He/she has means, neither you nor your girl have, means, that will give her kind of "tool", she has to do the work herself, but she'll get the most useful tool for it.
Of course it's no use forcing her into a therapy or whatever if she doesn't want to.
She wanting such help is the key, her free decision.
If so, she shall look well, not taking the first best, but choosing, finding someone she has a good feeling with, woman or man, someone, she could trust.
You cannot help her the way it's required, plus, you are sensitive yourself and have to watch yourself.
She needs you strong.
Support her supporting herself, I am sure there's a lot of power inside her, she only needs to give it a way it don't harm her like autoaggression, for example.
There are great places where she could get support and there is help, I know what I am saying from my own experience.
(www.siari.co.uk)
I wish you loads of luck and strength !!!

 

Thank you for the comment. She is part of forums, speaking to people who go through and have gone thorugh the same thing in order to get help with it. I think she is slowly and gradually getting better as well, the first 6 months we were together before she told me, she told she thought that itd happened four times. 6 months after that and she has told me that it has happened maybe only once or twice, i truly believe that love and compassion alone is teaching her that she is special and is helping her to slowly believe more positively in herself, it is a slow battle. My first thoughts were of fear and shock, but now i realise that the danger isnt in the self-harming, its in the thought and the mind. In the cognitive thinking, that I just by loving her am slowly influencing, the first times I said I loved her I know she didnt believe it because she thought she cant possibly be worthy of it, now when I say it I know she is beginning to understand that it is true. My fear now is that she is going to Uni in a years time, a lonely trying time and education and pressure has always been a trigger. Ive already talked to her a couple of times about this already and I will slowly discuss it with her to prepare her for the kind of atmosphere she will be up against, I havent been to Uni myself but I think I can help her handle it better by bringing the subject up early, so that if any fears develop about Uni, she will know Ive already begun to think of them and she can turn to me knowing that theres nothing for her to be ashmed of as I made the first move. Make sense?!

 

nothing about self harm makes sense. I've dealt with enough of them professionally to know how difficult it is. there only solution is to remove/modify the primary stressors that lead to such behaviour. it is not easy and to be honest I don't know it's something that the non-professionals should really try and deal with. bringing up the subject early may well focus her thoughts on further such behaviour leading to greater stress. bottom line? be there for her.. DON'T keep on the subject.. let her be the one to bring it up if she wants to.. just let her know how much u care for her and that u'll always be there for her and leave the psychological counselling to the experts (and I hope she's got a clinical psychologist already).

 

she hasnt, that means telling her parents, something she isnt prepared to do. im not trying to play doctor, im trying to just give her the heads up for something that she might not have thought of preparing for...i dont stick on the subject, in the last 6months weve probably had less than a handful of conversations about it....she wrote a poem it was directed a me, she was predicting in the poem before she told me about it, about how id react, called it "Take Me As I Am?" her fear was that id leave her. I didnt know about this poem till the other day when she sent it too me...i know of a self-harm forum she goes too to talk, she doesnt know i know where it is though, i feel harsh for reading it but i feel like im helping just knowing little things without her knowing. She said on the forum how shed sent me the poem and she was glad i had read it and understood. she said she was also glad as it had opened a window and that we were talking about it again and that pleased her. She also on another post about a month ago said how shed love it if i could read her open diary on the net, but she said she couldnt let me yet as there was still too much i didnt know and it would hurt too much. I dont know if she meant hurt her or hurt me. You see she wants to proceed ahead, she wants to talk to me, she wants to let me know, and given that we love each other soooo much, just by me accepting something that she thinks is bad about herself, helps her everyday. I think she will be a stronger woman if she can progress to get over this by herself...I know she has the strength too, Im not done losing faith in the girl I love. As of half an hour ago its our year anniversary. The year has had its up n downs, falling in love with her, finding out about the self-harm, making love for the first time lol sharing some things that i dont find flattering about me, and after all the highs and lows were both still here together and she is getting better. Some people will roll their eyes and disagree that she can make it with close support, but surely making it on her own will be best, for a girl whos one doubt is her own inner-strength.

 

Sorry for long last post, I feel bad for opposing some of the things that people have said, I am always greatful truly for any and all comments agreeing and disagreeing with me, the fact that people are kind enough to take the time to discuss this issue with me is a small comfort for the situation. Thank You all.

 

Do you love her enough to really piss her off by telling her parents?

 

Why do her parents have to be the ones knowing BEFORE her seeing a professional, a doctor who can organize prof help for her ?
Why do they have to know she will see one ?
I don't get that...or has it something to do with the payment or health-insurance ? Not too sure, how it is in England...
Tealady, I just wished, you would believe me, I went through such a lot of shit since being a child, that is beyond imagination and if I tell you, love alone is not enough than you should believe me...
It's HER having to love herself first of all, as long as she don't, she can't receive someone else's love a 100%.
Of course it helps to talk in forums and getting it all off one's chest, course it's a great way, that she writes and is creative, but even being on a good and healing way, there will be a locked door one day and neither you nor her will be able to open alone. And if she stands there unprepared, it could throw her back big time.

 

We spoke a lot last night about it, the irony being i wanted to avoid talking about it on our anniversary. Oddly enough I can describe the chat as being nice. I spoke a little about her so that she could see I understand and now and then shed smile when I hit something right on the nose and got it right. She looked me in the eye and said that she knows she is getting better and that over the last year she has noticed a big improvement in how she feels and how she is dealing, I told her that she is a lot stronger than she gives herself credit for. I asked that if she didnt have to tell her parents would she go and talk to someone professionally and she said maybe, I said that it maybe an idea to think about that when she is off at Uni without her parents around. We also put two and two together to realise that she is so scared of telling her parents because they are the ones with the expectation that leads her to feel this way. Partly. We talked about times when it would happen again and together starting thinking of somethings that she could do to relieve it when she can see it beginning to happen. She asked me to talk to her about it more and to ask any questions about things, and I reassured her as well that if she said she doesnt know (meaning she doesnt want to give an answer) then that will be okay for now until we talk and shes more ready. There is a year between now and Uni when she will think of getting some help. Just by talking to her I can see more openess, less body language that indicates that same thickness of a wall. Shes fluent when she talks about it and doesnt have her head down and mumble her words. She seems more confident and more comfortable and on some level is beginning to feel stronger. I think its beginning to come under control more, its becoming less frequent too. Many people will roll their eyes and think I am a fool with false hope, but if you were there in that room having the conversation with her, after the pressure in the last 6 months has doubled but her self-harming has halved...how can you not have hope that she is getting better on her own? Maybe your right someday there will be a door, but 6months is a relatively small amount of time, there is still more we can do together and more she can do herself to get better before we have to think about crossing those bigger bridges. Thank you everyone.

 

I'm sure that we all have hope that she is getting better on her own. I also think that I (for one) would prefer that this hope be bolstered by the involvment of someone who is knowledgeable about this syndrome and has dealt with it before. A home grown remedy may work, but.... it is good to see progress, but when the risk is high I think that an expert opinion is needed.

 

thats a justified comment when you speak of it as a syndrome. its not a syndrome its lack of self confidence which happens in a lot of people, this is an extreme case but still just a case of self confidence, a lack of self love and a fear of being a failure to anyone. Im sorry but just because these emotions are at a deep level doesnt mean its a syndrome...