What not to say/do to someone who SH's

What Not To Say or Do To Someone Who Self Harms:

“Just stop.”

Self harm can be addicting for many people. It’s a symptom of mental illness and a coping skill. It isn’t a healthy coping skill but it’s still one nonetheless. Telling someone to just stop dismisses their pain and suffering and shows that you don’t know how to help support them. It’s a real addiction and not enough people recognize that.
“Think of how much you’re hurting your family!”

“It suggests that the state of the self harmer’s family members is more important than their own mental health.”- Jaymie M, 13.

The self harmer (most likely) never meant to hurt their family. Self harm is a way to cope and it’s about the person hurting themselves, not the person’s family.

“I never intended to hurt my family; it was always about myself. Which sounds selfish but it isn’t. I hid my self harm specifically so no one would find out and so my family wouldn’t be hurt.”- anonymous.
“I’m taking away your tools.”

If you take away what someone uses to self harm, it can make things worse. They could (and most likely will) get desperate and use something unsafe to hurt themselves. It could cause anxiety or cause them to panic and hurt themselves worse than usual.

“From personal experience, I can tell you that if you use a tool you’re not as familiar with, it’s very, very easy to accidentally hurt yourself more than you intended. It’s easy to misjudge how sharp a tool is.”- anonymous.
"If you don't want scars, just don't cut!"

This is extremely unhelpful because it’s not that easy. You can’t just stop self harming. Sometimes the scars are part of the appeal, too.
“I don’t understand why you would/how you could hurt yourself.”

Sometimes we, the self harmers, don’t understand it ourselves. It’s confusing. People who have never self harmed usually don’t understand how much pain someone has to be in emotionally to hurt themselves.

And because the pain is emotional, other people won’t always be able to understand why someone would or could hurt themselves. No one but the self harmer can feel their pain or even see it unless they talk to someone. Never assume you know how much someone is hurting.
“Self harm is just for attention.”

Self harm is not usually for attention. If it was, why would we do our best to hide it? When self harm is for attention, that indicates something is wrong to make the person seek attention like that. The is a harmful misconception and in most cases it’s not true at all.
“Your cuts aren’t that deep”/“Your scars aren’t that bad.”

Saying this can make the self harmer feel like both their emotional and physical pain is invalid.
“You just need to pray.”

Not everyone is religious. If they are, praying may help them feel better, but it won’t magically make everything better. If they aren’t religious it won’t help and will probably come off as condescending.
“Your life isn’t that bad”/“What do you have to be upset about?”

You never know what someone is dealing this. By saying this, you’re invalidating their pain. Someone’s life/situation doesn’t have to be bad for them to self harm or have depression or any other mental illness.

Sometimes depression hits even when the person is happy or living a good life. Comparing pain does no good. There will always be someone who has it worse.

“You shouldn’t be depressed, others have it worse”/“there are starving kids all around the world” is like saying “you aren’t allowed to be happy because X has it better and is happier than you.”
“Promise me you’ll never do it again.”

They can’t promise. If you ask them to promise and then relapse and hurt themselves again, this could cause intense guilt and shame and could lead to another relapse and an endless cycle.

Asking someone to promise to stop an addiction or coping skill that they’ve grown used to isn’t fair and probably won’t work. It creates a lot of pressure on the self harmer to not disappoint the one who asked them to promise.
“How could you do this to me?”

In most cases the self harm is never about you. It’s about the self harmer. Unless you’ve done something to make them want to hurt you by hurting themselves, the person is self harming for the release, the relief, to cope, not to hurt you. They aren’t doing it to you, they’re doing it to themselves.
“What do you use to hurt yourself with?”

This can be a triggering question. Unless you’re the person’s therapist you should avoid asking this.
Don’t grab them and pull them closer to inspect their sleeves or wounds.

This is insulting and can make them feel like they’re on display. Nobody wants to be treated like an object you’re inspecting. It can even lead to more self harm urges.
Don’t touch their scars or move their sleeves further up to expose more scars.
Don’t make it about you or say things like “how could you do this”.