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Know a Young Person Who Self Harms? This App Might Help
While self-help is no substitute for professional support, digital tools can enable young people to channel overwhelming emotions into something less harmful.
The Samaritans define self-harm as ‘any deliberate act of self-poisoning or self-injury without suicidal intent’, and a worrying number of young people are doing it. Hospitalisations of nine to 12-year-olds because of self-injury has doubled in the last six years, while doctors are reportedly seeing self-harm in children as young as ten.
Estimates show that around a quarter of 14-year-olds self-harm. But these figures are just that — estimates. The true number is, unfortunately, much higher. Statistics rely on people coming forward, yet so many people will never seek help. This isn’t much of a surprise, since self-harm is still often treated as taboo; something to be ashamed of.
While it would be reductive to suggest that Covid-19 has caused a spike in self-harm cases, lockdown and a lack of access to NHS support have caused many people to relapse. Myself included.
Relapses are terrifying because it can feel as if all of that time in recovery has been wiped away like a smudge on the lens. But it hasn’t. Urges can be overwhelming, and sometimes we have a wobble and give in. That’s OK.
Only through addressing the root causes of self-harm, ideally through therapy, can we truly move away from these urges, but there are ways to manage and control them in the meantime. As, the harsh reality is, self-harm treatment is severely lacking. Frankly, it doesn’t surprise me that hospitalizations are rising. If your injuries aren't ‘serious enough’ to be admitted to A&E or the psychiatrist ward, you’ll likely be offered a route to self-help (in other words, you’re on your own). This doesn’t mean that talking to your therapist or GP about self-harm is pointless, but you may come up against frustrating barriers.
These stark failures of the mental healthcare system provide gaps for private digital technologies to fill. One such solution is a free app called Calm Harm.
When you open the Calm Halm app, you are greeted with a message: ‘The urge to self-harm is like a wave… Once you surf the wave the urge will fade.’ You click ‘Ride the Wave’…
