Self-Harm

Self-harm, sometimes known as self-injury, is when you hurt yourself intentionally as a way of dealing with difficult emotions, old memories, or overwhelming situations and experiences. The ways in which you may hurt yourself may be physical, such as cutting yourself, to less obvious ways, such as putting yourself in risky situations, or not looking after your own physical or emotional needs.

Without support, you may find that your self-harming becomes more severe or frequent, and you may unintentionally do serious damage to yourself.  There are a number of support services available to help you develop alternative coping strategies to self-harm for managing painful emotions and stress.

• Visit your GP.
• Counselling & Wellbeing Service Website - Click here
• If you’re registered with a Birmingham GP then you can access Birmingham Healthy Minds services - quick & easy to sign up here
• If you’re registered with a Birmingham GP then you can access Forward Thinking Birmingham, which supports young people aged 0-25 here
• If you’re living in university accommodation, then you can access the Student Mentor Scheme for peer support (Monday-Friday, 4pm-8pm during term-time).

If you need to access support out-of-hours then you attend your nearest NHS walk-in centre (find your nearest one here):  call 999 or go to A&E.