Healing Wounds

In my last post I wrote about Julie's slip back into self-harm, and the resulting trip to A&E.  A few days later, we are now living through the aftermath.  Julie seems, on the surface, nearly back to her old self, after catching up on sleep.  The bandages on her leg are hidden by trousers, the wounds are healing, and she is no longer suffering a great deal of pain.  If anything, to anyone outside looking in at us, it is her father and I who look a bit beaten up.  Being older, we took the loss of sleep rather harder than she did, but there are other forces at work too.  For the last few nights we have both reported finding it hard to get to sleep and remain asleep, and we have found it harder to make plans.  Joe dropped out of a social event after work, I have put off (again) a visit to my father, plans for Christmas have been put on hold.  In phone calls, the first and last thing Joe asks me is, "Is Julie alright?"

I think there is a primitive mechanism behind some of this.  Not some fancy psychological response, just a basic reaction to seeing your offspring injured, regardless of how it came about.  It's a fight or flight response: interrupting sleep and disrupting other activities as we instinctively scan for further danger.  We are on heightened alert, wary and irritable.

Inevitably, there are some feelings of resentment that Julie seems to bounce back so quickly, while we are still reeling.  We are only human.  But after a while things begin to settle down.  After all, we need her to be resiliant.  She may not appreciate fully the risks she runs with these episodes of self-harm, but it would probably make no difference if she did - understanding the risks might terrify her, but it would probably not be enough to stop her from doing it.

The brightest aspect of this episode has been my growing confidence in talking about it.  Friends who follow this blog have been in touch with messages of support and this has meant a great deal to me.  And in conversation, thanks to writing about it, I have found it much easier to speak out and articulate what is happening. A year ago it was hard to even find the words to describe our experience, let alone find the time and opportunity to talk about it.  In the midst of crisis it can be difficult to phone or email anyone - Julie needs more of our time, not less, and it would be impossible to explore your own complex feelings about the self-harm in her hearing.  Just when you most need the support of friends, you are least able to reach out to them.  But slowly, support networks are growing.

This week, I finally overcame the taboo of talking about the self-harm to my good friend and neighbour.  She is rather older than me and for all sorts of reasons I have always instinctively shrunk from telling her, but suddenly I found myself blurting out why we were all looking so haggard on Wednesday morning.  She was stunned and upset - she has known Julie since she was four years old - but she was also perceptive and supportive and I was glad to have spoken.  I have spent more than a year giving very evasive answers to so many people, in an attempt to protect Julie, and perhaps to protect them too.  The result has been, as it so often is when you do not tell the truth, a slow withering of my friendships.