Trusting to Small Adventures

Julie's getting ready: in a month's time she will spend a weekend on a residential adult education course about 40 miles away from home. The weekend will be devoted to learning more about a craft that she has taught herself so far from books alone. She's excited: she does a lot of crafts, has real skill, and this will be her opportunity to learn from an expert. I will drive her there, but then she'll be on her own, eating and sleeping and having to get along with the rest of the people on the course. It's a general course, she will have nobody there to support her, and nobody there will be aware of her history of mental illness.

It's a challenge - but I'm sure she'll rise to it. There won't be huge social pressure: most of the other people on the course are likely to be a lot older than her, but they share her interest in craft so there will always be something to talk about. It's the climax of months and years of challenging her to gradually move outside her comfort zone, and take informed risks. It's important that she can manage on her own even if she decides eventually to stay at home while she studies at university.

I was a bit surprised to find myself under pressure to cancel this trip: and pressure that came from an unexpected quarter. Julie's support worker at school - and she has an excellent support worker, very empathetic - wanted me to threaten to cancel the trip unless Julie stopped self-harming before she went.

This won't be the first time someone working with Julie is anxious to tell me that they know how to solve "the Julie problem". Over the years, I have been given a great deal of advice. Mothers in my position are always given a great deal of advice. It seemed so obvious to Julie's support worker that she was falling over herself to tell me: I must "set clear boundaries" and Julie will stop the self-harm.

Except that self-harm doesn't work like that. It is true that when the school threatened to take her off a day trip she did manage to repress the self-harm to some extent (so that it didn't show). But school is school, and home is home; I'm not her teacher, I'm her mother. I've cancelled more trips and treats than they've had school dinners, but it never has made any difference. In fact it often makes things worse. If you want to harm yourself, how much better to do it, knowing that it will destroy the one opportunity that you were looking forward to, and disappoint the person who loves you most. If I punish her, it simply fuels the flames of self-loathing that lead to a further spiral downwards.

I want her to go on this course and for it to be a success - after years of experience I know that this is the only way that she will gain the confidence she needs to stop harming herself.