Supporter's of SIV'ers
If you've read the other pages on Self-Injury (SI) and it's relation to BPD, I'd like to share ways that you can help your loved one who self injures.
Ways to Help
Don't take it personally.
Self-Injury is more about the person who does it than the people around him/her.
Educate yourself. Get as much information as you can about self-injury in general
"The Scarred Soul", by Tracy Alderman,
"A Bright Red Scream" by Marilee Strong and
"Bodies Under Seige" by Favazza are very informative and helpful in understanding about Self Inflicted Violence (SIV)
Understand your feelings Be honest with yourself about how this self-injury makes
you feel. Many people find self-injury repulsive, frightening, or provoking. If you need help dealing with the feelings aroused in you by self-injury...find a good therapist. Therapy is a tool for self-understanding...and in that sense, may be very helpful to you.
Be supportive without reinforcing the behavior It's important that your friend, lover, spouse, child, sibling; know that you can separate who they are from what they do. Be available as much as you can be. Talking is one way to provide support, however, there are numerous ways to show your support to another. One way to determine how you could offer support is to directly ask how you might be helpful. Knowing what kind of assistance to offer and when to offer it is necessary in order to be helpful. In being supportive, you keep your negative reactions to yourself. You need to put these feelings aside for the time being as you can only be supportive when you act in supportive ways. This is not to say that you should not or will not have judgements or negative reactions to SIV, however you need to conceal these beliefs and feelings while you are performing helpful behaviours, later, when you are not assisting your friend, go ahead and release these thoughts and emotions.
Webset: "Broken Dreams"-- used with permission and is © to
GUESTBOOK
