Self-Injury Awareness Day

Raising awareness of the issues around self-injury

Now run as an annual campaign, 1st March is Self-Injury Awareness Day. Designed to raise awareness of self-harm for the general public and for professional health care workers, it has been supported for several years by organisations hoping to increase our understanding of the issues surrounding it. LifeSIGNS in the UK is one of the organisations promoting the campaign, and you can see their Self-Injury Awareness Day page at http://www.lifesigns.org.uk/siad/

LifeSIGNS is encouraging people to share their video as a starting point. It hopes we can to talk more freely about the issues it raises, in order to educate our friends and family, colleagues and health care workers:

You can find out more on their site including self-help, guidance for others and how to support their important work. By talking about self-injury, LifeSIGNS hope to remove some of the stigma and fear surrounding the condition. This might encourage people who self-injure to come forward and get the help they need, and not to suffer alone. It will also help educate friends and family by pointing them towards some of the resources available.

Self-harm and self-injury counselling

If you are looking for or thinking about counselling for self-injury, or to get help for someone close to you, please get in touch. There is no obligation to book a therapy session and I will be happy to advise if counselling is right for you. You can call me on 07824 385338 or use the form on the Contact Me page.

The Sunday Blues

For most us working the Monday to Friday treadmill, it’s that time of the week again. Friday evening came in carefree and full of hope for the weekend ahead. Saturday morning slipped by without a thought for the working week and on Saturday night we kicked back and as though the weekend would last forever. Then Sunday morning came around and, somehow compounded by the winter weather that slow, familiar gloom began to set in. Welcome to the Sunday afternoon blues.

Talking therapy and the Sunday Blues.
Image by Khusen Rustamov from Pixabay

It’s a difficult one to shake, but we can at least understand why we feel this way on Sundays. Our conscious mind is simply protecting us from the things that will cause us discomfort, in other words, the feelings of anxiety we associate with the working environment. From an evolutionary point of view or Sunday blues are useful because we want to avoid situations associated with harm, and, try as we might to live in the moment and actually enjoy Sunday afternoon for a change, our brain is already thinking about the next day. Mindfulness techniques might help take some of the edge off the Sunday blues, as will experience. We know from repeated exposure that we can and will survive Monday morning, it comes around once a week after all, and all we need to do is stick it out. And although we all tend to grumble about even the easiest of jobs, I know from personal experience that doing a job I enjoy does take some of the dread out of Sunday evening. Also, planning a stress-free social event or get together on a Sunday afternoon can make the evening something to look forward to and cherish, rather than something to endure. Similarly, if you can plan in a small treat such as a good lunch or coffee break for Monday, even better. Few of us will leap out of bed on a Monday morning, eager to face the working week ahead, but building in a small reward for our efforts will certainly make it more bearable.

Of course, under certain circumstances the anxiety and stress that some us feel about work can become completely overwhelming and panic inducing, interfering with our sleep patterns, personal relationships and general mental wellbeing. In such circumstances, professional counselling might help to lessen the intensity of these feelings, and their effects on those around us.

Finally, spare a thought for those of us on non-traditional working patterns. It’s estimated that up to one-third of Brits work part or all of the weekend and, although that might be one way to avoid the dread feeling of a Sunday evening, at least the rest of us get a proper weekend to recover from the stresses and strains of the working week.