When paths cross again

In the months that followed I would regularly see my GP and a counseller for self harm.  I was having good days and bad days, probably more bad days at this point but on the plus side, I was finally starting to face upto my problem and on the last of my allocated counselling sessions, I finally broke down and cried and said those words outloud to my counseller.  "I was raped"

Further counselling was then offered to me and I decided that now was the time to face this head on.

Some believe that people come into your life for a reason and as I was on a Facebook page in early January of 2011, I came across a person who had been a very special friend in my past.  I did not hesitate to send this person a friends request and before long, the years we had drifted apart were soon caught up on, with endless chats about family, work and life in general.

I then had to make a massive decision.  Do I tell this person about my self harm now or do I wait and see if we become close friends again as we were in the past.  I quickly answered my own question, since I knew there had been many people I had wrongly pushed away in the past and I knew it was better to be open and honest now rather than leave it until later.  I already knew that I would never push this friend away again.

This person had known me before I was raped and before I self harmed.  They knew the side to me that was confident, fun loving and strong and I was about to reveal a side to me that they had no idea about.  This was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do but one that would teach me my biggest lesson.  There are people in your life who will always love and care for you regardless of what difficulties you are going through and when this person assured me they would be there, no matter what, I knew that this was true. 

Steve would go on to play a major part in my recovery, become a wonderful friend to my family, especially my daughter and later in this blog, the co owner of SHARE.

I was slowly building my own safety net of family and friends who I could trust and felt ready to make some steps towards recovery.

This was not all plain sailing, far from it and I would quickly go from confiding in someone that I needed their help to pushing them away again.  When I look back on how I was in those early days, I often wonder how these people coped with me.

I guess they did, because they cared for me and loved me.

I owed it to these people to show them that I would not allow my past to destroy me and with their help, I would fight this battle day by day until I reached recovery.

My first job was to try to explain self harm in a better way.  The following video was made in my own words to try and help them understand.