 Hey what's up you guys welcome back to my channel if you're new here hi hello I'm Lydia and today I thought we could do a video where I talk about my self-harm history. Now I am over a year free from self-harm which is a huge achievement this is how I'm doing that recovery, which is amazing. Arrived for sure, but self-harm isn't something I think about on a daily basis anymore. Since stopping self-harm and I've taken to a lot of new things I've put myself right out there on YouTube. So I started self-harming when I was just around seven years old and I'd do it over my heart and I did it on the back of my hand. Did my family know about it? Yeah they did. They told me to stop doing it which very helpful advice but when you're traumatized by things in your childhood you turn to coping mechanisms and self-harm was what I chose as my coping mechanism. I self-harmed from the age of seven to the age of 25. I'm 26 now. God I'm getting old. I've been doing YouTube since I was 12. Not on this channel, I had another channel and I'm not going to say the name of the channel because it's fucking embarrassing. My hair was so frizzy as well so yeah I just, let's not go there. But in terms of self-harm recovery I had a friend in school who was really public about self-harm with me and honestly it made me feel I had to compete against her. So I don't shave. My mum doesn't let me shave because of the blades. I had to use hair removal cream to remove body hair. Now I have a razor. They're a pretty cool shaver as well actually. It's electric. It's really quick with my legs so quickly and my arms so quickly. Oh it's very quick and painless and it doesn't cut you. RIP in my bank account. But anyway back on the story I didn't, I learned how to take pencil sharpeners apart with a hair grip so I used that to self-harm. That's when I started down my arm. So far I've just covered up the serious problems with tattooers. Now self-harm for me was a coping mechanism even when I was in hospital. It was a coping mechanism. I remember when I was sectioned four years ago and I was on one-to-one for the entire 28 days that I was there. I got discharged on the day of my section and still on one-to-one, still on fucking four to six drinks because I wasn't eating. And it just, while I was in that admission, my self-harm got worse. I managed to smuggle in a Stanley blade and those things are sharp. And that's when I did the most damage. And to be very honest it was traumatising. Going through self-harm is a traumatic thing but when you just eat deep and it's hard to really understand what I mean. When it's deep and serious, all self-harm is serious. When it's when you have to sit A&E for the stitches. I get flashbacks now of times that I've self-harm. The one that I keep getting at the minute is when I was living with my grandparents because me and my mum were, my mum basically kicked me out. So I stayed with my grandparents and I took one of the knives and I hid it in the bathroom, in my bathroom. And then one of the girls that was bullying me texted my mum saying that I self-harm. I mean, she knew what I did anyway. Like, she's my mum. She phoned, my mum phoned my grandparents and my grandparents came running at the stairs, told me to show them my arms, which they knew I self-harm. But that was fucking horrible. Because I used to cover up all my scarves, all the titanium because they didn't want people to judge me. Now I don't care about it as much anymore. I think now that it's come to the age, you just stop caring about what people think. Because I used to be so afraid to stand up and talk in front of my class. Now I just don't give a shit. I just do it. And it's not, like, I used to have healed from my anxiety issues a bit. I'm still medicated for anxiety, but I just don't give a shit anymore. I showed my scars, people asked questions, people pointed them out. So I covered them with tattoos. Does that draw attention to it? Yep. Because I've got a colourful tattoo on his arm. This arm, it doesn't get pointed out as much because it's not as bad. And I'll say this, I have one bad arm for scars and then I have one good arm for scars. I'm right-handed. Well, I'm adventurous. I write with both hands. I mainly write with my right hand though. The handwriting is not good. If you ever get a hand written no off me, I'm sorry. Sorry, just sorry. But I used to self-harm my right arm. Left arm. Same thing. I don't know. It just kind of, well, it was because I used my right hand. So I've got one bad arm and this arm's not too bad. Really, it's got the tattoo. I've got a tattoo though. The story about this tattoo here, I thought it was going to be bigger because I was paying £140 for it. I thought it would cover the scars there. But it didn't. So now I'm trying to think what I can do to cover them scars. I think they will ask me if they can put another butterfly on. But I don't know if they will. So harm's not something that's easy to go with though. It's not easy to stop. I stopped because I went in Patreon last year. But honestly, the idea of self-harming doesn't really come to me anymore. It's not something I'd desire to do. It's not something I need to cope anymore. Because I am genuinely in a bad place. And I wish I could tell you how I did it and how I managed to get to where I'm at, but I don't know what I did. Things just started to improve. And I guess that's life. Thank you for watching this video. If you have any questions or stories you want to tell, comments are open. Let's hope this video doesn't get struck down. That's not quite for this video. Stay safe, stay sober and stay strong. Peace.