 Am I ashamed of myself, harm scars? No, that's the really simple answer. No, I'm not. I got asked this recently and I have to say I love it when people ask me challenging questions. If I don't want to answer, I will just say no. But actually when people ask tricky questions like this, it makes me really kind of stretch and challenge myself both professionally and personally. So am I ashamed of myself, harm scars? No. And I'm quite proud to be able to say no, that's kind of a new-ish place that I've maybe got to in life. But I think that when it comes to scars, whether they are physical or emotional, whether they are self-inflicted or inflicted by others, there's always going to be two ways of viewing them. Either these scars tell the story of a difficult, horrible time and they're something to be ashamed of or to find difficult and negative in some way or you can flip it and you can actually look at the same scars from a different lens through a different lens and you can view these scars as a story of a time when you survived. So each of my scars tells a story of a time when I managed, when I stayed alive, when I got through the next day, the next minute sometimes and that was not always easy. There were plenty of times when I didn't want to be here anymore and actually for me the self-harm was the best way that I could manage in that moment with the distress that I was feeling at that time. So I'm not ashamed of my scars because they each tell of a time when somehow, imperfectly, unhealthily, I managed to get through and I'm proud that my scars are healed and fading and they are, at the moment, they feel very much a part of my history rather than part of my present and that doesn't mean that there will never be new ones but right now I'm in a pretty good place and I am proud of that. But I'm not ashamed of those scars or how they came about because to be ashamed of them would be to have shame about such a deep and fundamental part of me and who I am and how I managed a really difficult time or difficult times and I don't think that would be healthy or helpful. So no, I'm not ashamed of them and I don't think anyone should be ashamed of the different ways in which they cope and manage and yes, of course, ideally we want to work towards being able to cope and manage in ways that are not damaging to ourselves or to others, in ways that do not hurt us either physically or emotionally but we can only ever do the best that we can do at the time. So we can be working towards healthier, better ways of coping but we can't always get there immediately. So no, long answer. That short answer, no. No, I'm not ashamed of my scars. Yes, you may ask me questions about them, about self-harm, about anything you want to. If I don't want to answer, I'll say no. So yeah, there you go, self-harm scars. I get asked a lot about self-harm and scars and whether we should hide them and that kind of thing as well. So if this is a topic you want to hear more about either from my personal experience or with my professional hat on, I'd be more than happy and willing to go there and I think it's really important to say at this point I'm not looking to advocate self-harm as a coping mechanism but I do recognize it as a strategy for managing that some people use at times when they are unable to use other methods and we need to respect that and try to understand it whilst trying to support people to move towards healthier ways of managing and anyone who's watching this who currently does self-harm or they're supporting someone who does, please know that it is possible to move on. I have each day I manage not to do it and that doesn't mean it's easy and it doesn't mean that the thought or the urge goes away but it does mean that you learn to manage in different ways and healthier ways and find different ways of coping. It is possible for it to stop it can feel like it wouldn't be when you're in the middle of that cycle it could feel like nothing else could provide the same, no one else could meet the need in the same way as self-harm but it is possible either to resolve the underlying issues or to change the way in which you cope with those issues or ideally a combination of the two. So there we go thought for the day self-harm scoffers not ashamed no shame here I will not hide them I will happily answer questions about them.