Lisanne (26) from Breda damaged herself for almost ten years. It started at the age of 12 when she accidentally burned herself. They soon became sharp objects. At 21, she decided to seek help. Now Lisanne helps others who practice self-harm. This Sunday is International Self-Harm Awareness Day and she thinks it’s time to tell her story.
Lisanne’s childhood was troubled. Her mother abused her mentally, her father was often absent and drunk. “My mother said extreme things: that it was my fault if she hurt herself, that I wasn’t good enough. My parents never saw that they had a problem.”
When she was 12, Lisanne accidentally hit her head with a hair straightener. The pain suddenly gave her peace. “You forget for a moment the mental pain due to the endorphins that are released.” Thus began her self-harm. “When things escalated again at home, I thought back to that peace,” she says.
“When I think about it, it really makes me angry.”
Her legs are full of scars, less so on her arms. “It was hard to hide, especially at gym or in the summer.” Reactions from others varied: some people were understanding, others disapproving.
In a swimming pool, a mother told her child to stay away from ‘that monster’. Or people asked if she had had a fight with the cheese slicer. “Things like that actually made me damage myself even more.”
Lisanne also felt judgment in healthcare. “At the emergency room, a wound was stitched up without anesthesia or I had to wait longer because I had done it myself. When I think about it, it really makes me angry.” A nurse, on the other hand, hoped that she would receive the right help. “It was only then that I really felt seen.”
“I didn’t want to do it anymore, but I had no choice.”
At school she always had to show her arms before she could get an interview. School thought she should have stopped self-harm first. That had the opposite effect. “That actually made me run very far away from assistance.”
When she was 21, Lisanne started living on her own. There she suffered a lot from panic attacks and re-experiences, so she damaged herself again. “I didn’t want to do it anymore, but I had no choice. It was the only thing that helped at the time.”
After six months she decided it was enough. At the Self-harm Foundation she learned that the underlying problem had to be tackled first. Hours of EMDR, schema therapy and group therapy helped her get back on track.
“It still crosses my mind sometimes.”
She previously had no room for therapy. “You cannot process trauma while you are still in it.” At first things got worse. “But from the age of 24 onwards I was able to do it more and more often tools to stake. I used timers, distraction with music, gaming or sports. I had to learn alternatives that suited me.” She got this from a list from the foundation. It contains 335 alternative activities.
The timer went from fifteen minutes to two hours and then to a few days. “Later I didn’t need a timer anymore.” She was only allowed to do it again if the need was still there afterwards. “But then I would have already conquered time.” The tendency to self-harm has not yet completely disappeared. “Sometimes it still crosses my mind. But I’ve learned enough tools that it’s not necessary.”
“I want to give others the recognition that I lacked.”
Lisanne currently works as an expert by experience at the Self-harm Foundation. She now uses her experience to provide information to schools and doctors. “I want to give others the recognition that I missed. I want to make that difference.”
With her volunteer work, Lisanne hopes that the taboo will disappear. “And that people dare to share this without being judged. You don’t just solve something that causes so much pain. You don’t choose it, because it happens to you and you can’t just stop. But if you really want to, you can stop.”
Lisanne is a fictitious name. Her real name is known to the editors.
