Raising awareness of self-injury

How often do you come across someone who has hurt themself? Often enough, I might imagine, what with your particular line of work. How about people who have intentionally hurt themselves?

Self-harm is an umbrella term that encompasses all sorts of behaviours, including eating disorders, alcohol and drug misuse, and self-injury.

Self-injury is directly hurting oneself, with the intention of relieving emotional distress. Health professionals often assume this means cutting the skin, but you might find people who bang themselves, or pick, scratch or burn themselves. Most people who hurt themselves like this bandage their own wounds, even if a cut really needs stitches to heal. Sometimes people get taken to A&E by a loved one, or occasionally take themselves if they're really frightened about blood loss, nerve damage or the pain.

You might, at times, get called out to someone in distress. Maybe the blood flow hasn't stopped, or maybe a family member is really worried and upset. Although you have many more life-threatening calls to attend to, I know you'll treat everyone with compassion and respect. I might guess, though, that you could feel somewhat frustrated, and I wanted to emphasise how important your approach could be. Each of us has mental health—just as you have physical health that fluctuates through the months and years, you have mental health too. Perhaps you talk about stress. Maybe you don't think about it too much yourself, but I hope you agree that mental resilience is crucial to your role.