Self Harming Awareness Day 1st March 2013

As per the title of this post,….Self Harming Awareness Day 2013. You really can not make comedic material like this up!

My thirteen year old daughter (AKA Minime) came downstairs for breakfast this morning, looking an absolute vision! Very smart in her school uniform, and she’d fashioned her waist length hair into an “Audrey Hepburn style” bun. She made and ate her breakfast (whilst I was preparing the lunch boxes) and proceeded to wash up her breakfast things. She had pushed the sleeves of her blazer up her forearms, in order to keep her clothes dry, and that is when I spotted it…..

“KEEP FIGHTING”

ME: “What is that on your wrist?” I snapped

MINIME: “WHAT?” the retort.

ME: “We don’t say what Minime, we say pardon?” I admonished her.

MINIME: “PARRRRR—DUUUUUUUN?????” Was the reply

ME: “What is that on your wrist?” I asked again

MINIME: “WRI I I I TING” I was informed as if I was an idiot.

ME: “And why do you have writing on your wrist? And what does it say?” I asked again calmly.

MINIME: “It says KEEP FIGHTING, didn’t you know that it’s Self Harming Awareness Day today Mum?”

ME: “No darling I didn’t, I thought it was St David’s day today”. I replied slightly confused.

MINIME: “It is Mum, but it is also Self Harming Awareness Day today, and loads of people on Facebook are writing “KEEP FIGHTING” on their wrists in ink in order to spread awareness”

Now forgive me for interrupting this dialogue, but anyone who attended Christopher Whitehead School for Girls during the 1980’s with me, particularly in the same form as me, (3C), or top set for Music and RE, will be reminded of the cautionary tale we were frequently told by Mrs Cole and Miss Potts, of a former pupil, who had written on her skin with the ink provided in the ink wells on our desks, and had made herself very ill, and died of blood poisoning. Whether or not this story was true or not, it was sufficiently effective in deterring me from ever wanting to write on my own skin, preferring a rough jotter instead. This may also be at the root of my aversion to body art, but I digress.

ME: “OK Minime, so someone on Facebook has asked you to write in ink on your wrist…. “KEEP FIGHTING?’

MINIME: “Yes Mum, to highlight the fact that people self harm, and to raise awareness of their problems”

ME: “That’s ok, Minime, I was just trying to get things straight in my head. As you know, I find Self Harming a very serious subject, and having been a self harmer myself, at various times of my life, when events were out of my control, I heartily understand your desire to make the plight of these people known.”

MINIME: “That’s a relief Mum, I thought that you were going to tell me off for writing on myself, and make me wash it off!”

ME: “Sorry darling, I don’t know whether to tell you off, and make you wash it off, or wear it all day to show how gullible you are?”

MINIME: “What do you mean?”

ME: “The act of writing on yourself, is in itself a form of self-defacement/self-harm and in doing so, you are not helping to raise awareness at all, you are publicising to join the club of self harmers!” You really are a silly girl, kind hearted but silly, now go and scrub that ridiculous thing off your wrist”

She did, and stormed out of the house wordless. Kids! tut!