As many of us know only too well, self-injury often leads to scars; a permanent reminder of our past distress and actions. How we feel about our scars is an individual thing, and there’s no right or wrong way to feel. Some people see them as a positive thing – a sign of survival – war wounds from battles fought and won. But for many of us, they are a source of embarrassment; a painful reminder of how desperately we’ve had to fight to cope with our emotional distress, and something we are constantly, and consciously, endeavouring to hide.

Unfortunately, although scars may fade in time, they are permanent. However, there are things you can do either to reduce the severity of scaring, or to camouflage the scars you are left with. Thanks to Denice (aka moderator D-Elle on our Message Board) we now have two new pages on our website.

Written by Denice, and expanded by Wedge, we now have a page on Scar Reduction which details various methods of reducing the vividness and texture of scars. In addition, we have a page on Skin Camouflage, in which Denice helpfully talks about her own personal experiences of camouflaging scars with make-up. Both pages are located within our Helping You section.

We hope you will find these two new pages helpful and, as always, welcome your comments.

Many thanks to Denice for writing for us. If you have something self-harm related that you’d like to share with our members, then please do email Jules@FirstSigns.org.uk

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