As we approach the end of another Self-Injury Awareness Day (in the UK anyway, some of our global friends are still very much in day-time!) I wonder what has changed, and what has it meant for you? I know that for LifeSIGNS and for Wedge and I it’s the culmination of many hours hard work, but it’s also just one day. We work seven days a week, 365 days a year, raising awareness about self-injury, supporting people affected by self-injury and providing valuable information and resources.

SIAD is important because it’s a global event, and an opportunity for people to come together so that many voices may be heard. We’ve had a super response to our efforts this year, particularly on Twitter where so many of our friends have contacted us, re-tweeted us and engaged with us. And that’s what it’s all about isn’t it – engaging with people and sharing our thoughts, ideas and resources.

But what has SIAD really meant? What has today achieved on a national and global level? How many people across the world have learnt something about self-injury today? Will the media continue to focus on teenage girls for yet another year? Will  people continue to be judged, invalidated and labelled as attention seekers? How many people are still suffering in silence? How can we reach them? These are the questions  swimming around my head as I endeavour to shut down for the night and focus on more trivial things such as feeding my cats and cooking the dinner.

What’s going through your mind? What questions do you have? What would you like to know about self-injury? In which direction should our awareness raising efforts focus over the coming year?

So many questions…

…one day we’ll have all the answers, and our job will be done!

In the meantime, thanks ever so much for all your support today and throughout the year. We work *for* you, but we couldn’t do it without you.

I, also, would like to personally thank Wedge. It’s Wedge who has worked so hard on our website, updated our SIAD page and created our wonderful posters, together with all our other content around the web. Thank you Wedge.