Woman who had abusive childhood engaged in self-harm

She started cutting herself at 14.

It was around the time her relationship with her mother soured and her grades suffered.

Abusive adults also entered her life and made the problem worse.

Now, Jane (not her real name), 20, hopes troubled young people will fight the urge to harm themselves and not make the same mistakes she made.

More teens here are engaging in self-harm and Jane told The New Paper (TNP) why she used to do it.

She said she had changed schools six times while in primary school (because her mum kept moving home).

Still, Jane said she was a good student with good grades and vowed she would stay in one secondary school.

"But my mum moved again from Yishun to Tiong Bahru when I was in Sec 2. That meant I had to either travel a long distance to school or change school. I felt that she was selfish and needed to get her life in order," Jane said.

She said her mother stopped giving her pocket money, so she had to work part-time at Swensen's and her grades suffered.

Jane added: "I also found mathematics increasingly difficult to understand. Feeling lost and angry and unable to express myself, I started cutting with a razor blade."

It started as an impulse.

"I was silently screaming inside and cutting was totally engrossing. It was a moment where I had all the power and control," she added.

The lack of power and control was a constant theme when Jane was younger and probably led to her eventually cutting herself. Her parent divorced when she was three.

"My father was an abusive man. He was hitting both my mother and me," she said.

At seven, her mother's then-boyfriend sexually abused her.

"I didn't know better. He told me it was natural and I believed him. It went on for a year until one day, my mum came home earlier than usual and found out. We moved out," she said.

It was when she was 13 that her mother remarried. She said her stepfather also physically hit her.

Jane added: "Failing in school and in life, I felt that I was useless. I could not make it in life. I started to harm myself when I was in Sec 2. I went from cutting to burning myself with cigarettes and was hooked on glue-sniffing and ice."

She was sent to the former Andrew and Grace Home (now known as AG Home), a shelter for troubled teenagers.

It houses teenage girls who are either juvenile delinquents, beyond parental control or victims of sexual or physical abuse.

She said she ran away from there, was caught and put in the Singapore Girls' Home.

She was remanded there for three months before moving to DaySpring in 2011, she said.

Since 2006, DaySpring has been providing voluntary welfare service to women and youth-at-risk in Singapore.

A self-funded initiative under Highpoint Community Services Association, it operates two centres: DaySpring Residential Treatment Centre for abused teenage girls and DaySpring New Life Centre for unsupported pregnant women.

TURNING POINT

"I was still angry and was cutting myself the first few months at DaySpring, but Cathy (Livingston, former clinical director of DaySpring Residential Treatment Centre) was patiently counselling me and helped me get my life back," she said.

She also recalled a canoeing session when the counsellors intentionally capsized the canoes.

"The burns and cuts on my arms were so painful, I think it gave me a wake-up call," she said, adding that she quit cutting soon after.

Jane returned and worked at DaySpring months after she graduated from its programme after almost two years.

But she left after a year.

While working alone at the centre one night, one of the girls cut herself.

Said Jane: "There was so much blood. After I helped stem the bleed and bandaged her, the urge to cut myself returned. Although I didn't do it, I felt I had to get away from that environment."

Now, she is working in a childcare centre and studying to be an early childhood educator.

"My ambition is to become a child protection officer to help others who are in my kind of predicament when I was growing up.

"I want to help them cope, lend them my shoulder to cry on and protect them from abusive adults," she said.

Her wounds would reopen during training

One would think that someone like national canoeist Suzanne Seah would be brimming with confidence.

After all, she had steered her kayak through some of the choppiest waters and had won three South-east Asia (SEA) Games gold medals.

But the 24-year-old admitted she once lived with self-doubt, starting at the age of 15.

She developed an eating disorder and her self-harm escalated to cutting at 17, when she was in junior college.

"I wouldn't say it was a progression. It was more of a deterioration. But I suppose it was another form of self-control or punishment," she told The New Paper in an e-mail interview on Dec 30.

Being what she described as "non-confrontational", Ms Seah said she would cut herself whenever someone made a remark about her and she could not rebut; or when something bad happened and it was beyond her control.

"I would be filled mostly with self-hatred. There would be a constant feeling of loss of control over everything in life, while I cut myself every night," she recalled.

Even after she was drafted into the national canoeing team, Ms Seah continued to battle her demons.

"I still needed to be in control of everything, and the feeling of incompetence and self-loathing still existed. I guess I had yet to prove to myself that there was a reason to live or love life," she said.

Not only was her eating disorder affecting her training, but her cutting also meant that the wounds would reopen when she was doing weight training.

"Because we are often in water, they got infected and never healed properly. You see, I was cutting over the wounds that had yet to heal almost every night. If I kept this up, I wouldn't be good at my sport. I really wanted to be good at it," she said.

In 2010, she met her boyfriend and fellow canoeist Lucas Teo. They started dating seriously a year later.

Having found love, Ms Seah has since stopped harming herself - she is also eating regularly.

Ms Seah admitted that the urge to harm herself will always be there.

She hoped that by sharing her story, she would be able to encourage those facing similar issues to seek help and appreciate life.

"People should just force themselves to go out and do something outside of their comfort zone. It was a dark and confusing place to be in. But once you find something you love over hating yourself, it really becomes a lot easier," she said.

CUTTING TO COPE

Self-harm is not always cutting.

It includes burning, headbanging and intentionally swallowing poisonous chemicals.

Psychotherapist and counsellor at Womancare Psychological Services Cathy Livingston said self-harm is a means of expressing and dealing with internal deep distress and emotional pain.

"Many who harm themselves are experiencing anxiety, depression or have experienced trauma. They do not have healthy emotional regulation coping skills, therefore they harm themselves to cope with these feelings," she said.

Ms Livingston said self-harm releases endorphins, which compensates for the pain inside.

"But it is very temporary. The addiction probably comes from the release and distraction from the emotional pain," she said.

SIGNS OF SELF-HARM TO WATCH OUT:

-Sudden mood changes

-Isolated

-Easily irritable

-Unexplained cuts or bruises

-Wearing long sleeves and pants when it is really hot

-Hidden sharp objects in their possession

juditht@sph.com.sg

This article was first published on Jan 2, 2016.
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