At Speek we meet with many parents navigating the complex and often painful experience of supporting a child who self-harms. Recently, one parent shared her story with us, a 13-year (and counting) journey marked by uncertainty, resilience, heartbreak, and moments of hope. Her experience wasn’t linear, but through it, she and her family gained hard-won insights.
For privacy, she remains anonymous, we call her M, but her story is far from unfamiliar. Though shaped by her own circumstances, the feelings she describes, confusion, exhaustion, love, fear , echo the experiences of many parents on this journey.
M, a senior healthcare professional specialising in paediatric intensive care, described her family as “fairly normal”, loving, close, and full of good times. She had herself supported countless families through serious health crises. But nothing prepared her for discovering that one of her own daughters had begun to self-harm, nor, years later, when another child took a significant overdose.
“At first, I thought the scratches were from something else. Then I realised she had done that to herself. I took her straight to the GP – but beyond that, I didn’t really understand what it meant.”
Like many parents, she had noticed changes: more time spent alone, increased emotional volatility. But she attributed it to the usual turbulence of adolescence. When her younger child self-harmed years later, there were no warning signs.
When the Unthinkable Becomes Real: A Parent’s Inner Struggle
The shock hit her hard, both times. M felt completely blindsided, overwhelmed by confusion, fear, and self-blame. As both a parent and a healthcare professional, she struggled to reconcile how such a crisis had unfolded on her watch. She knew, without question, how much love, care, and attention she poured into her children. And yet, in quieter moments – the ones drained of energy and hope – darker thoughts would surface: Had she missed something? Had she failed them?
Self-harm had once felt like a distant concept, something she encountered in training, on the TV or heard about in professional circles, never imagining it would invade her own life. And then, suddenly, it was everywhere. It consumed her thoughts, shaped her conversations, and rewired her daily existence. There were deep cuts, overdoses, ambulance rides, hours spent in A&E, foreign objects being swallowed, hospital admissions, long sleeves in summer, the smell of Bio-Oil, glass shards hidden in the sheets, unsafe sex, extreme drinking, medication use blurred. It wasn’t one definable behaviour, it was many. And it was everywhere.
When her child was admitted to psychiatric care, the emotional toll reached a breaking point. M was diagnosed with reactive depression. Still, she kept going. She showed up to work, continued teaching and working, cared for others- maintaining the appearance of strength and capability. But inside, she was quietly falling apart.
“I cried more than I ever had”. “I couldn’t even carry my handbag in the supermarket and would visualise myself just lying on the floor. That’s how depleted I was.”
The Invisible Scars Parents Carry
One of the most profound yet overlooked impacts of parenting a child who self-harms is the emotional toll it takes. M had dealt with trauma professionally, but nothing prepared her for the trauma of her child’s pain. She described a constant state of doing — caregiving, teaching, managing — all while feeling confused, isolated, and deeply afraid. When one child came close to hitting an artery, she said simply: “Perhaps because of my background, I knew the risks. It was horror. Absolute horror.”
Alongside the fear came guilt.
“I kept asking myself: should I have done something differently when they were babies? Did I push too hard? Years later, I still wondered, was it something I did wrong?”
She took antidepressants for six years, enrolled in every parenting course she could find, and only recently began to prioritise self-care. But like many parents, the barriers were significant, financial, emotional, practical.
“I’d sign up for something, then miss it after two sessions because of a crisis at home. The energy to do something for myself just wasn’t there.”
Every resource went to her children. Well-meaning advice like “you can’t pour from an empty cup” felt irrelevant, even cold. Despite her professional background, M found the system hard to navigate. Some clinicians were “exceptional,” treating the family with humanity. Others couldn’t even get her child’s name right.
“I know the NHS is stretched. I know referrals take time. But I still ask – when did it become normal for a child to self-harm and not get help?”
The reality is stark:
One in five children self-harm, yet specialist services remain overstretched and under-resourced, unable to meet the rising demand for timely mental health support.. Referrals for self-harm in outpatient care have increased by 22% in recent years. Self-harm is often persistent, nearly 75% of adolescents who self-harm do so repeatedly for more than two years. Meanwhile, according to the Children’s Commissioner, children wait on average over two years for mental health care, with some waiting as long as three years. Even more alarmingly, a parliamentary freedom-of-information review found that 32% of GP referrals for child mental health services were denied altogether, with many NHS trusts failing to offer support until children’s conditions became very severe. Hospital admissions for youth mental health have surged 65% in England between 2012 and 2022, reflecting growing severity and complexity of cases (NHS Digital, 2023). Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among adolescents (ONS, 2021; WHO, 2021) and self-harm significantly raises the risk of future suicide attempts and long-term mental health difficulties.
Luckily for M, support eventually came, particularly through connection with other parents in a DBT group.
“It made me realise: good parents end up here too. That was powerful.”
She unlearned outdated ideas of self-harm as “attention-seeking,” built healthier communication, and learned how to set boundaries, even when terrified.
“Of course I knew boundaries mattered. But how do you hold a line when the outcome could be life-threatening?”
When asked what helped her children she explained that although the therapy support helped, it wasn’t right away. Structure helped her child. DBT skills, self soothing kits, silent car rides, dancing to Olivia Rodrigo after a rubbish day. The whole family chipped in.
“Healing doesn’t always look like therapy. Sometimes it’s just being present – saying: I see you, I understand you. We’re still here.”
Looking Back, Moving Forward
To this day, self-harm remains a part of the landscape for M and her family — and the outside world often still doesn’t understand. She recalls the weight of noticing strangers’ eyes on her child’s scars in public. One of her children now hides them. The other sees them as reminders of survival. M holds both truths — and while she accepts their choices, it doesn’t make it easy.
Today, she describes her children as recovering. One hasn’t self-harmed in years. The other is building a life that includes more independence, more calm, and fewer crises. But the work continues. Some weeks they manage their medication. Others, they need more hands-on support.
“It’s about knowing when. I’ve learned not to panic — to see relapse as a blip, not a failure.”
When asked what she wishes someone had told her at the start, she answered quietly:
“That life would carry on. That joy would return. That my children could recover.
There’d be mess — but also laughter. Barbecues. Fun. That we’d still be a family.”
For Professionals she says
See the family, not just the risk. Be human. Use names. Offer patience, not just plans. Create space for both the child and the people holding them up behind the scenes. Healing often begins in small moments of connection and feeling supported , the kind that many families don’t have access to. In fact, fewer than 1 in 3 parents whose child self-harms report receiving any support for themselves (Stewart et al., 2016).
For Parents she says
You are not alone. Your fear, guilt, and exhaustion are real, and valid. But so is your strength. Recovery doesn’t always follow a straight path, but it is possible.
Support like Speek exists to help you feel less isolated in the mess, to connect with others who get it, and to offer practical tools alongside compassion. You don’t have to figure it out alone.
Together, we can end the cycle of self-harm in children
“We’ve worked alongside over 600 families, children, and healthcare professionals to build the digital DBT informed intervention for self-harm recovery.”
Dr. Olivia Collier, Chief Clinical Officer, Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (PhD)