im here for you

Hey! If I were you, I would look up what the legal obligations are in your country and at your school. Usually you can find these on the internet, but if you can't find them you should just ask your counselor. 

In my country (the Netherlands) and at my school, the counselor had  to tell my form teacher, as well as my parents. For me, this actually made me feel lots worse. So before telling your counselor information you might not want your parents/other people to know, be sure to know the legal obligations.

Also, counselors usually have to tell your parents/teachers, while professional therapists do not (depending on your age). You might wanna visit a professional therapist and talk through all your problems with him/her, because there is a smaller chance the therapist will share it with your parents (but this depends on your age and the severity of your problems).

Hopefully this will help you! And also, you can be so proud of yourself that you are actually willing to share all this private information with your counselor! It can be very difficult to share private emotional problems, and doing that is something which will really help you recover. 

Yes, I’m definitely still alive luckily! I have actually recovered from my depression and self-harm afters years of seeing a therapist. However, I must admit I still feel urges sometimes.

I completely understand you. It’s hard to stop once you have started, but believe me, in the long term it will help you. Even though it is enormously important to stop cutting and use better coping mechanisms, I think it’s even more important to do something about het constant pain and anxiety you are feeling. Have you ever thought about visiting a therapist? Please open up to someone - a friend, a counselor or a teacher. As you said, you’re friends might label you, but that’s just because they probably have no idea why you’re feeling this way. I really would recommend opening up to a school counselor or teacher, it has helped me a lot and they will understand.

And about your friends finding out - yes, probably they will. Just don’t think of it too much, and when they find out, explain why you are doing it, maybe they will understand. 

You really should talk to her about everything. Ask her how she is feeling about your relationship and tell her how you’re feeling about your relationship. Does she know you have a history with depression? If not, you should definitely tell her. Also tell her that you really want to help her and be there for her, but that you’re also easily triggered and don’t want to fall in back your depression. You really have to seek a balance in the relationship/helping her: how much can you help her without being triggered. It’s important that you tell her when you cannot help her or listen to her problems because it’s getting too much for you. Sometimes choosing for yourself is the best thing to do, and in this case it definitely is. 

I hope you and your (ex)girlfriend will figure this out together, and I wish you both all the love and luck in this world! Life can be hard, but you guys can get through this.

Aw thank you so much! This honestly means so much to me <3 I’m glad it helped you, and I hope you’re doing amazing.

Also I definitely took care of myself, I actually got out of my depression for good in these past few months :) 

Stay strong, you will be okay. Really.

For now I would advise to talk to someone, and try to go to a therapist. Please seek help, because you deserve so much more than feeling like this.

If something is wrong, you can always message me.

This is exactly the reason why I don’t like these kind of promises. Cutting won’t stop because you made a promise to a loved one that you will never do it again. Cutting, any form of self-harm by the way, is an addiction, that needs serious treatment. A promise won’t stop you from doing it, and nor will it help your friend. 

This promise only makes you feel worse, because you desperately want to numb the pain but you ‘are not allowed to’, so you feel like you’re trapped. And I bet your best friend feels the same. So, this is not going to help any of you, nobody will feel better because of this promise. You and your best friend need serious help.

I would advice you to talk to your best friend about how you feel. Tell her that you desperately want to cut and that you’re feeling more depressed and have more panic attacks. Ask her how she has been feeling lately. Tell her that you need help, and she needs too.

And baby, please don’t burn yourself, it’s just as bad as cutting and I don’t want you to do it, I care about you. Don’t hurt yourself, because you deserve more. Just wait, it will get better (it took me 2 years, and yes that might seem like a long time, and it definitely is, but it’s worth the wait).

I hope you go get help and feel better soon, you deserve it.