"Cry For Help"

This phrase is banded about a lot in the world of self harm and eating disorders. I actually think this phrase perfectly sums up a huge part of their very workings, but for some reason, it has become a term of dismission.

"She's just doing it as a cry for help, it's no big deal"

Uh.. what? A cry for help means there is a need for help in the first place, the sheer desperation of people who turn to self harm starvation aren't  just crying for help, they're screaming. Why on earth does this strike somebody as a reason to disregard their struggles? Surely, if anything, they should realise how truly awful somebody must be feeling to search for some kind of deliverance, of salvation even, through such self destructive means?

Honestly, it drives me up the wall. If people hurt themselves as a "cry for help", give them fucking help, they clearly need it!

Now, don't get me wrong, I think "doing it for attention" and "crying out for help" are very different things. Somebody who shouts about how they love cutting themselves, or posts pictures on crazy ass erotic forums, or who broadcasts pro-ana messages of "bones are beautiful", they need a whole different kind of help. They need help to stop being such a dick and get to the bottom of why they're choosing to promote something so blatantly harmful as a good lifestyle choice.

Nobody ever acknowledges they're doing something as a cry for help. I never did, but with the benefit of hindsight, there were times when I just wanted someone to take me aside and say;

"I've noticed. I've seen the scars. I've noticed the weight loss, the disappearance to the bathrooms. And it's okay, I'm here for you, and I'm going to help you get through this"

I once read a very good description of selfharm;

"You scream, in a room full of people, but nobody, not a single person, hears you. So you scream in blood." 

Sometimes, you need to LET STUFF OUT, and you want other people to hear you.

Regardless, in keeping with everything else I used to destroy myself, I never opened up really, not until after a long long time of it anyway. I still wore long sleeves all through the summer, or smeared foundation on my arms. I still laughed off anybody who asked why I hadn't eating, and I still lied about my weight, and how much I ate. But right at the back of my mind, in the deepest, darkest corner of it, lay a desperate me. The rational me. The scared, hopeless, lost me, who wanted somebody to find me. Part of me wonders if that part of me is my inner child, the happy little girl who at times feels miles away, crying out for help.

The other day, I saw a yahoo answers post which broke my heart. A girl had posted this (or something very similar): 

"I am 12 years old, and I have taken 12 paracetemols. I'm 5ft3 and quite a small build, will this be enough to kill me?"

No, there weren't concerned messages urging her to go to hospital. In fact, the highest rated comment was;
"If you really wanted to kill yourself, you would have taken the whole pack sweetie. I think somebody's done this as a little cry for help, so why don't you run along down to A&E to get an ickle stomach pump."

Not sure if I've truly communicated the evident sarcasm of the comment, but it was dripping with it, and many of the other comments followed the same theme.

That little girl could be dead.

She was crying out for help, because she needed it.