hey everybody happy Thursday now before
I hop into today's question I have a
couple of exciting updates number one
there will be a you now live stream this
Friday but the time is TBD if I know it
before this goes live I'll put it here
in the description or I'll put it across
the bottom of this video but there's a
poll going on Twitter if you want to hop
over and let me know I gave you two time
slots to kind of choose from the work
with my schedule and hopefully they work
with yours but will be this Friday and
remember I'm on Pacific Standard Time
and the second update is super exciting
we reached our first goal on my patreon
account and what that means is that I'm
gonna bring more professionals on to the
channel and so I've opened up a new dime
looking over here because I have my
laptop with my notes but I've opened up
a new level of payment like in the
system on the side you so you can give a
dollar you get five dollars and at the
ten dollar mark I've opened it up for a
poll so that you can tell me what
professionals you want on and I know a
lot of you also want to interact more
with what videos that you see and so
I've opened up another level pop on over
to a patreon account you can click the
link in the description to check it out
but I put that out there so that I can
get more information from you and give
you the videos and the professionals
that you're interested in so check it
out now into today's questions so the
question is and I got this from my
website katimorton.com if you haven't
hopped over there hop on over but the
question is hey Kati I want to show my
therapist my self-harm cuts she always
asks if I've been cutting and if it's
bad I don't know what she thinks of as
bad I also really just want to show her
my cuts so she can answer the question
for herself also because I want to have
someone else see how much I'm hurting
family slash friends don't know about
the cutting but I don't want her to
think that I'm trying to show her just
for attention or something so how do I
bring it up now I want to talk about
this because first of all I've gotten
maybe five questions that are very very
similar to this and I may have talked
about it in other videos but it's always
good to revisit topics that are of
importance to you and things that I see
a lot now the first is that self-injury
is a coping skill like many other things
like people who drink to cope or eating
disorder behaviors to help us cope with
hard situations many of us exercise to
cope there can be a lot of healthy /
unhealthy coping skills we use in our
life self-injury being one
those and so from this I just want to
get that out there first so that we
understand kind of where this person is
coming from so she's really struggling
and clearly by her question we can tell
that she utilizes self-injury as a way
to express how she's doing
how much she's hurting and that's
something I've talked about in an older
video of mine I'm like why do we self
injure and in her case that sounds like
it's more of an expression to be like
yeah things were shitty and I'm really
really hurting so I'm gonna show you my
curse this is what I'm doing
and so into the question itself and
answering it how do I bring it up to my
therapist now first of all as a
therapist I don't ask to see self-injury
cuts unless I worry based on
conversations I've had with my clients
that they're infected that they're not
getting the right treatment and then
they may need to go to the hospital and
get stitches stuff like that so I may
ask only for that purpose but I I've
only had to do that once so it's very
very rare that I actually asked to see
self-injury cuts or scars because I find
for my clients telling me and from you
guys telling me it can feel very
invasive make us feel really vulnerable
so my clients say that they're really
embarrassed when people ask about him
touch them anything like that can be
really triggering I'm really difficult
and so I try to respect their privacy
that way but if we're on the flip side
where we really want someone to see them
I would say it just the way you said it
to me I know I say this all the time but
often you will all ask questions and I
think that's exactly how I'd want my
client to ask me just to be straight
with me
it's fine to just act like to say it
directly and to ask the question
directly there's no wrong way to say
something in therapy just throwing it
out there the more information we're
sharing with our therapist the better
and so if we went into session we just
said you know I've really been hurting
and you always ask me if my self
injuries like if my cuts are really bad
and I don't know what you think of is
bad but I would like to show them to you
because I want to make sure that you
understand what I'm going through and we
both know how bad they are that's fine
that's enough and also I just want to
say that I think it's important to at
least address the fact that if we have
someone in our lives who uses
self-injury as a way to cope that we
understand
and that there them wanting to show it
to us does not make it an
attention-seeking behavior instead it's
their way of expressing their hurt and
their feelings and what they're
struggling with in a lot of ways I think
it's a way that people scream or reach
out for help and if you find someone in
your life is showing you or wanting to
talk about their self-injury please
please please I can't tell you enough
please tell them to reach out for help
maybe offer to go with them to the first
appointment or help them thaw out the
paperwork or any of that stuff just be a
resource them instead of seeing it as
attention-seeking behavior because often
when we reach out for help
yes we're wanting attention from you but
it's because we know that we really need
help and we're really struggling and by
showing you and expressing it is our
only way to demonstrate how much we're
hurting and so I just thought it was
really important to talk about that as
well because I know a lot of people
worry about reaching out for help
because they are afraid people are gonna
think that they're seeking attention
when in fact we're actually seeking help
and those are two totally different
things
if any of you have talked to your
therapist and shown them your scars or
your cuts can you let us know how you
did that and how it came about and if it
felt okay for you because that's my only
concern and I something that I can learn
from all of you is if as a therapist if
we are worried how do we ask what's the
best way to ask and if we're a client
and we really want to show them what are
some other options it's the person who
asked this question doesn't like my
answer because I know that it's hard and
uncomfortable but sometimes just doing
it like just doing it quick and being
direct is the best way and it also you
know will limit the amount of things
that we're gonna say that maybe take
away from what we're really trying to
get at like sometimes my clients will
ask me questions and there's such I can
tell that there's a lot of anxiety
around them and they'll say it in such a
way where I'm like wait so what I don't
understand what you're trying to tell me
can you start again and they get
frustrated but it's because there's it's
better sometimes just to be direct so
you might just tell your therapist I've
been really hurting I want to show these
to you because I want to make sure that
you know what's going on that's fair
enough I doubt she's gonna say no I
don't think that it's gonna be anything
as big as we're making it out to be but
at least then she unders
what you're going through and can know
how bad you're hurting I love you all I
hope you found this video helpful please
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will see you all tomorrow on the live
stream and the time this TBD check out
my Twitter account because there's a
full going where you're all talking
about it it's either 10:30 in the
morning or 10:00 in the morning or 1:30
p.m. vote and let me know and then I
will see you then bye hey everybody
happy Thursday have before I jump into
today's question - today today - today
junior