Choosing Freedom Over Silence

TW/Content Note: This series discusses experiences with self-injury, shame, and healing. Please take care while reading and step away if you need to. If these topics are difficult for you, consider reading when you feel supported.

Have you ever stood so strongly for something, believed in it with everything you are and then realized you allow yourself to be the exception to the rule?

You offer others love, respect, kindness and grace - but somehow you don’t extend the same to yourself.

Maybe that makes me sound like a hypocrite. And maybe sometimes I have been. Or maybe I’m simply learning how to hold myself with the same tenderness I so freely offer to others.

March is Self-Injury Awareness Month.

If you know me, you know this isn’t something I speak about lightly. Every month I share the To Write Love on Her Arms calendar. I share their messages and their stories. I fundraise and participate in their 5km. And honestly, about 75% of my closet is their shirts, hoodies, and hats.

I believe recovery is possible.

I believe healing isn’t a straight line.

I believe there is no shame in our scars.

And most importantly, I believe that sharing our stories help others feel a little less alone.

What I hate is the stigma that keeps people who struggle with self-injury suffering quietly, convinced they have to carry it alone. But I also believe that’s something we can change.

My therapist often reminds me that the only way to release shame is to use my voice.

To speak my truth.

To own my story.

And the truth is… this topic matters so much to me because it’s not just something I care deeply about…it’s something I have lived.

There were years when pain felt easier to carry on my skin than inside my heart.

For more than two-thirds of my life, this has been a quiet battle I carried behind long sleeves, baggy clothing, silence and a carefully constructed version of myself that felt easier for the world to accept.

Shame has a way of convincing you that your story should stay hidden. That if people really knew, they would see you differently.

For a very long time, I believed that.

But maybe healing begins the moment we stop protecting the shame and start protecting ourselves instead.

So, this Self-Injury Awareness Month, I’m giving myself something I should have given myself a long time ago.

Freedom.

Freedom from the silence.

Freedom from the secrecy.

Freedom from the weight I have carried quietly for so much of my life.

And maybe, just maybe, if my voice helps even one person feel less alone…

then breaking my silence will have been worth it.

If this is something you’re struggling with, please know you are not alone. Support and hope exist, and there are people who want to walk with you through it. Organizations like To Write Love on Her Arms exist to remind us that our stories matter, our scars do not define us, and recovery is possible.

Thank you for being here 💕

988 Suicide Crisis Helpline - Call or text 988 (available 24/7 across Canada)

ConnexOntario - 1-866-531-2600 for free mental health and addiction support in Ontario


Kids Help Phone - 1-800-668-6868 or text CONNECT to 686868


To Write Love on Her Arms - an organization dedicated to helping people find hope and support through mental health resources and community