My name is Kalie Gipson, and I am a college graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in History and a minor in Psychology. Simply making it through middle school, high school, and college was an excruciating task for me, since I suffered from self-harm for seven of the past 10 years. It all started when I was 13, after a rather nasty argument involving my entire family. It quickly escalated into a psychological addiction to self-injury, one I had to answer to every time it called. After a few years, hiding the self-harm scars on my arms and legs became an exercise in futility.

You can survive life stressors without turning to self-harm. Life is filled with many turns and twists. One week you may feel confident and secure when the next you may be late paying back a loan or forget to study for an exam. You truly never know what to expect from day-to-day and sometimes that mystery brings forward more stress than needed. Even the most organized individual can feel overwhelmed by a simple, daily task when they don’t see it coming. When you feel as if the world around you is bringing more chaos into your environment than stability, an anxiety attack very well may occur but you can deal with this stress without self-harming.

Learn how to embrace being different -- you are making a difference. I’ve always had a guilty pleasure for watching entertainment award shows and red carpet specials. I will admit -- I like watching the lives of celebrities and seeing the highs and lows they go through that make them, well, human (as long as they’re not dramatized highs and lows). I will typically watch award shows for the fashion disasters and the awful lip-synching, but I didn’t expect to receive the inspirational quote I did from one of the most recent shows about embracing differences.

When it's time to overcome self-harm, you must prepare realistically. Life is one heck of a roller-coaster. That cliché is said time and time again simply because of how true it is. The world we live in hands us moments of happiness and moments of sorrow in the blink of an eye. It is up to us to find ways to realistically handle emotions without getting too comfortable with them because life is always expected to keep on changing. And we need to realistically adjust with those changes when it's time to overcome self-harm.

Not hiding self-harm scars can be a tough decision. When someone sees a self-harm scar and brings it up, panic often takes over the body and mind of the person who self-harms. Battling the embarrassment that comes with someone questioning a visible scar from self-harm can often bring forward many negative emotions and anxiety. From there, the battle becomes you fighting against your own insecurities. But not hiding self-harm scars is an option.

In this day and age, many people turn to the Internet for answers, including looking for answers on skin picking and self-harm on the Internet. If there are websites and articles that can give you the knowledge you are seeking, why not take advantage of it? It is very easy to grab a hold of answers with the click of the button and to be able to have this kind of power can be thrilling. However, it is important to make sure that the power you hold is positive when it comes to self-harm and skin picking on the Internet.

When you are struggling with self-harm, it is very rare that when someone asks about a visible cut or burn, you will answer with the truth. There are the occasional few who will honestly answer that question and admit to their struggle without embarrassment or insecurity. While that kind of behavior does occur once in a while, more times than not people who self-harm use cover stories for self-harm scars.

I have come to realize how important it is to specifically schedule time to focus on you. When you struggle with self-harm or a mental illness, those battles begin to take over your life. You cannot focus on hobbies and passions with as much ease because those busy, irritating thoughts are clouding your mind. The more you give in to the self-injury urges that surround you, the more time you give up that could have been benefiting your wellness and health. What you might want to focus on is more time for you and less time for self-harm.

When you’re struggling with self-harm and the symptoms of depression, finding motivation to do anything can be a daily battle. For those battling mental illness, rolling out of bed in the morning can often cause more anxiety than the minutes leading up to a big test or interview. It can be difficult to imagine this intense lack of motivation if someone hasn’t experienced the draining, pulling force self-harm, depression and other mental illnesses can have on a person but what I've learned is that focusing on fitness can help prevent self-harm.

Many of those who self-harm feel trapped inside their own skin. It can be difficult deciphering what your body is telling you when your own behaviors are unrecognizable. These mood highs and lows can make those struggling with mental illness turn to destroying the skin they feel trapped inside of, hoping those feelings will disappear. However, it can be tough ignoring a fresh self-harm scar and forgetting what brought you to that point of recklessness when it is right in front of you. Even after a quick glance at a recent self-injury mark, a terrific day can turn into a nightmare because of the emotions locked inside the wound. Mood highs and lows affect self-harm behavior.