[Breathe~me]

You could say you have a friend who is self-harming and you want his advice on how to help her. But from the sound of your post it sounds like deep down you want him to know that you're self-harming more than just for the advice side of things. Maybe to gain someone you can trust? Maybe because you want someone to protect you? Maybe because he's really nice to you ? I don't know what the reason is but all teachers have a 'duty of care' agreement which means if you are a) a risk to yourself (which you are) b) a risk to others or c) a risk to her then he is obligated by law to report you to the school's principal which will most likely contact child protective services and possibly your parents. I graduated from high school last month but I know some tricks to get around duty of care... Before you tell him ask him if he'd tell anybody if *a student* (not you) was self-harming. Say you're talking about a friend you care about? Ask him if you were to disclose details about self-harming behaviours would he tell anybody? Ask him in a kind of opinion theory way about different topics youth face today- eg. sir what do you think of binge drinking/ teen pregnancy/ drugs/ age gaps in dating/ *cutting* (work your way up to it). Or you can alternatively tell him you feel depressed and work your way up to telling him you self-harm when you are comfortable. Some teachers are more chilled when it comes to duty of care stuff. Depends what the teacher is like. Anyway good luck and I hope you're able to stop/reduce self-harming behaviours. It will really just put you in a deeper hole than you're already in. Think of depression as a tunnel, by self-harming you are prolonging depression EVEN THOUGH SELF-HARM DOES FEEL BETTER SHORT-TERM. You're making that tunnel longer and harder to get out of. You won't be able to find light in a tunnel you keep building up and you won't be able to get out of it if self-harming continues. Break the cycle and stay strong