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Hey,

What I am going to say is from personal experience.

I am going to say that in terms of high school, self harm is self harm. The thing is that they are still liable for you and so if something does happen to you, they could be held responsible if they knew about it and didn't say anything.

My own experience is when I first started self harming, the tool I used wasn't something that made what you could consider "serious" injuries. But it was still taken seriously and mentioned to my parents so I could get further help. The thing with self harm is that a lot of the time it starts out superficial and then escalates. The other thing is that regardless of the type of self harm, it is still valid and there are still some thoughts, feelings, and emotions behind it that should be addressed.

I know this may turn you off from telling the school counselor, but I want to mention a few things:

As far as "as well as the school" I am not sure who you are referring to. My school counselor got my school psychologist involved, but besides that it was left confidential. My teachers didn't know why I was meeting with a guidance counselor. So it's likely your teachers won't know what happened unless you want them to.

Your guidance counselor may be able to help tell your parents in a way that helps them to understand the situation better. It would be a mediated discussion where the guidance counselor facilitates, and they may be able to get across to your parents what self harm is and how they can help you. They wouldn't leave you to explain everything all by youreslf.

Even if you don't talk about the self harm directly at first, you can start off by talking about some of the feelings and events that may have lead you to be triggered to self harm and possibly ask for ways to manage stress and emotions differently. But I still encourage you to be honest with your school counselor. You do not deserve to go through this alone and you deserve support.

Take care,
Dez