Emma is 27 and has been self-harming for 10yrs. Although she started with cutting her arms with a razor blade, she later started slashing her legs and stomach, and banging her head against a wall. More recently she has been taking overdoses and has been admitted to hospital eight times after overdosing.

"I'd been anorexic since the age of 14 and at my worst my weight had plummeted to 5 1/2 stone. Although I managed to control my weight with help, I felt I had no control over anything else in my life. So I'd shut myself in the bathroom with a packet of razor blades and slowly drag the blade along my skin. At the time it didn't hurt. Instead it felt like a release.

By 1996 Emma was cutting her arms on a daily basis. It was then she went to her GP and was admitted to a day hospital. "I knew I had to get myself under control somehow, my self-harming was going through peaks and troughs, but when I wasn't cutting or headbanging - which I started doing after a couple of years - I was starving myself for days on end. It had to stop.

Therapy and talking to others in the hospital helped Emma learn to cope and by last year she'd stopped hurting herself for six months. "I was so proud when I got to the stage where I could trust myself to walk into a chemist without buying piles of razors and paracetamol". But, by the following Christmas things had got too much for Emma and the vicious cycle of self-harm started again. "I don't know what triggered it off, but I suddenly realised everything was getting on top of me and I needed to self-harm again, this time, however, I realised cutting, headbanging and starving weren't going to have the same effect. It was a though I'd raised the stakes and needed something more dangerous and harmful. I decided to take an overdose. Although I knew it was dangerous, I didn't care, I just didn't even think about that. The first time I overdosed, my husband was out for the evening. I swallowed loads of painkillers and locked myself in the bathroom. After a while I passed out and at last all my problems were gone - I didn't feel any pain, just a great numbing. The next thing I remember was waking up in the bathroom at about 3am. My husband was out for the night and I was scared. I phoned the Samaritans and told them what I'd done. They told me to call an ambulance straight away"

After having her stomach pumped, spending several days in the hospital and getting a visit from a psychiatrist, Emma was allowed home. But it was only a couple of days before she took another overdose. "It's a different feeling from cutting yourself, although you can't see it physically, you feel like you deserve to feel so bad because everything that's gone wrong in your life is your fault. You feel flat and desperate, and it's the only escape you know. I know it sounds like a stupid thing to do, to take an overdose, but I don't do it because I want to die. I do it for the floating feeling and because I get to lie in a hospital bed for a couple of days and switch off from the world"

Emma was lucky. Taking overdoses for a 'floating feeling' is a risky business. Ten per cent of women who self-harm end up committing suicide, but because Emma's been able to get help, it seems she's back in control of her own life at last. She hasn't harmed herself for 6 months and has been having therapy sessions. She says she's very pleased with her progress. "After not hurting myself for 6 months I'm determined to stop. Better still, I know I have to do it for the right reasons and I want to stop self-harming for my own sake rather than for anyone else. This time I know it's going to work because at long last I'm doing it for me!"