Case Study
by Benji
Kelly Holmes - self harm
Double- Olympic Champions Kelly Holmes has revealed how she put herself through two months of self-harm with scissors just a year before the Athens Olympics.
Holmes, 35, said she began cutting her wrists and chest after a series of injuries threatened to ruin her career. She was training with Maria Mutola in the French Pyrenees, but was in constant agony from a damaged calf and tissue strain, leaving her unable to run properly.
"I even thought briefly, just for a moment, about pressing the scissors harder in my wrists," she told the News of the World.
"I thought I was cursed. It's the lowest I've ever, ever been."
"I'd locked myself in the bathroom and turned on the taps so nobody could hear me crying," she was quoted as saying by the British Sunday newspaper.
"That's when I saw a pair of scissors. I picked them up, opened them and started to cut my left arm.
"I made one cut for every day I'd been injured. With each one I felt I was punishing myself but at the same time I felt a sense of release that drove me to do it again and again.
"I knew deep inside that I wouldn't go any further. The whole episode was nothing more than a cry of despair."
Holmes told the paper how she eventually went to see a doctor to get professional help for the problem.
But after success at the Olympics she feels the grim episode is firmly behind her.
"Now I don't think I'll ever get to that stage again because I've achieved what I've always wanted. I strove to be the best and not give up on it."
