Cutting and Purging

funny how the world only whirls in your direction. You forget the same distance is between you and me, and neither have you heard my voice.

dadpad, at least come up with a different argument that I think I'm right all the time. It's tiresome.

You made it abundantly clear to me in a pm to me how stupid I was being for caring about someone's alleged problems on the internet, and that was in more than one message.

but when you care, it's all great.


why don't you address that?

Probably because he doesn't have a clue, Chai, on his distance from Austin, TX. Maximum distance between any 2 points on the planet is 12,000 miles, and he claims to be 20,000 miles away from you, which places him somewhere in orbit. The 8,000 miles difference immediately excludes geostationary, polar, and inclined orbits, leaving only Molniya orbits:



That he knows nothing of deep packet inspection or RST injection is certain; others here have observed on lacunae in his knowledge of both the law and medicine. Now we can safely add geography to this list.

I'm curious to find some subject he does know, so I'll keep reading, but I just wouldn't worry too much about his opinion on any subject

dadpad, I am a little confused about a basic issue regarding the topic.

Why did the Administrators of that Forum Board want a closed forum for these exchange students? Was it to give these students complete privacy from prying adult eyes? And what role, if any, was the Moderator of that closed forum supposed to have?

Telling young adults they have a private space to communicate, and then monitoring the communications, seems to me a little voyeuristic, even though that may not have been the intention of the Administrators. And to even consider notifying anyone in the "real world" about the content of what was posted in that closed forum seems, to me, the height of dishonesty. Forget about legalities, because I'm not sure any really apply in this situation, and just consider basic morality. You give the students a private space, then you spy on them, and then you consider notifying adults in their lives about what is being talked about. Is this moral, ethical conduct on the part of an adult? Cloaking it in alleged concern for these students' well being does not really make it more ethically palatable for me.

Sure it is troubling that these students are talking about serious eating disorders or self injurious behaviors--things they are apparently trying hard to conceal from adults in their lives. But there is a big difference between self injurious behaviors and actions which are imminently or seriously life threatening. These sorts of self injurious behaviors do not constitute any sort of immediate emergency of the kind where one might need to consider sounding the alarms to outside authorities in these students' actual lives.
And, even in the event of a genuine life or death emergency, such as a specific suicide threat, the Moderator of a forum really cannot be held legally responsible to do anything, precisely because the communication from the student might, or might not be valid. People lie on the internet all the time. And why would the Mod have any greater responsibility than any other people who might read the posts? Does the Mod have any actual relationship to the student?

Suppose the students were talking about binge drinking, having unprotected sex, driving cars at high speed, or taking drugs--all of which are also self injurious behaviors--would there still be the same concern about whether authorities in the exchange program, or families of the students, should be alerted? Are eating disorders and burning/cutting oneself really more alarming than any of those other actions? I think not. They are just more typically female expressions of emotional difficulties, whereas the other behaviors might be more typically male.

I would also suggest that these students are not looking for help--in fact they are going to lengths to conceal their eating problems and evidence of their self injury. These symptoms/behaviors serve some sort of emotion purpose or function for them, and they don't want to give them them up--at least not yet. Behaviors like eating disorders and self injury also have a compulsive/addictive quality, and people who have these problems generally resist attempts to stop them from continuing to do such things.

I think if you offer young adults a private place to communicate, you should let it be a really private place.

If you are genuinely concerned about the welfare of one of those students, then communicate by PM with that student and express your concern and ask what help they think they need or want, if any. Then think about whether you really want to help them. If you do, don't worry about being sued, or other legalities, just do what you feel is the right thing to do as a responsible adult. But don't go behind the student's back to notify anyone else, just express your concern directly to the student. Although I feel you should think long and hard about whether you really want to get involved in any of this.

That was a very elegant way of phrasing what Chai and I (and others) observed earlier on this thread - but I doubt that any of it will sink in.

Hey DadPad

I speak as a parent of a child who cuts - and cuts regularly.

He has also made a suicide attempt.

He had no-one he could talk to. He kept it secret from his friends. Nobody - except us - ever knew there was a problem.

My feeling as a parent - if a kid can talk to another kid.... well, it may help - it may lead to futher SI behaviour. If the child is able to talk openly on a forum believing their words are private and will not be repeated back to their parents/carers - then I feel they should stay private. That's just my opinion. However, as with ANY support system - the child/person can also learn a lot of ways to SI further - cover up further. Double edged sword.

If I didn't know my child was cutting... would I want to know? Obviously - you would question yourself as to why you weren't aware, you would then try and FIX the problem. But it isn't that easy - parents are the least likely people to be able to fix a problem with their childrens SI behaviour (in my opinion).

I won't go further into my details. The people on here who know - already know what my son and us as parents go through.

It made me think tho - your question of who should know, what is your responsibility. Well - I don't know law - but when a child approaches say, a school counsellor (I believe they have them here in the US) and for example, a girl would be having unprotected sex - a boy would be sleeping around knowing he was passing on an STD... you know ... that sort of information - am I right in thinking that the counsellor cannot inform the parents or the school? If that's the case - then watching as a mod from on a forum - well, as you would not know for definite whether the information is true - then giving personal advice etc - in my opinion - would not be the correct thing to do and COULD get you into all sorts of bother. If information was posted - sites etc for information from PROFESSIONALS then what you are doing it pointing them in a direction which could help them if they choose to take that route.

I think what you are doing is a good thing.

Oh.... SI is not always related to mental health "disease". It cannot be cured with a pill. Mental health issues/disorders are extremely complex. One word to the wrong person could cause a child (person) to take it one step further. Not saying one word could also have the same fatal result.

I don't envy your decision here DP. For your peace of mind - I would make a call to a legal someone. It's a big responsibility. Again, I think it is a good thing for a child to have somewhere to turn. Good Luck.