WARNING to parents of teenage girls!!!!!

We've had a number of threads on this topic, mysteryman. Cutters and parents of cutters looking for help and support. <most often in parenting or health/medicine>

It's a tough world out there. Nothing new really. There were cutters in high school 30 years ago. I am glad that we are hearing more about it now - makes it harder to hide.

Sorry,
I hadnt seen any threads on this,and I found it alarming enough to report about.
I dont have any kids (that I know of),so I was just trying to pass the info along.

It's called 'cutting'. I had a friend in jr high school (1980, or so) who did this. It freaked me out. And, I'm sorry to say, I prolly wasn't much help to her then. I stayed her friend, but I truely did not understand why she was doing that.

Nothing to apologize for, mysteryman. As I said, I'm glad this is getting more coverage these days. It used to be much more hidden, and I think that made it harder for people to know how to respond or help to people who were cutting.

It needs to be addressed and recognized as an actual issue in this country among our young people. No reason to apologize for trying to bring awareness to those who turn their heads from the truth. :wink:

As a sixteen year old attending high school (over 1400 students), I see this daily.

I struggle with my views on it. I see depression as a choice, as someone who formerly considered themselves depressed, to an extent. However, I think that most of the people I am around during school do not see it in this light, and dwell. Most do it for attention (believe me, their words say enough), some for lack of a better release.

I struggle with pittying them vs. slapping them and shouting, "hey! Get over it! You make life what you want it to be!" But when you're 16-18, living under your parents rule (which is sometimes abusive), it's hard to see the light in that.

I think it's a sign of immaturity and not being able to work out emotional issues in a more...stable way. I used to cut, until I snapped myself out of the woe-is-me world. Life sucks sometimes, but that doesn't mean you're the victim.

Just a question Sanctuary - but why do you think someone would choose depression?

I think people can consciously choose happiness - I know because I did. I made the decision not to dwell on the negative and to try to be solution-oriented in my approach to life. But I've never been clinically depressive. I've known people who are, and it seems to me that they would give anything not to be depressed - so I'm confused that you think it's a choice. I'm not sure they can consciously choose not to be depressed as it usually is due to a certain brain chemistry- not enough seratonin. Do you think that in highschoolers depression and cutting, etc. have become fashionable? Is that what you mean by people choosing to act in these ways? I'm interested in your viewpoint on this.

Depression is not about attention, nor is cutting. Depression is commonly misdiagnosed as a "get over it" or "snap out it" disease by family and friends of the depressed. Depression is actually caused by an impabalance of hormones, primarily seritonin and dopamine, both with cause the feeling of happiness. While SOME people do things for attention, saying that depression (for the most part) is a choice is just setting those who are actually sufferers up for failure, embarrassment and more depression.

There is a distinct difference between the blues and depression. Everyone gets down. Everyone thinks "Today sucks! My life is ****!" but not everyone has depression. And those who you say talk about it may just be saying "Help me! I don't know how else to cope with this." Your pity is ill placed and un-needed. By pittying them, you make them believe that perhaps, there is no help. And by telling them to "get over it" you are belittling their pain and making it seem like they are abnormal.

Some cutters may do it for attention. They may want attention any way they can get it because they don't get it from those who should be giving it to them. It's the same principle as girls who sleep around or act "slutty" to get attention from guys. Sometimes, bad attention is better than no attention and they don't know any other way.

Sanctuary, you are in high school and that is a difficult time in life. Beinga teenager is filled with unknowns about your future, your friends and yourself. Don't mistake depression for teen age drama. And don't trivialize those who are depressed. We all went through (or will go through) the teenage blues. Not everyone will deal with depression.

You are correct in saying that no one is a victim unless they allow themselves to be. But we don't choose to be depressed or have other mental disorders. We do choose to change our life by getting help and making the best of what we are given.

Yeah - Bella Dea - exactly. But I do wonder about this cutting. I do think it is increasing. I didn't know anyone who cut in highschool, and now it's somewhat of an epidemic. It makes me want to do some research and look at the statistics for anorexia. Has the incidence of that kind of self-harm gone up, or down or stayed the same, now that there are other kinds of self-harming in vogue?

Mysteryman - I was reading another thread about cutting this morning. I find it absolutely chilling. I have a thirteen year old daughter and if I knew she was doing this - it would chill me to my bones. Even if she was just doing it to get attention or to fit in, I would have to seriously look at why that would be her method of choice. I don't think its message (what it says about the mindset of the person who's doing it) should be minimized just because it has become the in vogue method of expression among young women. I have a friend who's thirty now - brilliant woman - attending graduate school at Harvard - and you can still see the small white scars that criss-cross her forearms. She won't talk about it - but still has to take leaves of absences every now and then due to her depression.

I am afraid that it is becoming "trendy" as well. It's sad that our young people have to resort to this to be "cool". Things were not like this when I was in school.

No, I do think that it's a choice. However, I was referring to the cutting more so than clinical depression. You can have uneven brain waves, and still know that you don't have to cut/harm yourself. THAT, I believe, is a choice.

Now, I can tell you right now that it is a fad. In middle school, I remember a new trend they called 'erasing'. I remember sitting in the middle of math class and seeing kids take erasers to their wrists and arms, and erase until they bled. "Let's erase, man!" It was so pittiful...I only scoffted at them. They came to school the next day, scabs and all, showing it off to all their friends. The same situations happen now, but with actual cutting/burning. I feel no pity for them.

When I was in High School many of us erased by using
PCP, mescaline, heroine, coke, or just alcohol.

If cutting and erasing are increasing, maybe that's an
indication that the War on Drugs is succeeding.

The urge to get the he!l out of here is still there, but we
have denied access to the most visible doors.

Same frightening life, same non-listening and non-sharing community.

Let's blame the knives next. And those dangerous felt erasers
have GOT to go. They are causing the trouble.

It's the felt, no absolutely not the stifled feeling
that is to blame. Or . . .

Did anybody think to ASK THE KIDS how they are?
Listening is actually easier than en-forcing.

Well, that's what I believe the problem is.

Kids resort to cutting (or whatever else) because it's all they know. Parents don't actually talk to their kids anymore, of course not. My mother couldn't tell you anything about my life. Thankfully (for myself) I am straightedge and not promiscuous, nor do I any longer suffer from depression. I'm making a pretty good way for myself, but it's no thanks to my mother, that's for sure. My father has since passed away, though he was the only one in my life who instilled a since of discipline and compassion. If I had not had the brains to figure out my problems before they got out of hand (thankfully, I turned more to cyber-issues than real-life problems. I was home schooled for two years and completely isolated. This took a huge toll on me mentally, however I think I benefited from it in the since that all my depression, all my sluttiness, all my bitchiness, all my immaturity, I took out on-line and through chat rooms and forums. I would much rather 'flirt' with someone 1000 miles away, than be having sex at age 12), then I would be in big trouble now, because my mother does not intervene in my life what so ever. I think this is the same with most kids, but they either do not have the same views as I do (on drugs, alcohol, sex, etc), and so they wind up self-destructing, or they just have no where else to turn and thus take their loneliness out on themselves. It's sad.

I am very conflicted with this. It is not so much the actual issues I detest, but the solutions some teens come up for them. Like cutting, for instance. It's so absurd that someone would imagine that slicing through your skin will solve a serious problem in your life. However, most continue to do it. I did. It "numbed the pain." Bullshit - I numbed the pain, the cutting was a distraction. It's all a world of major denial and pain. I think it says a lot about the country we're 'evolving' into when the majority of the nation's youth feel so lost, so alone that instead of being able to talk to their parents, they instead must look to the most common release - which so happens to be self-destruction these days.

When I was in the Air Force in 1966 my roommate was a cutter. A big old country boy from Tennessee. He was the nicest guy you would want to meet. When I would ask him why he did this (usually with a razor blade), he would always shrug his shoulders and say he didn't know. The arm chair psycharist in me always thought he was screaming for attention. Now I'm not so sure. It's definitely a strange phenomena?

Some of you may be shocked to hear this, but I've cut myself more than once when I was a teenager and it was purely out of rage. I was bullied big time in school and it was a place to put my rage. It was a temporary distraction from that rage. I know this may not make sense to you, but I've watched programs on this issue to see if other teens that were cutting felt the same way and they all felt exactly the way I did.
These school bullies are running the schools and have been for many many years and unless the schools remove these abusers, cutting will continue to grow.
It's all about pure rage that doesn't have anywhere to go.
These are kids that have no where to turn because no one is listening to them. They are tortured by other kids in school, day in and day out and no matter how many people they tell, no one does a gamn thing to help them.

I agree, Montana. It's the fact that - like I said - kids have no guidance. I'm not refering to only the cutters... but the ones who do the bullying aswell. Parents are so absent in kids' lives these days, that they have no one to consult them on what is right or wrong. Now of course they KNOW, but there is no enforcement. Thus, the bullying still continues, and the cutting does aswell.

I'm doing a story on teen violence for the school's paper this month, it's shocking to see some of the statistics out there...

In a diverse world, we will be tortured by one thing or another in a variety of ways.
Fix one bully and another pops up behind it. Forever.
That's just the diversity of nature.

So in a jungle, it's not how many tigers we manage to kill,
but how our family can huddle around a warm fire and be with each other.

How was your day? Was there anything worrying or frightening?
How are you? Why do you shiver so? How are you?
Are you hungry? Yeah, me too. Are you cold or tired? Yeah. How are
your dreams? It's okay to feel all of it, no matter how you feel.
Acknowledge it and see it. Together.

Hang out and "do" nothing. Spend time. Be more and more aware. Ask questions.
Listen. Good company and some human contact (that doesn't demand,
"tell", or require) . . . THAT is what turns a jungle into something
more like heaven than hell.

I can't blame a bully. Or even a parent. All we can do it try to ask
them directly, and listen to all of it - how they are, and why.

That's how a bully becomes seen and heard and calm again.
That's how a flailing parent becomes seen and heard and more connected.
That's how an addict becomes seen and heard, more comfortable and flowing.
It's how people can be themselves, just as they are, and not run away
screaming, slashing, and checking out from hell.

I hear all of you, I really do, and I admire how you face the challenges in life.

But I can't blame and attack and tear down
anything in the world, because for me blaming is "active non-listening"
to the very thing that is important in my life. Blaming involves
rejecting and ignoring something - because we reached our limits.

It's super-difficult, so I take lots of breaks and naps.
But I'd rather ask, listen, find out how and why
from the source itself, rather than my own conjecture or judgeing-ness.

How are you? The answers are sitting right there
if we just ask them our question, and be with them.






. . . sorry for the long rant. I hope it was worth reading.

CB
I appreciate your post, but I don't agree with it. My mom tried to talk to the schools about the abuse I was dealing with, but the schools did nothing to protect me. How were my parents to protect me when the schools wouldn't listen? When I think of my days in school I think of prison because that's exactly what it was for me. I was forced to be in a building where I was fare game for abusers and I had no protection what so ever. There was nothing my parents could do to protect me and the schools just simply didn't give a rats ass about what these bullies were doing to me in the hallways, in the bathroom, on the way to school, on the way home from school and right in the classroom.
There are so many victims in the schools and there's no one there willing to help them. When you're in this situation it's like being in prison for at least 6 hours a day and the whole time you're in constant fear. I lived this, so I know what it's like and no one that hasn't been through it themselves can fathom what I'm talking about because they have been spared that kind of torture.
My rage had nothing to do with my parents, but everything I was going through each and every day I was in school.
I know that there are cases where the parents are the problem, but that was not my case at all.

I'd also like to add that I quit school at 15 years old because I couldn't take the abuse anymore. It was the best thing I ever did!