A serious Question--cutters and pain

[CrimsynTide]

I've got a 14 YO too. Mine's a cutter as well. She cut to alleviate the emotional pain she felt. She needed a physical outlet for what was going on in her head. She was seeing a counselor as well and was having a hard time living with her father. After she moved in with me, we talked about her cutting. He freaked out and sent her to the psyche ward and called it a suicide attempt.

I think she needed his time and attention, instead she got him yelling at her and calling her stupid. She and I have a great relationship and we talk about everything. I don't let her get away with closing me out of her life.

We talked about how she was feeling. I did a lot of listening (still do) and we talked about a variety of ways to help her express herself. She loves to write, and I encourage it. She is allowed to read anything she finds in the house. She is required to discuss her reding choices with me and tellme what she liked or didin't like about the book she's read.

The other thing we found is that stopping cutting is simply not that easy. She still had overwhelming desires to cut when she got really stressed out. At school, with her friends, visiting her dads house. I never punished her for it.

What I did do though, was to ask her to wait to cut until she could talk to me. Most of the time she made it, a few times she didnt. And finally I came up with an idea. She needed pain and to feel it to express her angst. So I gave her a hand ful of rubber bands and told her to wear them around her wrist. If she felt she had to absolutely HAD to cut, she could snap a band as hard as she needed to without causing permenant damage to herself.

It worked. The cutting dramatically diminished and now she gives out her rubber bands to her friends that need them. It's not a magic cure. but she does alot of writing to express herself, I still listen alot and we talk about her day.

I hope the ideas help and give you hope.

Syn...

 

[psychone]

I did cut myself for about the whole year I was 17. It was about the most effective means I had for release of the internal pains at the time. It did start getting out of control, becoming 'addictive.' The parents did find out; not react well initially, making me feel even worse at first. I did see a doctor and medication for the cuts and other related problems. In the end I developed better ways to deal with things, which led to cuting ending after 15 months.

Considering how little effort I put into keeping the wounds clean I escaped infection. The scars are too numerous to heal fully even now years latter. Fortunatly I have noticed that most people when they see the scars are 'blind' to them. Reactions are rare, and so far they have been sympathetic.

A negative in the long run beyond the scars, is that for me it was such an effective means of release, that now whenever I feel bad the temptation remains. Only two minor lapses since fortunatly.

Good luck.

 

[Carys]

Hmm... not sure what the "rules" are on ressurecting old threads (I know some places HATE it)... but this one caught my eye.

It's been a few months (since the original post), no idea how, if at all the situation was handled/resolved, but cutting is supposedly quite a growing concern among teenagers. It's considered "trendy", by some who do it. I just turned 27, so quite frankly I'm out of touch with what the teens do these days, so I've no idea if any of this is realistic or a load of crap... the information I read was in a copy of Time Magazine, Canadian Edition, so infer from that what you will about the veracity of the information.

Stats given were 14%-39% of adolescents engaging in some form of SI, according to a study in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Numbers are highly suspect, but who knows what they were counting as SI?

The article mentions that two most frequent reasons for SI are either to feel more or feel less. It's also highly linked with Borderline Personality Disorder, which is much more common in females.

I personally, started cutting around age 15. It was much more frequent when I was a teen, though I still SI from time to time when something triggers it, as my BPD is not yet fully under control, and is also compounded by mild OCD, serious anxiety problems, depression, insomnia, mild agoraphobia, blah blah blah heh. For me, the cutting accomplishes a few things:

It's a physical representation of my emotional pain. Emotional pain doesn't leave physical scars, and it's difficult to communicate to people. The scars of cutting just kinda put it out there in a way that can't be ignored.

The pain of cutting at the moment I'm doing it feels better than whatever else I'm feeling at the time. For me, I cut in two instances - either as a spur of the moment reaction to an intense emotion/situation, or to remove the compulsion to cut myself from my head, as the compulsion to do so occurs during times of stress, and often the thoughts cannot be diverted and after 3-4 hours of dwelling on it, the only way to get over it is to cut myself.

With teens, it's difficult to tell if cutting is a symptom of a major psychological problem, or if it's just a coping mechanism for typical teenage stress. Therapy is usually beneficial in either instance, just make sure that the therapist is professional. My early and repeated experiences with inept and irresponsible mental health "professionals" caused more harm than good, and damn near soured me on the whole experience, until I found a therapist this year that is incredible.

As I've read in many of the replies here, this is an issue that definitely needs to be reacted to in a positive manner. I can say from experience, though it can be jarring when someone you love cuts themselves, freaking out about it usually makes the cutter feel worse.

Heh. That felt cathartic.

- Attempting to be more than just a lurker.

C.

 

[Etoile]

Thank you for sharing yourself with us, Carys - we definitely welcome the bumping of old threads and the sharing of new information.

 

[tealsphynx]

My sister was a cutter starting at (I'm guessing, may have been a year or two before I noticed but I noticed it when she turned) 12. We had just moved to a new state, school was going to start like a week after we got there. She had started battling anorexia which she developed while living the last 2 months of our school year at her friends house.

Ok, so maybe this requires a less vague background. We lived in Washington state, our dad was being moved to Hawaii (he's Navy). Our parents were going to sail our home (a 42ft sail boat) to hawaii, but to make the trip and get to the base on time they had to leave 2 months before the school year ended. I stayed with my best friend, she with hers...except her friends parents took all the money my parents gaver her for food and didn't buy her any, she was too, I guess embarassed or something, to come to me, she could have stayed with me. They told her she was fat and didn't need to eat (ahh, the beginning of her eating disorder) Mom put her on Richard Simon's food mover, because it's to fight eating disorders period, both fat and skinny ones. She had to show mom what she was eating and mom would check it off (flip the window shut if anyone isn't familiar with the food mover system it's a note card thingy with plastic windows covering the food servings, you flip shut the windows as you eat). It was hard for her. T

Then she started dating this guy, and if she wasn't already cutting I feel he caused the worse part of it. If she had been cutting before he made it worse because when she started dating him it got worse. It wasn't as bad during the school year, she had friends that noticed too so she cut less because she only liked to cut her forearms. but during the summer she saw him alot. He got her (or encouraged her, never will know completely) a butterfly knife. Most states they are illigal, but there's a great black market in hawaii and it's easy to find and the cops are stoned so they don't care. this became one of her "blades" she had like 3 of them as time progressed. She never really said why she did it, I never asked. But I read her diary (please no flames on this, mom was worried and thought it was invasive if she read it and asked me to, I was worried too and was bought up by my mother's "logic" and read) she wrote about the release as the skin cut, that each drop of blood that fell contained one bad thought. I didn't tell mom that, it seemed ok, because she didn't do it often and she wrote that it wasn't an attempt to kill herself just a release, and since I knew what it was like to need release (mine was in the form of baking and eating bread...) I left it at that.

Then a few years later our parents got divorced. She was 15 and pregnant. He started really showing what kinda asshole he was and started threatening her saying she did it on purpose, to this day she claimed she was raped. She got an abortion and the cutting began to get worse. Then she met J, mom didn't like him too much, but he was a great guy. He got her to stop cutting for a good while, then she dumped him for A. A started some light scratching to herself, but no cuts, because that's what he liked. Then she dumped A for W....W was the worse thing to happen after the abortion guy. He and I share the exact same birthday..anyway. He was a drama queen, so is she. He would cut...her cutting got worse. When he left she mellowed back down, but I guess mom told her to stop or she would lose her knives...so she started using her cat as an excuse for her scratches. I don't know if she still cuts...she lightened up when she turned 18 and could buy her own cigarettes, now she smokes instead of cuts...I think, I havent seen her in a couple years and she can lie over the phone.