Talk to Me Please...about cutting

[Latte]

I don't know where to put this, but a mom friend of mine has a 12 year old daughter whom she suspects of cutting. Does anyone have information about this, links, personal experience, ways to approach this teen.

I have told her to confront her daughter now. She just found out today.

[Anna]

Latte, we have others on this board who are dealing with the same problem.

I will try to round up some help for you.

[GettingFree]

Latte,

If you type in cutting, self-harm, or self-injury into any search engine, you'll get a variety of sites that deal with the subject.

I struggled with suicidal thoughts for a lot of my life and cutting was part of that at times. Cutting is a way of managing overwhelming emotions. It actually is a way of modulating emotional states and an attempt to relieve painful emotions.

One of the most common misconceptions about cutting is that it is a way of getting attention. This is blantantly wrong as most people who cut try to hide the signs.

You mentioned that you were advising your friend to 'confront' her daughter immediately. I'm not sure what you meant exactly by confront, but if your friend does want to approach this with her, I'd encourage her to do so with concern and compassion, not harsh or judgemental confrontation.

If this girl is cutting, she needs some one-on-one support with a therapist. It's a sign she's in a lot of pain that she's finding unmanageable.

best

gf

[BigSis]

I did, my daughter did... and in my daughter's rehab, LOTS of cutters. Not as uncommon as folks think - and there seems to be a lot of shame around it.

I did it because it gave me an incredible sense of release, and I seemed to do it when I was RAGING and being CONTROLLED. I stopped doing it around the time I started drinking (age 15).

My daughter did it when she was about 13, and for similar reasons, from what I can determine. Again, she stopped at about the time her drug use began.

There is a theory that the pain from cutting stimulates endorphins - the same kind of brain chemicals we get from crying or laughing or exercising... they reduce not only physicial pain, but also emotional pain.

And there have been times as an adult that I have remembered that feeling of release with fondness...... a dangerous memory.

I suppose counseling might help, or a guide to some better ways to "release" (exercise comes to mind). I don't have any idea if I would have been receptive to that back then or not.... it is hard to remember my true mindset.

[Done_With_It]

Hey there,

I have a long history with cutting also. I also think that the mom needs to talk to her daughter.

People usually cut because,

They think they deserve it,

They feel dead inside and it's the only way they know they are still alive,

or they don't know how to "Express" emotions.

It gets addicting though and I really think that it stops your growth in many ways. Your coping skills end up turning into cutting skills.

I agree it's never about attention but it can be a cry for help.
Sometimes you want someone to help you because you don't
know how to help yourself in the way that you need.

The movie "13" is a good one for her mom to watch, it may be hard
for her to watch, but it may give her some insight.

I know of another community that is the largest self harm site out there.
It's full of teenagers who cut. I would suggest you guys read some of what they say there, it will help a lot.

I don't know if I would tell the little girl about it yet, it may help or it may
make her feel that cutting is okay.
It has helped a lot of teens though.

She's so young hopefully if you guys jump on this problem now, she won't be doing this 10 years from now.

I'll pm you the S.I. site.

One thing I'd have the mom look for is, What is she cutting with.
The most important thing is that it's clean.
As horrible as it is to say and think, it's better to provide her
with alcohol or peroxide, or at least educate her that while
she 'is' cutting to be safe about it.

If not she may start using anything to cut and not realize how sick she
can make herself.

[Done_With_It]

Here is some info. I found for you..

Lots of people don't know why they hurt themselves so it may be useful to think about things such as:

What was going on in your life when you first began to harm yourself.

How you feel just before you want to hurt yourself. Some people find it useful to keep a 'mood' diary so that they can write down their feelings at different times.

Are you always in the same place or with a particular person?

Do you have any bad memories or thoughts that you can't tell to anyone?



You are correct to say I don’t know you, but there are many reasons people self-injure. Maybe you may not have heard of the following reasons that contribute to self harm, but maybe one of the 3 reasons below could help you understand why you self harm.



Self harm caused by abnormalities in brain physiology and chemistry



Brain physiology and chemistry may play a role in determining who deliberately sets out to harm himself and who does not.



A study carried out in 1992 found that people who self-harm tend to be extremely angry, impulsive, anxious and aggressive. Interestingly, the study also revealed that these self-harmers had lower level of serotonin, a major neurotransmitter in the brain. Serotonin acts on specific receptors located at the limbic system, which is the cradle of emotions and aggressive feelings. The study therefore presented evidence that some of the characteristics of anger, impulsiveness, anxiety and aggression may be linked to a deficiency of serotonin in the brain.



Other studies seem to suggest that:

Irritable people with relatively normal serotonin function express their irritation outwards, while

People with low serotonin function turn the irritability inward by self damaging or suicidal acts



This suggests that the reason for self harming behavior may well be biological, and one that is possibly influenced by genetics as well.



Certain mindsets contribute towards self harm



In the cognitive model of treatment approach, it is believed that a person’s thinking and feelings are closely linked together and due to the nature of this link, they affect each other.



In other words, when a person has good, positive thoughts, he is likely to feel better and behave in a more productive way. A person with pessimistic and negative thoughts would feel worse off and behave in a less adaptive manner. Some other common thinking errors include:

Jumping to conclusions

All-or-none thinking

Tunnel vision

Catastrophising



A person with these thinking errors interprets events unrealistically and in a disproportionate magnitude. What is originally a trivial event gets blown out of proportion and appears disastrous to the person. He may also subconsciously ignore the positive and good aspects of things, or may be too quick to conclude that whatever has happened is bad for him.





Attribution bias



Attribution bias describes a certain negative mindset where the person:

Readily assumes personal blame for negative events

Expects that one negative experience is part of a pattern of many other negative events

Believes that a currently negative event will continue permanently



There are suggestions that a relationship exists between attribution bias and self harm. The person reacts passively, helplessly and ineffectively to negative events. He may feel that things will never go right no matter what he does. He may then reject other people’s help, withdraw himself from others, react emotionally to the negative events or avoid similar experiences in the future. Such pessimism prevails even with positive events.



Individuals who self-harm may experience these same thinking errors and appraise events as totally negative and catastrophic. A person who is overwhelmed by such negativism may choose to injure himself to relieve tension and emotional pain.

[Done_With_It]

Self-Harm, as explained in other articles like this - is simply a coping mechanism used to deal with problems, and that has been kept very generic for good reason. Self-Harm, which encompasses Eating Disorders, Self Injury, Drinking, Smoking and Drug Taking is 'the act of doing anything knowingly harmful to yourself for a reason'. The act of Self-Harming, and the precise reasons and affects of the behavior are near infinite in combination. Some do it in moderation, in combination with other 'coping mechanisms' - others rely heavily on one type or many to get through their lives, most anywhere and everywhere in-between.

Cutting, of course if Self-Injury - and the act of cutting releases 'Endorphins' - which are basically your bodies in built pain relief system. By causing damage to yourself, your body deals with it as it would any other wound - with shock and calming chemicals to relieve the state of trauma. By unhappy side effect - this state of 'pain relief' is also highly effective, in the short term of dulling internal pain - the pain relief works to ease inner turmoil. However it also works on different levels, and exactly how depends totally on the individual involved.

The first of these is 'transferal' - by creating something physical that is painful, you transfer inner pain to something real, you metamorphasize what is so hard to grasp into something that you can see, feel - and tend to...heal. For someone who is chronically bad at storing undealt-with issues, fears and problems to the back of their minds, this process allows them to, in some small way 'deal' with an issue.

The second brings us neatly to your situation - but bear in mind it is still very much related to the others parts also - most people are affected by most or all of the points in this article, to differing extents. When someone fails to deal with the input of stress and pain and problem that comes into their lives, they can often slip into a mode of survival that makes them very hard skinned. This is often triggered by sudden shock, over trauma or loss of some sort - the problem is far too large to deal with, so it is partially or completely 'pushed aside' - and a brave face is put on. This is the 'mask' that is so often talked about and felt among Self-Harmers. It is often fueled by other factors - such as self-worth etc, and is very common indeed in those who have 'grown into Self-Injury'. By that I mean those who have failed to develop the 'confidence in support' and mechanisms for 'healthy' coping at an early age (nearly always between 7-13).

Wearing this mask, especially for a long time - can create a mindset of short or extended periods of 'numbness'. You become accustomed, for want of a better word - to not feeling anything over large, painful things, so even when things are going well it is easy to slip into an emotional clearing.

Now - again as I have mentioned a lot elsewhere - Self-Injury (let's just focus in on that aspect of Self-Harm for simplicity's sake) is a failed 'coping mechanism'. While in the short term - it does effectively allow someone to 'escape', it completely fails to actually deal with a problem - only to mask it further. In fact all one ends up with the next morning are the exact same problems, but now with the added wounds and guilt that goes with it. There is no doubt that Self-Injury moves in the opposite direction to suicide, that it is a mechanism brought into use to make things better - but because it only deals with the feelings of overloaded-ness, and not the underlying causes for them - it is always sadly going to make things worse if relied on as the primary coping mechanism, as it will always become.

The same of course is true when you don't do it to escape overload, to relieve emotion - but also when you use Self Injury to create it. The numbness you wish to escape is caused by the cycle explained about, that has to be broken out of, and is ironically 'helped' by making everything more 'numb'

Another aspect to this is that the chemicals released into your bloodstream when you cut - are 'addictive', just like a less natural 'high' - and you are able to build tolerance to them (both reasons why SI becomes the dominant coping mechanism, why it tends to always get worse, and why it is hard to quit). When you are feeling numb - there is that good old tool in your toolbox that you will help you out. It is rather like having withdrawal symptoms.

One last point I have not yet touched on - is the aspect of 'making trouble'. This tends only ever to be an additional aspect to most peoples behavior if any - but worth a mention none to less. Often, when things have been pushed inside for a long time - the pressure of all that unresolved 'stuff' remains, even when it would seem like nothing is the matter. No direct problems exist in your life - yet you still felt undeserving of any happiness, and devoid of emotion. Often cutting allows a way of creating, or manifesting a problem that you can see, and feel - a reason to feel the way you do...proof things aren't all that great after all. This often acts within the subconscious, and can be a powerful force indeed - it also comes into play with Eating Disorders and some of the other 'types' of Self-Harm.

Whether you are cutting to avoid emotion, or to create it - it is not something to be ashamed of, and is both understandable, and expectable - considering the situation you have found yourself in. Your goal is to boost some of the criteria that hold back the readiness to stop - like self confidence, communication and ambition - and to, through whatever means learn the mechanisms required to deal with the issues left unresolved that fuel the urges.

[Latte]

I am so thankful for all the replies.

By confront, I did mean in a motherly(loving) way as in- not ignoring it.

As always I am amazed at the generosity of everyone here and at people in general.

[Chy]

You've recieved some good information so I would just like to encourage you to suggest that she get her daughter some professional help with this issue. It could be a fad or it could be real issues. It's one of those quagmeyers occuring among pre-pubescent and adolecent girls and young women. Some even later in life. When looking for a professional try to find someone who specializes in impulse control disorders.

[indigo]

I agree with Chy about the good suggestions. By the way WELCOME to SR.

indigo

[dollhouse]

Thank you every one I found this to be very helpful. I too am a cutter. It is not easy to deal with. That is for sure.

[ColdSweat]

Latte, I'd had experience with cutting. Both within myself, and my friends, family. I started doing it when I was about 12 as well. Did it for the release... and I quote Kayson, who said, "I know what it's like, to try and hurt yourself on the outside, to try and kill the thing on the inside." It's like, precut, you wanna crawl out of your skin, much like getting sober (heh). I always did it for a reason that made sense in my head. Like, once, I was pissed off at my mother for something or other, and to me at the time it was the biggest thing in the world. I sat in bed all night and cut my left forearm with my jagged, acrylic nail. The scar didn't go away for about a year. Then I did it again, when I got stood up on my birthday by my girlfriend at the time (I'm bi). I had to go to school the next day in hot summer wearing a long-sleeved black number and a black, long skirt. I used to do it on my arm and my legs... the most recent time I did it was about 8 weeks ago (after almost a year of not doing it! or having the desire to!) after something very, very personal and heartbraking that happen in my life. The world looked so dark, it was a sick comfort to see the bright red leaking all over myself. The sting of it, so I could feel something other than pain. I was stoned while I did it then. Now I'm a recovering alk/addict, and I am trying to find different, better, more productive ways of dealing with pain and stress, or loss. To be perfectly honest with you, and it may sound stupid, I've taken up colouring LOL. It's incredibly relaxing, you can just zone out with it. It's like meditation. Also, I write a lot, (I'm a writer), you get the same release and it comes out in poetry. The girl in question however, may have depression, or manic depression... my shrinks all said I had manic-depression, and that was the reason for a lot of the things I did, etc. Support and love to you my dear.

[lizw]

Myself and most of my female friends in AA have experinced with this kind of thing. One of my friends in particular is known to say, in the face of a difficult situation, "You'd think I should at least cut myself over this.."
Then we laugh our heads off.

As a teen I began doing it and at the end of my drinking I was doing it. I have no explanantion as to why I was except that I was extremely unhappy.

My own daughter who is 13, had a phase of it over the last year, that appears to have stopped and the solution to that seems to have been that I pay attention to her and make her feel important and that I love her. I sought help for her with a counsellor and because we as parents always play apart in what is happening in our kids lives, she got me in and told me I had to start doing things with her, as in activites. Mum and daughter time only.

My daughter has had a tough road in some respects, due to my alcoholism and I will forever be making amends to her. I've recently been praying for God to help me be a better Mum. That's a first time for me in ten years soberity. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly eh?

I hope your friend gets the help their family needs.

[indigo]

My niece was a cutter, I did other self harm things, there is some good advice above and I wish the girl can get help from the sources.