Posted on 07/07/2004 3:49:26 AM PDT by esryle
JACKSONVILLE, FL -- It's a disturbing new trend in teens. One in four young girls do something to their bodies called self-mutilation.
In 19-year-old Esther Maassen's case, a razor blade, basically anything sharp is what she would use on her feet.
"Anything sharp so I could see myself bleed," she says.
Why she does it may surprise you.
"A lot of people don't get it. They drink when they get upset or something. We cut."
It's not a suicide attempt but an addiction. Those who do it say it helps to relieve stress.
"It wasn't the children you would suspect," says mom and Jacksonville school teacher, Kathi Wedner. She has seen first hand kids who cut. Wedner saw her own students doing it, but she says she never suspected her own daughter.
"She cut a design into her wrist. It was sadness. It was guilt. It was shock. I wanted very desperately to help her."
Girls are more likely than boys to self-mutilate. Middle to high school aged girls are the most at risk. Duval County school psychologist, Dr. David Chesire, says he's heard of a child as young as six-years-old cutting their body. "It's very secretive and these kids do anything they can to hide the fact they have been engaged in these behaviors and those close to them have no idea it's happening."
It's an addiction that leaves kids with scars from their arms to their chests. It's an addiction Esther Maassen is still fighting. "It's the only thing that sometimes can calm me down and it becomes really addictive and I'm still trapped into it."
Signs parents need to look for: unexplained cuts and scratches that never seem to heal; cuts and scratches paired with signs of depression or low self-esteem; kids who wear long, baggy clothing in the summer to cover up their bodies.
Sheesh, if we were stressed in highschool, we just smoked a joint :P
First of all, welcome to FR, Newbie. Nice handle, by the way. I doubt you're for real, but I'll answer anyway.
"Attention getting? Are you sure? I've cut for over a year, and not until recently did a single soul know." SNIP "I am stymied, why you would call something so secretive attention-getting?"
What type of attention are you hoping to get by posting this information in a Public Forum, on your first day here, to STRANGERS? You can honestly say that you never ONCE hoped that someone would find out about your psychological problems and help you out? Posting here about your psychological disorder(s) shows that you're still looking for attention and/or help.
I'm not a trained therapist, so am not qualified to help you sort out your problems. That's YOUR responsibility first and foremost.
Today's teenagers have to deal with craven adults who foist a garbage culture on them and the parents who permit it, churches that embrace "alternative" lifestyles, schools whose history curricula offer no hope for the future, denigrate America, and honor victimization status, reading curricula that doesn't teach children to read (whole language)and garbage-pail book lists (none of the good, the beautiful, and the true, just a lot of poorly written junk), math curricula that just confuses students and parents alike, zero-tolerance policies promulgated by lazy, amoral school officials who don't care if they destroy a kid's life forever, divorce, illegitimacy, drug use (guess who used drugs first -- parents or their kids?), materialism, etc., etc., etc.
Today's kids would be better off if they had to work the land, deal with marauders, read a book by candlelight, cook in a pot over a fire, chop wood, plant a garden. That's healthy stress. What they are going through today isn't even remotely healthy and neither is the stress, which manifests itself in very strange ways, cutting for example.
Attention getting. Sounds familiar. (Re: Red Lake)
I read this earlier today. Sounds similar, eh?
The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. "Events like this," I said, "if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory."
In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of "explaining" them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031107/REVIEWS/311070301/1023
UNREAL! I imagine these "kids" share especially one thing in common, a complete lack of discipline in their lives.
There are so few problems to deal with today they have to make up problems, they make up diseases.
How about, " Hey don't be stupid! Cut yourself again and I'll no longer pay for your cell phone, car insurance, clothes, outings". Oh, such forceful talk and action might cause damage to their fragile pyschie.
Gotta go now, time to hit myself in the head with this stick I have, I've been trying to stop.
Good example. :)
"kids are more bored than stressed"
Another family and us were having this conversation over Easter dinner. Someone made the comment about simpler times and my 19 year old answered that times are pretty simple now. I guess it's what the pyscholgists/pharmacy companies would like us to believe.
I know about cutting.I know 3 girls who were trying it,all 14 years old.They all stopped.My prayers for you broken_will_crimson_tears,fatima
PS I aslo helped a teen witch who was doing it but I don't know the outcome,she was 16 years old then.
I know people like this. I meet quite a few of them in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous. Many of the self-mutilators do drugs as well, and for the same reason. It helps them not to feel emotions. Many people who are addicted to this or to drugs or alcohol are trying to suppress emotions, usually over some horrible events in their past.
Or... stuff like this went unnoticed and unreported.
Must be hell getting that guy on an airplane.
Read my post. It might explain some things.
OK Laz.
ya its mostly boredom and not stress.
Heheheh - I'm an old lady here (60), and we didn't cut ourselves, but we used to prick our fingers, put them together with each other, and declare ourselves blood sisters and brothers. It actually meant a lot to us in our early teen years. Kids need to feel like they're connecting with someone, something. Unfortunately, at that age, they're breaking away from their parents - a natural phenomena.
BTAW - love your screen name; I was one year too young to vote for Barry in '64 - the voting age was 21 at that time. He was a great man.
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