Horrifying Trend Hits Young Women

Townhall.com ^ | March 3, 2009 | Rebecca Hagelin

[Lizavetta]

I’d say spending your childhood in daycare also is a contributing factor. Cutting is what someone does who’s desperately trying to get someone to pay attention to them.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Makes you wonder what the hell was in the water back then ...

Possibility.

[fleagle]

This is all based in control. As a young woman I briefly had an issue with food; I would systematically cut chicken nuggets into precise little pieces, arrange them on my plate into interesting shapes, and then eat two (never more, never less) of those little pieces (the one piece that ended up nearest the top of the plate and the one that ended up closest to the bottom of the plate). That was all I would eat for the day. It was the order that interested me. It was my ability to control this one small aspect of my life in a world that seemed to be pulling me in a million different directions, none of which seemed healthy and happy or in any way fulfilling to me.

Anyway, with the help of my parents I enrolled in a good college and poured all of my energies into my studies. I also began attending church again and found stability and security and support and the love of Christ for his children.

Sorry to blather on, but I feel empathy for these young women. Young men and young women have, in my opinion, a tougher time these days finding their center. Finding productive work, or school; having a wonderful family and finding the right bible-based church can do wonders. It seems so simple, but everything in today's culture seems to be steering young people away from the very things they need to thrive.

[Barb4Bush]

I knew one girl that did it when I was in High School and I graduated in 1970. She always said her cat did it. We thought she had the nastiest cat ever. Later she told us she was doing it to herself. No one had ever heard of such a thing before and we thought she must be a masochist.

[3catsanadog]

Last night I watched that show on Discovery Health about the Medical Examiner in Florida, Dr. Jan Garibelli (spelling?).

Along the lines of this article about cutting, she was investigating the death of a 12 year old boy who was found dead with a belt around his neck. He died, not by suicide of hanging himself or homicide (someone deliberately strangling him) but of playing a game call Choking Game. I guess some teenagers are having fun choking themselves till they pass out.

Normally, she stated, the act of passing out releases their chokehold on themselves, but this unfortunate boy collapsed while he still had a chokehold and it wasn't released which eventually strangled him.

[deannadurbin]

I have five children and none of them have done this. I think it is rare.

[Dead Corpse]

25 years ago, I had a girlfriend who did this to herself. She had an abusive father. I, quite literally, put him through a wall once after he backhanded her in front of me. I had just started weightlifting and was already a pretty beefy boy, even at the ripe old age of 15.

[End Times Sentinel]

The saddest thing about this, is that when you're that young, you don't realize how permanent something like this is.
This isn't the newest thing, either. I, unfortunately have to admit that I took part in this regrettable activity and now I wish daily that I could un-do this tragic mistake.
Inspired by the book Helter Skelter, I stupidly carved a large Swastika into my forehead, not even beginning to think of the social and professional ramifications this would have upon me.
But things change, people change, in ways you can't anticipate.
Now I pay a horrible price; Due to this new trend, people see me and think I'm a girl.

[Tax-chick]

Good for you, DC.

[iowamark]

This barbaric practice is common among today's precious teen women. Some school counselors estimate that the majority of middle and high school aged girls have engaged in such self-mutilation.

Doesn't offer any evidence for such wild numbers. And why the hostility: "precious?"

[netmilsmom]

Combo of daycare, regular school and distant parents.

I can’t tell you the amount of good intact families I know that actually spend very little time with their children. Soccer, dance, “kids clubs”, basketball, Lego robotics, etc. They push the kids into everything and stress that they can’t keep up.

What ever happened to playing “Monopoly” with your kids?

[Dead Corpse]

He went to jail a couple years after her and I broke up. Not sure what happened after that...

[poindexter]

Young men, when you are deciding whether or not to date a woman, get a good look at her arms. If they have scars from cutting, run away and don’t look back.

[r9etb]

This barbaric practice is common among today's precious teen women.

While "cutting" is indeed a very disturbing practice ... I must confess that this sentence is where I stopped taking Ms. Hagelin seriously.

[Lurker]

It isn’t just young women and it’s indicative of some serious mental health issues.

Trust me on this one.

[lakeman]

I saw it on Dances with Wolves

everthing is true on tv isn’t it??

[Question_Assumptions]

So what does society teach young women today that would lead them to respect themselves or their bodies?

[Responsibility2nd]

A 100 posts. I scanned them all. May have missed the obvious.

And that is this:

This idiocy of cutting is mostly due to divorce. If we solve the problems of broken homes in America, we won't be having these types of discussions.

Divorce is not at the root of all the reasons for self-mutilation. Abuse, a fear of failure, low and low self-image are also contributors. But what cutters have in common is a spirit of brokenness. When I asked my daughter if she knows anyone who cuts, to my horror she replied, "Yes. A lot of people." As she started naming names I realized that nearly all of them are from broken homes. When she asked her classmate, Julia, why she rips into her own arm with a knife, the girl replied, "I don't know - I just do it when I'm sad." A by-product of divorce, it appears by the number of scars on her arms that Julia is sad quite frequently.

[philled]

In the late 80s-90s, I taught “at-risk” kids in a residential treatment facility. About a quarter of the girls were cutters while about 10% of the boys did. Almost all of them had physical/sexual abuse backgrounds.

[Sam's Army]

"Now I pay a horrible price; Due to this new trend, people see me and think I'm a girl."

Yeah, uh...how do you explain those myspace profile pics from a few years ago, hmmm?