Posted on 03/03/2009 5:05:09 AM PST by Kaslin
Julia is a fairly typical 16-year-old girl: she is crazy about boys, concerned about being fashionable, doesn't appreciate homework, loves pizza - and she "cuts".
For those who aren't familiar with the term - and whose imaginations might be thinking the worst about what it means to "cut" - I'm afraid I only have very sad news: "cutting" means you take a knife or razor and use it to actually dig into your own flesh.
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.
When I first heard about the bizarre behavior I must admit that I assumed it was rare, only done by a few girls with severe mental issues who dress in black Goth clothes accented by equally black eye shadow and studded lips. Yes, many of these girls who appear to be troubled do cut - but so do many of the young women who look like "the girl next door".
Why on earth do our little girls maim themselves? Much of it comes as a result of the hardness that often follows a severely broken heart. Some have grown so numb to the onslaught of abuse and emotional pain that they inflict intense physical pain on their bodies and watch their own blood flow to simply remind themselves that they are alive. Others do it in order to build their immunity to pain in general - they have to find a way to distract themselves from the ever-growing, gut-wrenching emotional trauma over their broken families.
Author Jane Alison's essay published in the New York Times on March 1, 2009, adapted from her forth-coming memoir, "The Sisters Antipodes" due out this month, is a heart-wrenching account of the tragic consequences of divorce on children. She reflects on her own struggles to cope with the fact that her dad left not just his wife, but his own daughters to marry another woman. She explained her and her sister's desperate efforts to cope with the abandonment, "....we tried to make ourselves valuable - writing, dreaming, trying to earn our own father's love. Or, as we tried to feel nothing at all, through drinking, cutting, men and sex."
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.
Recently I met two wonderful women - Nancy Alcorn and Christy Singleton - who offer real help to girls who are suffering so deeply from abuse and brokenness that they start abusing themselves. Mercy Ministries (www.MercyMinistries.org) serves young women through a free six-month long residential counseling program. They bring both hope and life change to young women who have "life controlling issues such as eating disorders, self-harm, unplanned pregnancy, sexual abuse, addictions and depression." The girls receive biblically based counseling, learn life skills such as setting boundaries, budgeting, and preparation for parenting if they are pregnant. They also take nutrition and fitness education classes. But most of all, they are loved and shown that they can overcome deep hurts of all kinds and create a bright future.
"The Mercy Ministries program takes a non-conventional approach to treatment by getting to the root issues of the problems and then helping the young women move past their debilitating circumstances, recognize and accept their self-worth and prepare them to reach their full potential," says Singleton.
Mercy Ministries reports that they have helped over 2000 young women find freedom from very difficult issues and graduates of their program are found in "universities, on the mission field, working, raising children and giving back to their communities." The program is voluntary and open to young women across the nation. Visit www.mercyministries.org for more information about how to apply. You can also order their helpful book entitled, "Cut: Mercy for Self-Harm" which explains in far greater detail the huge problem that "self harm" has become in our nation, the various forms it takes, the reasons behind it, and most importantly - how to experience freedom and victory over both the causes of and the destructive behavior.
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.
Possibility.
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.
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.
I have five children and none of them have done this. I think it is rare.
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.
Good for you, DC.
Doesn't offer any evidence for such wild numbers. And why the hostility: "precious?"
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?
He went to jail a couple years after her and I broke up. Not sure what happened after that...
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.
While "cutting" is indeed a very disturbing practice ... I must confess that this sentence is where I stopped taking Ms. Hagelin seriously.
It isn’t just young women and it’s indicative of some serious mental health issues.
Trust me on this one.
I saw it on Dances with Wolves
everthing is true on tv isn’t it??
So what does society teach young women today that would lead them to respect themselves or their bodies?
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.
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.
Yeah, uh...how do you explain those myspace profile pics from a few years ago, hmmm?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.