Kids who self-injure

I might be married to a man with an aspiring film career, but I have interests and passions of my own. I am absolutely passionate about people and what makes them who they are. I studied psychology in college and was in love with everything I learned; even some of the darker sadder stuff. It really just opens up your world and helps you to learn to love every kind of person.

An article I read yesterday reminded me of this love and passion that I have inside. In this article it talks about children who self-injure and some of the reasons they explain why they do it. The basic understanding standing is the children use the physical pain to help them release and moderate internal/emotional pain. Psychologists don't know what causes children to start to self-injure or even how to help them to make it stop.

I remember volunteering in a state mental hospital for one of my university courses. I worked in a girls' classroom about once a week. I usually worked with this one girl, we'll call her Patti. She was a sweet girl, but very slow. I would help her with her homework each time I was there, but I always had to read her the material and then basically show her where the answer was. Part of me was angry that the system was failing her. She couldn't possibly be learning because no one was pushing her. Then one day one of the techs or teachers was talking to me about how her medication slowed her down and made a lot of things hard for her to do. I finally understood that she wasn't slow because no one was trying anything, but because the medicine to treat her problems were that intense. A little while after that conversation I was talking to Patti about goals she had (it was part of an assignment) and she mentioned one goal that totally surprised me. She said to me that her goal was to stop hurting herself. My mind reeled. Being just a college student with no clinical training I sure didn't think that could be why she was in there from the beginning. Frankly I didn't think much of their diagnoses. It wasn't why I was there. But the moment I heard that my heart broke for her. I couldn't imagine having so much pain in my life that I'd harm myself to feel better. It was terrible that something to severe was happening in her life, even though to this day I still don't know what that is.

Another story I heard about a girl who self-injured will absolutely break your heart. This was many decades ago that this story took place. We’ll call her Jenni. My teacher met her when she came into a state hospital because she was at risk of taking her own life. She was a cutter. She had scars on top of other scars from cutting. She was on permanent suicide watch. My teacher made some comment to a doctor about how bad could her life really be that she would do so much damage to herself and be considering suicide. The doctor then gave him her file and told him to read it. He did and what he found out will make anyone with a heart cringe. From the time she was a very little girl her mother had sold her for drugs. She had been used and abused by so many people, even her own mother, from a very young age. Knowing that about her makes sense, because I don’t know that any of us would want to live anymore if that had happened to us.

I know this is a long post, but I felt that it was important to discuss and to include examples. This is important to bring out because mental illness is a very widespread problem and it often gets little recognition or support. There are mental illnesses that can lead teenagers and even children to die by their own hand. Everything from depression, to anxiety to eating disorders. They are all so dangerous, but can be helped. We shouldn’t be afraid of the reputation given to mental illness. We shouldn’t look down on it. It is not something that can be helped or even necessarily prevented. We don’t get angry when someone gets cancer or has a heart attack. In my opinion mental illness should be treated like cancer. It is a disease that we should vigorously fight with the right treatments. It’s time to put on your game face and attack the enemy; not run away in fear.