Teenager is self harming

[Mellybelle]

Hi,

I found out yesterday that my 14 year old daughter is self harming. She told me she doesnt do it anymore and I asked her to promise me that she wont do it again. I asked her if she knows why she does it, and she said she didnt. She said "I dont have any triggers". She's not an 'emo', she doesnt listen to depressive music. I know she has suffered from some anxiety lately and she;s had trouble sleeping. I gave her some Valerian tablets (herbal relaxation remedy) and gave her some pointers on different ways to relax. I've told her I'll book her some counselling, she has told me she DOES NOT want this though. I told her i'll make the appointment and she doesnt have to talk if she doesnt want to, but she'll have to go. I've phoned her school this morning and I'm waiting on a phone call back from a teacher.

Does anyone else have any experience with this? What did you do? How old was/is your teen?

Any info or advice is much appreciated.

 

[Leopard]

I'm replying because I have been there.
Your daughter says she has no triggers, though I doubt this is strictly true. Something definitely has to be playing on her mind, whether it is peer pressure or something deeper.
How is she going at school? Is there any pressure on her in anyway? Pressure to make better grades or something like that?

Were you fighting at all?

When a young woman starts to cut, there is always an underlying problem. Forcing her to see a councillor probably won't help the situation; she has to actually want to go. Forced therapy is never a good idea, and if she is strong willed, she will rebel against the idea and maybe even shut off to you. Be very careful because it is a fine line to tread.

Talk to her some more, have a deep conversation with her about school and life and find out what is really going on.

 

[CRWx]

I'm also replying as I've done it myself.

Forced therapy probably won't help, I know it seems like its the only way but it might push her away from you

There probably is triggers too.

Try having a long conversation with her & see where it goes from there

xx

 

[MindUtopia]

As someone who used to self harm, the best piece of advice I can give you is just to be as involved with her as possible and really focus on spending time talking to her about anything that's going on in her life and her feelings about it. Basically, just make her feel loved and valued and like you can be trusted to listen without being judgmental.

She may say she doesn't know why she's doing it, but deep down inside she definitely does know something doesn't feel right. I actually did a lot of research into self harming behavior once I got older because even I didn't entirely understand why I did it. Everything I read said that in large part people who self harm don't feel like the people in their life validate their feelings or don't protect them. For me, much of this just took the form of sweeping family issues under the rug and pretending that everything was fine even when it was kinda dysfunctional. When I was upset, I'd often be told to 'suck it up' or 'grow up and get it together'. Expressing any sort of negative emotion was very much frowned upon in my family. What I probably really needed was someone to actually tell me it was okay to be upset and to talk to me about the things that were going on and why I was feeling the way I was, and I don't just mean having one talk, but an ongoing conversation and a changed way of having dialogue in our family. Supposedly, the self harming mimics the way a person is feeling in their life (that is damaged or in pain) and the self care that has to come afterwards is a way of nuturing and caring for oneself that the person isn't getting from the people in their life. The harm itself also acts as a release, a way to get out the anger and frustration and pain, that the person can't or doesn't feel like they should express to others around them. When girls hurt, they can't go punch a wall or break a window the way a guy might, because it's not acceptable for girls to express themselves violently, so many of them turn it inward and express this anger in a form of violence to themselves. I know all of this rang very true for me when I first heard it.

It may not completely describe your daughter's situation, but it's something to think about. There is definitely more going on than she is able or feels like she should talk about with you. Even just spending more time together and opening up opportunities to share how she is feeling might help her be able to express it. If that doesn't work and the self harming continues (and trust me, it very well may be even if she says she isn't doing it, it's a very secretive and shameful behavior and people who self harm are very good at hiding it!), but if it continues, it might be worth confronting her directly about it again because that might just be what she needs to open up the gates that will allow her to tell you what might be going on. The fact that she is self harming, combined with having anxiety and sleep problems, are a pretty strong sign that she's dealing with something that could have been quite traumatic, especially in someone so young. Has anything big changed in her life recently? Has she started dating or spending time around new people? In the meantime, though just hang in there with her and love her unconditionally and make her feel valued and like she can trust you and she will likely eventually open up. But I would say that sharing this information with other people in her life, like telling a school counselor, isn't the way to go and only reinforces that sharing how she is feeling with you causes you to react in a negative or punitive way. It also breaks the trust she gave you in talking about it. There's not necessarily any harm done by talking her to a counselor, but I would leave it up to her to bring up the fact she is self harming.

 

[Mellybelle]

Thank you so much for your replies.
I dont think she has had any major changes lately. She has a new baby brother, but this is something she was very much looking forward to.

She has started to show an interest in boys, but she also has many male friends. All of her friends are lovely and I'm pretty sure that none of them are into self harm for 'fun'. I know that there are some teens that cut together for fun.

She is usually pretty quiet at home, but she gives information when we ask it. She has spoken about her anxiety and how it affects her sleep. Some of the reasons for her anxieties are teenage problems ie. not being placed in the same group for activities/sports with her friends at school. We have always encouraged our children to try to solve a problem yourself first and if it doesnt work their way, then we'll try our way. We have always supported her in anything that she wants to do. She has always been a lovely, appreciative girl and she is aware that she is loved by everyone. We have a large, close family and she was the only grandchild/child/niece for a long time so she was a central figure in the family before the cousins and other siblings came along.

We dont give her everything she wants but there is very little that she doesnt get. We search for things second hand if there is something she wants but we cant afford, eg her iphone. She is in a private school, so her friends families have a lot more money than we do, but i'm pretty sure she isnt shallow enough to hurt herself because she feels bad that her friends have more expensive belongings than we do.

I know that she has her own blog on Tumblr (i've no idea what its called) and is some kind of 'agony aunt'. She has told me she has over 700 followers and has talked others out of suicide. I'm thinking that reading other peoples stories and offering 'help' to other troubled teens may even be a part of her problem. She may be taking on some of the emotions of some of her online friends.

Her teacher didnt get back to me today. When he does i'm not planning on telling him that she is self harming. I am just going to tell him I have concerns and I need to know if he has noticed anything at school. She goes to an excellent school and a lot of the work is done in small groups. The teachers work closely with the students so there is little chance of anything going unnoticed and no children are able to slip through any gaps.

I am still going to go ahead with the counsellor. It will be entirely up to her how much she wants to share, if at all.

 

[nicki01]

You may not be interested but im going to put it out there!

i cut myself when probably about 13. I done it because i had started hearing about it, it was talked about at school etc. It lasted probably 6 weeks and maybe twice a week. I mean it wasnt bad i just wanted to know what all the 'fuss' was about (take that term lightly, its the only way i can think to describe what i was thinking at the time)

i didnt continue with it, my very best friend had a very troubled few years in her life (dad sent to prison and her mum turned to drink) and she started to self harm. She still does it now i believe, more than 10 years on. I remember she would lock her self in her room and do it when her mum was drunk or they had fallen out.

I do hoe you can get to the bottom of this, the only advise i will give is dont push, you dont want her to close up and not be able to talk to you.

 

[Mellybelle]

Thanks Nicki. Thats what i'm afraid of. If I push for information, she'll just close up. And when it comes to teenagers, 'pushing for information' can be as simple as 'How was your day?"
I had word my questions very carefully. Instead of asking her "Why have you done this?" I asked "Do you know why youre doing this?"

Nicki, i'm wondering if her reasons arent similar to yours, at least in part. I think she has spoken online to other teens, and also been curious.

 

[MindUtopia]

To be honest, I would be careful in thinking she is doing this just because other people do or because she is taking on the worries of other friends that she's trying to help. I'm not saying this would never happen, but all the experience I've had with self harm just personally as well as professionally (I used to be a child social worker) is that this would be a very small minority. Self harming isn't usually considered 'cool' and most people who do it never even tell another person about it, let alone do it with their friends. I've only ever told one person in my life about it (that would be my husband) and that's because he was the only person I ever felt like I could talk to about some of things in my life that happened that caused me to want to self harm. I'm not saying there aren't people out there who try it just to see what it's like, but I don't think that's very common. And if someone is willing to cut or burn themselves (or whatever sort of harming behavior they engage in) just to be like others, that in and of itself is a sign that that person might have some deeper issues with self-esteem and self-worth that need to be addressed. Usually to get to the point of wanting to self harm, a person is in a tremendous amount of pain. The way you describe your daughter she sounds so much like me when I was that age - from a pretty good family, private school educated, smart, sensitive, helpful, quiet with good friends - but that doesn't always protect someone from going through really difficult things.

Have you talked to her at all about this online 'agony aunt' thing? It is quite possible that she's encountered people with more issues than she's able to cope with at her age, and that is causing her some distress. That doesn't mean she's just mimicking other people's problems, but it does mean maybe she's finding it emotionally difficult to cope with some of the upsetting things she's heard about. Or perhaps she's going through a lot more than you realize and reaching out to other's online is her way of trying to find some release from her own problems by helping others? I don't know your daughter or your family, but I'm just saying maybe try not to be too quick to chalk it all up to her 'experimenting' or doing it just to be like her friends. You run the risk of not validating her experiences or emotions by just trivializing them (you may not intend to, but that might be how it feels to her) instead of keeping open a non-judgmental conversation with her.

Just curious, how did you find out she was doing it? Usually people who self harm are really good at hiding it, and if she left herself open to being discovered, it might be because she was trying to get you to ask about something. I know this is what happened with me finally and it was such a relief when someone noticed and cared enough to talk to me about what was going on.

 

[MindUtopia]

Btw, these are two really good websites that helped me a lot when I was trying to understand these things:

https://www.selfharm.net/ (the help for family & friends section is particularly good)

https://www.mind.org.uk/help/diagnoses_and_conditions/self-harm

Hope they're helpful!

 

[Siuan]

I've just been browsing the main page of bnb and spotted this thread on my way down the page. I couldn't help but give my perspective on this...

I'm going to go against the grain here a little with the counselling advice.

I self harmed when I was 17 and there is no way I would've let anyone know about it unless I wanted them to help. I hid it for weeks from my family before I told my best friend at the time hoping she would speak to someone else (an 'adult') to get me the help I wanted and whilst she threatened to tell someone if I didn't stop - she never actually did tell someone which only exacerbated my situation. I felt like I wasn't listened to. I had a volatile relationship with my Dad and (it sounds stupid now) but I fancied a boy who didn't know I existed in that way.. we were friends which wasn't what I wanted. I felt lonely and invisible.

I even wrote a soliloquy for my English A-Level basically about me. The theme was "Low Ebb" and I shaped that around my feelings/my harming etc. It was a cry for help that my tutor completely missed. She even questioned the behaviour of the protaganist in the essay (me, but under a different name) saying it wasn't believable. That didn't exactly help matters!!

I WANTED help and no-one gave it to me. In the end I stopped on my own because I was not being heard and had issues in my first job where I did get counselling, but for different reasons.

I started doing it because I read a letter to an agony aunt from someone who was self-harming. Again, it sounds strange in hindsight. But when I read that letter I thought "that might make me feel better" and so it started. It was a cry for help that ultimately no-one heard!

My parents and family still don't know I used to do it and I wouldn't want them to now. But for me, if someone had offered me counselling, I'd have said I didn't want to go. But actually deep down it would've been exactly what I wanted..

Good luck to you and your daughter.

 

[MorganEvans]

I can relate to this, because I have over 400 scars on my left hand's forearm which i regret more than anything else. It happened several years ago, just the lack of love, support and unstableness plus the overwhelming negativity that i went trough caused it. Stress, loneliness and anything reminding the feeling that I have no purpose were my triggers. Of course my parents weren't "normal" as well, their way of solving a problem was to just give a beating, so I'm not surprised why I was like that. But I grew out of it when I found the person who showed love for me, we stuck together and he helped me to become balanced again. I moved far away from home and I changed. Now, years later, I'm feeling like I'm in peace and am waiting for my own first child with the same boy (who's a really handsome man now), the only thing i regret are these scars on my hand, but I'm sure there's treatments for them to get rid of them. I would NEVER go back to that state of mind and seeing the way my parents grew me up.. I will grow my kids better than with yelling, fear and pain.
The thing that kids feel these days is that no one cant feel what they feel. You have to keep trying and keep them close, before you lose them and they depart from you and lose the mental-bond with them. It happened with me and I wouldn't wish that to anyone else.

 

[hellohefalump]

I self harmed for a long time as a teenager-early twenties. It's hard to talk about it but I will try...

I was depressed already. Clinical depression, from the age of 12 but undiagnosed. I did it because it made me 'feel' something because most of the time I was numb to my feelings. I also did it as a response to stress, like if I should have been angry, I wouldn't get angry but the tension would build up inside me and I'd cut myself to 'release' it, like the flowing of blood was releasing something physically.

I don't know what to say... my parents buried their heads in the sand and ignored it, which didn't help. But if they had been too over bearing that wouldn't have helped either. I guess all you can do is try to open up communications with your daughter, so she feels she can talk to you without you freaking out. And you need to go at her pace. As long as shes not being dangerous (cutting very deeply, burning badly etc) to her health, I think you should take things slowly.

 

[iBabyGirli]

You should try and move her into to therapy

 

[KayBea]

ive been there....
something must be triggering her to do it, is she being bullied? something happened in family like death, a birth etc?
not enjoying school, stressed at school?

what sort of self harm is she doing?
i was aweful, i used to scrape my knuckled along walls, use razor blades, knives, glass..

i found i did it most when i was tired as i got angry at myself because i couldnt sleep... i had insomnia & still do although ive now learnt to control it with sleeping tabs & anti-d's.

i was a bit older, 17 at college.
my college tutor ended up booking me councilling sessions & basically marched me to the session.. although in 1st one i didnt speak it helped..
i can never thank him enough as i honestly dont know where i would be right now..

PM me if you want a chat hun. xx

 

[korndogger123]

In my own experience with self harming, I will say it was just because I was feeling "alone", at that age friends grow apart and fight, my mom was sick with cancer, and my dad had gotten laid off. I wanted so badly to get caught, so one night I went in and told my mom "I think I am going crazy." still not telling her, well the doctor saw my scars and cuts when she took me. And it was the best day of my life ever! to be able to talk to someone other than family. I will be honest and say when my family told me not to do it, I got craftier and started to hide it on body parts they couldn't see. (I don't want to scare you, but it can happen so look out for it!)

Talking to someone outside the family in a counselor situation helped me so much, even though I was forced. I eventually got out of it, and luckily the scars have faded, but I wish I would have gotten help earlier so I wouldn't have as many scars.

 

[Mellybelle]

I'm pleased to say she is completely different since I found out. She seems far, far happier and not as withdrawn. Its so difficult to tell what is normal teenage behaviour, or if she really has something going on when she is quiet and moody. Quiet and moody is teenagers! I am waiting to hear back from the school counsellor (who I just need a referral from). I am not going to tell anyone at her school exactly what she is doing, but I am going to let them know I have concerns.

I know that there must be a trigger for her self harming behaviour. But I do believe that she doesnt know what the trigger is. We have been through a lot over the past few years which would have been more difficult to her as she was approaching and entering puberty. But the fact that she doesnt know what the trigger is concerns me even more. Hopefully counselling will help her with that.

Thank you to everyone who replied with your experiences.

 

[iBabyGirli]

i suggest you get professional help for this problem

 

[ZannahRain]

Here's my personal take...
I cut for about 5 years. Did a terrible job of hiding it too. I'm actually permanently disqualified from the military because of it. Bites now, 'cause that was my dream.

Anyway... I started cutting because I needed an outlet. I did a good job of hiding my depression from everyone around me. When something would upset me, I'd just try to push it down and ignore it. Then after maybe a week or so of that, some little thing would set me off and it would all surface. I'd cry... I'd cut... I'd feel better, for a little while at least. Looking back I see all sorts of things I could have used to calm me down or as an outlet... but back then, nothing else helped.

And as for her sort of mirroring the emotions of her friends... let's hope not. In high school I had to hide my cuts from my friends just as much as my mother, because I'd get a tongue lashing from my friends, and it would make my mom cry, and I couldn't ever bear that.

To be honest, I may very well have continued cutting if not for my son. I got pregnant young, his father LOST IT when I told him and I started cutting. Halfway though a thought popped in my head... "One day my little boy is going to ask me where all these scars came from." I haven't cut since.

Maybe you can suggest her using something she loves as an outlet. For me, it would have been painting. Maybe she loves art, or playing music. It's harder to be in a bad mood when doing something you love.

 

[tallybee]

Sorry hun I wouldn't know how to handle this. I've done it myself too

I think good advice has already been given, communication can only ever be a good thing x

 

[Arlee]

Has she got a good relationship with her father? I didn't see him mentioned in any of your posts. Maybe there's something going on there? Just a suggestion.