Helping self-destructive teens

It’s hard being 13.

Middle schoolers are notoriously uncomfortable in their own, changing skin. They rebel against parents, and peers throw ruthless jabs striking the most sensitive insecurities. Add trauma, abuse or neglect, and the pressure can seem almost unbearable.

Tonda, who wanted her last name withheld to protect her daughter, has seen the toll this torment can take too well. Of course, she remembers how it feels, but her daughter is going through a phase right now with dangerous side effects.

“She has the attitude of, ‘I’m going to do what I want and I don’t care about the consequences.’ I’m trying to teach her that is not how the world works, but something inside my daughter is making her angry,” Tonda said.

Instead of one of the healthy outlets for this frustration — sports, books or boyfriends — Tonda’s daughter unfortunately chose a more destructive, but too common, alternative. Tonda’s daughter started cutting her forearms.

Tonda said she knows her daughter is not trying to kill herself. When Tonda confronted her about it, she said her friend told her it was a way to release anger.

“That’s the problem,” Tonda said. “All these places are giving them other children’s opinions about it. They are not giving them the facts.”

Jeanine Sparks, a councilor at Wasilla High School, is one of the professionals tasked with helping students who cut. Cutting is typically an attempt to manage psychological pain or as something done in the absence of all feeling, she said.

Without getting too specific, Sparks simply referred to it as “not an uncommon thing to deal with.” She said the number of students doing it has increased over the last decade in both middle schools and high schools, and it is often done in certain groups of teens. She said cutting is appearing more in teen media, which causes more teens to think it is acceptable.

This is what makes cutting so hard to deal with, Sparks said. It has a contagion effect, meaning children are more like to start doing it the more they hear about it.

“It’s always this debate or judgment call. Are we talking about it enough to be preventative? Are we talking about it too much to be permissive about it,” Sparks said.

Like most other destructive behaviors, cutting is what’s known as an outcome behavior, Sparks said. Cutting is a result of something else, some deep-seeded depression or past traumatic event.

To treat cutting, this root cause has to be found, Sparks said. This means cutting is treated best on an individual basis. Hence, there will be no school-wide assemblies to raise awareness and address the problem.

“We don’t want to make it a ‘this happens all the time’ kind-of thing,” Sparks said.

But, they certainly don’t want to ignore the problem either. Guidance councilors present a curriculum called “Signs of Suicide” to every ninth-grade English class. This includes a section on cutting, and Sparks suspects the middle schools have similar programs.

But, more importantly, Sparks said school staff is trained on identifying the problem and dealing with it effectively. Teachers, principals and nurses are directed to inform guidance councilors of any suspicions. The guidance councilors will then interview the student and inform the parents. Councilors refer parents to mental health professionals outside the school.

“It’s kind-of like an eating disorder. You don’t just focus on the food, you have to get to the source,” Sparks said. “I want the parents to go and figure out with a professional therapist what the problem is.”

Cutting is just a subset of a larger phenomena called self-injurious behavior, said Randy Moss, a researcher and mental health professional trainer. Self-injurious behavior is an affliction seen across all social and economic groups. Just because someone cuts, bites or hits themselves does not necessarily mean they are suicidal, Moss said.

And there is no silver bullet to treat this behavior, Moss said. What’s more important is to understand the psychological and emotional connection someone has with the disorder. Much of the behavior is driven by shame and guilt, Moss said, and any sort of intervention that produces these feelings will surely backfire.

Instead, professionals will help people look for triggers in their environment, teach substitution methods and show them how to deal with cognitive issues about perception and internal dialogue, Moss said.

As far as prevention, parents should encourage their teens to communicate feelings of hurt, loneliness and aggravation. This can be done in indirectly with aloof teens by asking them about how they are perceiving the world or the struggles they are having, Moss said.

The most important thing, Moss said, is if parents have suspicions or confirm a child is engaging in self-injurious behavior, they should contact a mental health professional.

As for Tonda, she sent her daughter to an outdoor support camp near Wrangell when she started seeing signs of depression. After the cutting was confirmed, Tonda’s daughter is spending two weeks at Providence Hospital in Anchorage.

“We all know being 13 is one of the most difficult things we go through. But, we all go through it,” Tonda said. “I want my daughter to know I am not doing this to hurt her. I love my daughter, and I want my little girl back.”

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.