OK so I watched it, and although I know the problem is real regardless of the circumstances surrounding, and it was a TV movie, I thought that girl was a whiny little brat. “Nobody likes me Daddy”. Puhlease, if that was a portrait of a dysfunctional family, every one of my blood-related relatives belongs in an asylum. That in no way is aimed at the factual problem of cutting, I know it is very real, I have seen it firsthand, just a kind of lame movie portrayal.
And that crap they showed afterwards just disgusted me. They shed light on it as if it were the ‘IN’ psychosis of the times. All the hip celebs are doing it, blah, blah. I was just sickened. OK, I’m done.
Neuro, I am so glad you thought to be tested. Since I do have it , I am very happy to see people becoming aware of all the many ways it can be passed along.
Opal and everyone else who has had to deal with this, I’m glad that this movie has at least brought the problem to light. When things are hidden they are so much harder to deal with or understood. Maybe now people won’t be so quick to judge.
Veb - From some of the reading I’ve donne, it seems like there are often two very different reasons people cut. The first is some people get to feeling so numb and detached that the pain and the sght of the blood makes them feel “alive” again. For a while. They other is when you feel so stressed out adn tense, and the blood-letting seems to have a calming effect. At least you have control over something. A girl I know, a teenager has been hurting herself since she was about 8. She was under constant pressure at home to be perfect, at the ice-rink from her coach to lose weight (she’s now anorexic, and at 16 wears a size zero). At nine she deliberately broke her toe, but didn’t tell anyone, so she had to skate that way.
A book that I found interesting is A Bright Red Scream, by Marilee Strong.
I’m surprised at the number of people who are troubled by this condition. I count nine here who have said it is or has been a personal occurence for them and half a dozen others who have had close friends with it. That’s a pretty large response for a small group. (I know there are 6,000 or so registered members but I doubt there are more than three or four hundred active at any one time.) And that’s just the ones who were willing to speak up.
I’ve never been acquainted with anyone who was dealing with this (that I know of) and, since I tend to judge the world by my own experience, I am, as I said, surprised. I’ve known people who were bipolar, depressed, had eating disorders, etc., and, of course, I have my own coping mechanisms, but I’ve never run across this. And it seems like it would be relatively difficult to hide if it involved your hands or arms.
Other than expressing my astonishment I have nothing to add to the discussion. I do want to express my sympathy to those who are suffering with this and my hope that they can overcome it.