Got some upsetting news this evening from the exwife. Fosterling has started cutting. He takes meds for ADHD, and that therapy has been adjusted over the years as his body has grown and matured. Now that he has entered that “glorious” phase of life called puberty, his grades have plummeted from A’s and B’s to D’s and F’s this year. I’m hoping that this is or will be a comparatively short lived thing related to the physical and social changes and hormonal storm of puberty and not a life long thing.
As of now, he is going to a councilor twice a week.
For a little background; Biodad was never a part of his life except to play cruel mind games with him (such as threatening to steal him one night, or trying to use the promise of extravagant gifts to control him etc) or as a means to try to control Exwife. His mother and I have always encouraged him to at least try to maintain an open mind towards the idea that biodad might change one day and want an actual healthy relationship. Early in his life, he alternated weekends with me and a “big brother” type councilor. I have basically been the only regular father figure in his life, going to school concerts, birthdays, taking him camping, teaching him how to shoot, that sort of thing, Father-Kid activities.
So, I’m reading about cutting, trying to find out as much as I can. Basically, what I have is that its a coping method for emotions that are too strong for other “normal” methods, a way to feel in control.
Right now my mind is in turmoil and I’m having trouble making sense of it.
Any (former) cutters or parents of cutter here that care to help out?
What can I expect? What can I do to help? What should I not do?
You said he has a counselor. Does he also have a psychiatrist? Is he taking any medications for his ADHD or other issues? I ask because it’s not uncommon for puberty to cause shifts in what medications are needed to manage certain conditions. If he’s not regularly seeing someone to help with that, this would be a good time to check in.
If he is not seeing a psychiatrist, consult with his counselor, but I would recommend a psychiatrist. I have some experience with cutting. I think it can easily slide into a lifelong condition if not handled correctly. I think the right medication could help. I think a counselor or psychiatrist with specific understanding of this is important.
Thinking back, I believe your description is accurate. I felt out of control, desperately unhappy, and like no one was paying attention. Cutting helped me release that. I also remember feeling like no one understood what it meant. People would ask me if it meant that I wanted to kill myself or I was trying to hurt myself. I definitely wasn’t trying to kill myself, and I don’t think the point was to hurt myself. The cutting was a way to release pain.
I have no way to know if my experience is analogous in any way with your son’s. To the extent that it might be, you might start by asking him what the cutting means to him - not in a judgmental “why would you do that” way, but “what does it mean to you”. If he has trouble explaining it, you can use my description and ask him if it’s the same for him. Try and get him talking about what is going on, and what he is feeling right now. At the root of things, you want to re-assure him that you love him no matter what, that you see him and will be there for him, that puberty is a weird and wild time for absolutely everyone, and weird and wild is normal. Finally, that whatever is going on, you will get through this together.
I’m sorry he’s in so much pain. It’s hard to be a parent when our children our struggling.
It’s kinda late, so I don’t want to ramble too much, but this kind of behavior might be viewed as a sort of addiction. One possible intervention is to replace the habit. There are alternatives that allow someone to inflict pain without sustaining injury. A common one is holding on to ice cubes or snapping a rubber band.
Definitely get the kid in to see a psychiatrist as well as someone who specializes in this behavior. Per my husband - Ideally it would be someone who specializes in DBT, I’ll find the directory for you.
thank you.
Yes, he has started counseling twice a week. I don’t know if it is a “counselor” or a Dr. at this time. He does take meds for his ADHD, has been for several years. I wouldn’t be surprised if considering adjusting his medication or possibly even changing it completely was considered. I don’t know yet, Mrs. Exwife told me about it last night when she called me to let me know she was going to be coming “over the hill” to my town to do Xmas and Bday shopping, so she would bring him with instead of me going to get him this weekend.
might want to gently try to find out if something new (and stressful) is going on at school. I never got to the point of self-harm, but middle school (and most of high school) was utter hell for me. partly because of the phase of life I was in, but mostly because the other kids I was forced to be around 7 hours a day were unrelentingly vicious and mean.
My daughter did this for 4-5 years. We tried the counselor and psychiatrist things, but she was pretty well closed up like a barnacle. Any attempts to talk to her about cutting or just life in general were met with a brick wall of silence, deflection, or misdirection. Helpless doesn’t begin to describe how we felt about it. As near as I can tell, she was dealing with something and was dead set on resolving it on her own. I could guess all day long as to what that might have been, but I would be projecting my own sense of what is traumatic onto her. Eventually she just quit cutting herself and started drawing/painting with remarkable talent. Her work is mildly disturbing (grotesque/physical deformity as opposed to shocking situation) and her creative process is classically surreal and undirected. If you ask her to make something for you, she will do so and gladly. If you get more specific than that (i.e. “draw me a flower”) you will probably wish you hadn’t. She’s happiest when she is just accepted as she is, and when she is allowed to just exist and fall through life on her own terms. Some kids you can at least sort of direct or at least guide & advise as they grow. She’s the opposite of that. Odd as it sounds, I suspect our attempts to help her made things worse and more confusing for her because the more she allows someone else to assert their will over her, the less she is her own person.
One morning when our oldest was a freshman in HS, we got called by the school social worker that she had come into the office and let the social worker know she was cutting (a friend that had dealings with the social worker encouraged her to go).
We had a talk with both. They determined it was not from things happening at home, but a general sense of helplessness on behalf of our daughter.
We took her to a respected youth treatment program and talked with a counselor there and decided to admit her to their day program.
For about 3 weeks, we took her each morning and picked her up in the afternoon. They had group sessions and individual sessions. We met with the counselors and doctors a few times.
She went on meds for a while and saw a therapist for a few years.
For her, getting it out in the open, knowing that we were there for her and would talk with her, made a huge difference. She was worried about how we would react to “big” news, so we worked it out that if she had something that she did not know how to tell us, she could email us and let us absorb it and then talk when all were calm. This worked wonderfully for us.
It was a difficult time, lots of crying, and prayer and hugging. She went from wearing hoodies (we thought they were an attempt to hide her size, but were instead an attempt to hide the cuts) all the time, to wearing regular shirts.
Now, she is about to turn 21 and is a Junior in college and we have a great relationship.
Every situation is different. Trust the professionals, but do your best to foster communication. That made the biggest difference for us.
My daughter writes, and I got her a collection of colourful permanent fine-tip pens and she has my permission to colour as much as she wants on herself/clothes. It’s not a one-size fits all. She has a counselor and I try to find other outlets, and keep communications open. We have a journal that passes back and forth, if she wants to write something to me. The only rule back is that I can’t just answer her, I need to write the answer back.
Cutting can be a symptom of different things - adolescent depression, OCD, addiction, etc. In addition to counseling, he needs to be evaluated by a psychiatrist and if necessary, get on proper medication.
This is not something that will be resolved quickly. Good luck.
Thanks for the responses everybody. It helps just to know that I can come here and easily (more so than irl) find commiseration and advice from others that have actually dealt with this.
For an update:
Apparently last week he had a suicidal impulse that he acted on, and this weekend I spent two hours just holding him while he suffered through another one. It is related to bullying at school (school and police are now involved and part of the plan for dealing with this)
Went to the hospital, just in case after the weekend episode, Mom is working on getting him into see psychiatrist through her work (I guess they have a hella good program there for employees and dependants)
We suspect its his ADHD meds. just recently switched from aderol to ritilin. as a younger child switched from ritilin to aderal because I geuss it was causing other problems.
It’s been a real kick in the nuts ride, so again, thanks everyone for helping me get through this so that I can help my son get through this.
It can sometimes take some time and several drug switches to find one that works best for an individual’s ADHD. That he is going through puberty might mean that even more “experimentation” is needed. I don’t know. I only speculate about that because of all the physical/hormonal and psychological changes occurring.
It can be frustrating but once the best med is found things can really improve.
My understanding is that Adderall can just stop working as your body gets used to it. Ritalin, too. He may need something else.
That said, cutting is not a normal ADHD symptom. Sure, ADHD can give you the impulse control problems to make you act on something that other people wouldn’t. But that thing they are acting upon is usually caused by something else. The suicidal impulses suggest depression, and bullying can definitely lead those at risk for it into depression. But I’m no doctor: I just have a lot of experience in psych stuff.
Anyways, my point is, I suspect he needs another diagnosis. Find that underlying issue beyond any possible ADHD. I hope your wife is looking for either a psychiatrist who specializes in testing, or one who will send you to a psychologist who does testing. It is a specialty. I spent half of my life misdiagnosed with ADHD. Hell, since I had an anxiety disorder, it was suggested that the medicine was making that worse! (Not saying he’s necessarily misdiagnosed: it may be just that he has more than one issue.)
Finally, some reassurance. I know many people who have cut as teens. All of them are still around now. They aren’t perfect, but they are coping.
That is part of our plan, just waiting on the system.
And yes, cutting is indicative if depression. I don’t know what other drugs there are that can be used in place of aderall or Ritalin, but he was switched to aderall a few years ago as part of, trying to treat depressive symptoms when he was young. Seemed to work, but over time he pretty much maxed out the dosage for aderall, so they switched him back to Ritalin a few weeks ago. So I don’t know, not a Dr. of any variety, but right now, until we know more, we suspect the Ritalin, as part of the problem.
We are fortunate in that our son doesn’t seem truly suicidal, he just has trouble with these impulses right now.
I may be completely off-base, but I understand cutting as being an older version of banging your head against the floor/a wall, which I did once as a toddler and The Niece did for several months at the same age. Punching walls or slamming doors is in the same family of behaviors. Speaking as an adult who doesn’t bang her head against hard objects because I know it hurts, sometimes things get so overwhelming that a small amount of controlled violence seems like the recipe to be able to lower the pressure so you can go on with what you need to do. Instead of directing it to others, people who cut or hit the wall direct the violence to themselves.
I still do the same thing I did that time when I was little, after realizing the wall was harder than my skull: I don’t bang the building, but I do bang a pillow… the emotional results are similar and it doesn’t hurt. It’s probably not the healthiest mechanism, but it’s an example of the alternative mechanisms that your son should learn for when things get too… too… too… AAAARGH! Nava smash!
Not a solution, but a band-aid: I’ve heard that for those who need the pain but not the blood for the release of emotions, an ice pack or glove filled with frozen water can help fill the gap while undergoing treatment to resolve the issue. Press the ice against your leg until it starts to ache, and you have physical pain without the added dangers of cutting.
Only works for those already trying to stop, I believe, but it’s a suggestion at any rate.
Sorry bout the delay Johnny. I’ve been out of town, and the SDMB doesn’t seem to like my phone this week.
I’ll keep your suggestion in mind for discussion with Mom when I see her in a few days.