Depression Learning

Cutting, Anyone do it or know about it?

Question:

"NFR123" <nfr…@aol.com> wrote in message

news:[email protected]… > The cutting was a surprise. She wasn’t ready or willing to get > better when she was seeing the shrink for therapy. Funny that you mention the > family dynamics. That is something that the shrink fed her…that we are very > chaotic, and she took it and ran with it and tried to blame me for all her > issues. I knew all along that this wasn’t the truth, but no one else would > believe me.

I’ve never self mutilated but have abused drugs. In my experience it doesn’t matter if, in fact, the family environment is chaotic. What IS important is understanding the world in which your daughter lives. It is her perceptions that need to be understood and she needs to know that someone understands her world through her eyes. She has created her own little world, as all of us do, and it is important that a therapist get inside of her world, understand her world and give her the experience that someone is WITH her, that she is not alone. You can’t TELL her which door to open or what she needs to do to get free. She needs someone who will explore her world and help her find the door that will allow her to get out of the "trap" that she has created. I don’t mean that she intentionally created a trap but time, events, expectations, beliefs, experiences, genetics, etc., all help to contribute to the world we create for ourselves. You family may not seem chaotic to you but it might be perceived by her as chaotic. OCD may have something to do with this perception. She doesn’t know how she got where she is but anytime someone is in such pain that they self mutilate, believe me, they are not just trying to "get their way". They are desparately trying to get out. > After two trips to the ER she’s basically been given an ultimatum. > She can work on the issues causing her to cut…depression, negative cognitive > distortion, fear, and the ocd issues or we are going to have to admit her to a > private facility for inpatient care. It’s not something that she wants but we > have no choice. We are not willing to ignore this behavior. I don’t think she > totally understands why she does it. It wasn’t as much a cry for attention as a > cry for help. She knew when the ocd came back, with a vengeance, but she’s also > bright enough to know how to manipulate not only us but the therapist

also. A good therapist will know they are being manipulted and will tolerate it if that is what is needed to get inside of her world and gain her confidence. She desparately needs to find someone she can trust. Those who will tell her she is wrong, isn’t thinking right, is misbehaving etc., has little, if any chance of being in her world. I’me sure you know she has already built up a wall. She has a choice of therapies. She can get into therapy that destroys that wall all at once, the confrontational type therapy or a therapy that disassembles the wall brick by brick. IMO, the latter is the safest, most effective and longer lasting. > That’s why we needed to find someone new. The shrink is almost too close to us > to really help…She wasn’t > just lying to the therapist but to herself and us thinking that if she > convinced all of us, she’d be able to convince herself that she was okay.

I can understand her behavior since I did the same thing. Then I got totally out of control, got diagnosed with OCD+ and "brought" the line that it was me, that I was born this way and no one else had much to do with my problems. In therapy I learned that yes, I was born with genetic predispostions but I also learned that my thoughts and behaviors were reactions to my environment and that much of them were learned, not genetically driven. I am gaining the power to re-create my world. > I think she’s finally ready to participate in her own recovery. By the way, Yes, > she does see what she’s doing as a problem, now…but before she was much like > what you described, as that she was doing it to release the pressure and pain. > We had a hard time understanding how inflicting pain helps though…It

breaks my heart that there are so many kids out there > that feel so bad about themselves when they have so much going for them and > they take to heart one bad thing that a peer will say and instantly forget all > the good things about themselves.

You mentioned your daughter has a lot of things going for her and she has a lot of things on her plate, a real achiever. Sometimes we are so good and achieve so much that this sets up a pattern of thinking and an evironment where anything less than what we have come believe we SHOULD be able to do, well, that become the end of the world if we fail. Again, this not something that she can simply be told, she has to discover it for herself. Find a good therapist, whether you like the methods or not, who has a record of success with the issues your daughter has. I’ve seen quite a few people with ocd and other issues and coming out of what your daughter has created takes a long time. Simply treating the ocd, for example, will not solve the problem. Make sure you find a therapist who has experience with all of the issues your daughter is dealing with. I know it is not easy. OCD specialists often have very little, if any, understanding of psychoanalytic/cognitive therapy and many psychoanalytic therapists have little understanding of OCD. —–= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =—– http://www.newsfeeds.com – The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! —–==  Over 80,000 Newsgroups – 16 Different Servers! =—–

Response:

I hurt myself a few times in my teens and in my 30’s. Usually, I was feeling so dead inside , I rationalized that  I had to hurt myself on the outside so that others could see what pain I was in. It’s kind of hard to write about now. I look back on it and wonder "what in the hell was I thinking?" but at the time, I was hurting bad. My father was dead and my mother was emotionally unavailable and I felt very alone with my pain. I was a lanky, gawky teenager with braces and crossed eyes. I thought I was too ugly to ever have a boyfriend. I usually bruised myself somehow….a hammer, a brick……….sometimes I burned or cut myself. Sometimes I just wanted attention. I loathed myself and my fucked up family. Once I started on anti-depressants, my desire to self-injure became less and less and I started therapy and was able to verbalize my pain more. She’s obviously hurting and angry and taking it out on herself. Ida

Response:

I tried to respond personally to your email and it was returned to me so i’m posting. If you have another personal email account let me know. Thanks again Erin. Erin, thanks so much for your reply. We were ready for her to go into a depression. There is a family history of it and with the ocd/ts we weren’t surprised. The cutting was a surprise. She wasn’t ready or willing to get better when she was seeing the shrink for therapy. Funny that you mention the family dynamics. That is something that the shrink fed her…that we are very chaotic, and she took it and ran with it and tried to blame me for all her issues. I knew all along that this wasn’t the truth, but no one else would believe me. After two trips to the ER she’s basically been given an ultimatum. She can work on the issues causing her to cut…depression, negative cognitive distortion, fear, and the ocd issues or we are going to have to admit her to a private facility for inpatient care. It’s not something that she wants but we have no choice. We are not willing to ignore this behavior. I don’t think she totally understands why she does it. It wasn’t as much a cry for attention as a cry for help. She knew when the ocd came back, with a vengeance, but she’s also bright enough to know how to manipulate not only us but the therapist also. That’s why we needed to find someone new. The shrink is almost too close to us to really help. Thanks for the referral to the other groups. I’ve read the self harm group and actually am corresponding with a 17 year old girl there that is ready to kill her self, though she won’t tell me where she lives and i hate to see so many people in pain knowing that this is a CURABLE illness. She wasn’t just lying to the therapist but to herself and us thinking that if she convinced all of us, she’d be able to convince herself that she was okay. I think she’s finally ready to participate in her own recovery. By the way, Yes, she does see what she’s doing as a problem, now…but before she was much like what you described, as that she was doing it to release the pressure and pain. We had a hard time understanding how inflicting pain helps though. Thanks again for you kind note, it sounds like you’ve worked on getting yourself better. I hope that’s the case. It breaks my heart that there are so many kids out there that feel so bad about themselves when they have so much going for them and they take to heart one bad thing that a peer will say and instantly forget all the good things about themselves. If you don’t mind, can i ask you how old you are? You seem as though you are very wise and intelligent. Nanci   "If it weren’t for stress, i’d have no energy at all." Nanci   "If it weren’t for stress, i’d have no energy at all."

Response:

We are experiencing this with our 16 year old daughter dxd with ts/ocd. It all started when she became depressed and her long time friends didn’t know how to deal with her moods and decided to punish her and drop her. It seems to always be related to some type of rejection. She’s beautiful, bright, bubbly, good personality, good grades, has 2 jobs, is a lifeguard/swim teacher, cpr trained, babysits….what you would consider an all american teen but she freaks out at the thought of any relationship going more than a few dates and then if anyone says someone doesn’t like her the negative distortion thought pattern kicks in and she locks herself in the bathroom and slashes. Not deep enough to die, but deep enough to hurt…and bleed. There’s only been one time when she didn’t come tell us, but a friend of hers did, and when we confronted her she lost it and we ended up in the e.r. We were there again last night though we’d managed to interfere soon enough before she cut and the e.r. was no help at all…they didn’t even have a psych on call. Yes, she’s medicated for depression, i don’t think it’s working though, she’s been going to therapy but lies…to the therapist, us and herself, and we are going to see the psych on monday and start with a new therapist next week. Just wondering if anyone can help or comment on this behavior. We know there is a genetic dispositon to this thought pattern as her father suffered with this too and has successfully been treated but we never thought we’d be faced with this kind of issue. HELP???!!!!!! Nanci   "If it weren’t for stress, i’d have no energy at all."

Response:

RENT THE MOVIE "GIRL, INTERRUPTED" AND IT TELLS ALL ABOUT THAT!  GO RENT IT! – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -NFR123 wrote in message <20010714215955.10100.00008…@ng-md1.aol.com>… >We are experiencing this with our 16 year old daughter dxd with ts/ocd. It all >started when she became depressed and her long time friends didn’t know how to >deal with her moods and decided to punish her and drop her. It seems to always >be related to some type of rejection. She’s beautiful, bright, bubbly, good >personality, good grades, has 2 jobs, is a lifeguard/swim teacher, cpr trained, >babysits….what you would consider an all american teen but she freaks out at >the thought of any relationship going more than a few dates and then if anyone >says someone doesn’t like her the negative distortion thought pattern kicks in >and she locks herself in the bathroom and slashes. Not deep enough to die, but >deep enough to hurt…and bleed. There’s only been one time when she didn’t >come tell us, but a friend of hers did, and when we confronted her she lost it >and we ended up in the e.r. We were there again last night though we’d managed >to interfere soon enough before she cut and the e.r. was no help at all…they >didn’t even have a psych on call. Yes, she’s medicated for depression, i don’t >think it’s working though, she’s been going to therapy but lies…to the >therapist, us and herself, and we are going to see the psych on monday and >start with a new therapist next week. Just wondering if anyone can help or >comment on this behavior. We know there is a genetic dispositon to this thought >pattern as her father suffered with this too and has successfully been treated >but we never thought we’d be faced with this kind of issue. HELP???!!!!!! >Nanci >"If it weren’t for stress, i’d have no energy at all."

Response:

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