self harming

The pressures in schools today are much more stressful than many of us experienced. Certainly when I was at secondary school if you didn't like studying or weren't particularly good at it, you just left & got a job. Nobody needed paper qualifications for many jobs, the boss just decided whether you looked sensible and honest! My friends & I worked at jobs in our teens that now you need a sheaf of certificates to even apply for! I'm sure this stress on examination success must have a huge impact, especially on young people who are already troubled by family or emotional problems.

Willow500
I wonder how 'we' seniors managed our exams, bullying and pressure in years gone by.
I've no idea why anyone's brain would have a lightbulb moment and decide that cutting oneself would cancel out the stress.
It must only be certain types who resort to that way of thinking as no matter the stress, I would never ever mark or hurt myself.

wilygran
...and you think that years (decades) ago, people didn't have family or emotional problems?
You couldn't just 'leave school', you had to be 15, or 16 if it was a grammar school. No-one FORCES people onto social media or to spill the beans on every aspect of their lives. Sheep...pure and simple.

I was very unhappy for three years at school due to be caned by three different teachers. I used to bite the skin at the tops of my fingers and it looked very unsightly. It hurt a lot too. I guess this was self harming but not one person commented on it.

When I was a child in the 1940s and 1950s I had a friend who was unusually beautiful, but had a difficult personality which became more evident as she hit adolescence. She tended to be jealous and spiteful. Looking back, I think she might have found making friends difficult. After we had drifted apart at the age of 14 or 15 her mother told my mother that she was cutting her arms. My mother and I were completely baffled and puzzled by this. I still am, really.

Since then I never encountered anything about the habit, until this recent bout of publicity. I thought it was just my (ex-) friend.

Interesting, inishowen.
I suppose I used to do a similar thing - I had acne, not too bad but I hated it. I used to prick the spot with a pin, which hurt, but got rid of the badness,
I also had a touch of bulimia at one time, early 20s.
Twiceasnice - I know this is a sensitive subject, I should have said surprised rather than shocked.

I think if you look at eating disorders and suicide rates among young people this comes as no shock.I know that when my daughter was young she had friends who had eating disorders and stress related mental health issues.My daughter was in an abusive relationship in her early 20's and she did self harm .
The stress and post traumatic effects were said to be one of the reasons for her health problems now .

On the contrary Blinko, publicity will not incite teenagers to cut or self harm, but it may help those who do to realise that they are not alone, maybe open up to others and ask for help. I thank those brave people on here who admit to having done this themselves, it is not new, what is new is that we are able to talk about, take away the shame and that is to be applauded.

GabriellaG, I am sure we are all delighted that everything in your life, and your family's life is wonderful and nobody has any mental health problems. If only life was so simple for everyone. We cannot understand just what motivates one person to cut or self harm while another can shrug it off.

Mental health problems were rarely spoken of until relatively recently. Mental health problems were something families were ashamed of and no wonder when the finger of blame is so easily pointed at the parents or the self harmer.

Im still involved in some work with children who self harm by cutting, overdosing or with eating disorders. I share Gill57's dislike of the comments from Gabriella that show a total lack of empathy for those children, or the families who love them.

I think it may have been around for a while as a terrible way for troubled teenagers to cope.
Around 40 years ago I worked in a psychiatric hospital and one of my last tasks before I went onto other work was to supervise bathing a young girl upon admission. She'd cut herself almost all over her body - arms, legs, torso and even her back. Her poor body was a complete network of old scarred lines. She'd largely stopped doing so but the scars were evident. I felt so sorry for her and wonder how she copes now. Cutting was barely heard of then but as we now discuss mental health more readily it's no longer a dirty secret which is swept under the carpet.
Teenage years can't help but be full of problems, 'Do I fit in? Am I pretty enough? Do I wear the right clothes? Am I popular?' Trivial to we older folk but massively important to the young. I suspect it always will be a problem time but at least we can talk about it now.

I believe self-harming has become much more common than formerly. Sadly, my experience as a teacher leads me to believe that a quarter of all fourteen year old girls may very well be self-harming.

Certainly, in my schooldays it was unknown. Looking back, I think there was so much less privacy for teenage girls. Most of us shared a bedroom with a sister and most mothers (certainly mine did) asked why if one of us stayed in the bathroom longer than the time it took to use the toilet, take a bath etc.

Gabriella mine has been definitely put down to adverse early childhood experiences.

By the time I started it myself at four, mother had already been mutilating me with scissors and burning me for a couple years. There were also a number of questionable “accidents” I went to A&E for.

I don’t know how seniors coped with those kind of experiences. I only know how I coped with them. As I said, I won’t speak for anyone else.

Sorry ,,been out and about... button fed.. she has a permanent opening and is fed via a tube into her stomach.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeding_tube

Gabriella whilst I am sure you are a no nonsense sort of person your apparent lack of empathy,or understanding that not everyone might be exactly like you, is why mental health has suffered in the closet for so long!

The surge in use if social media is playing a huge part in the anxiety, depression being experienced by young people. If there is any insecurity in their life this certainly increases the chance of it spiralling beyond control. Social media is used by a lot of the young to show off absolutely anything they think will impress about themself and of course deride anyone who doesn't conform to their ideas. Cyber bullying is rife. Best the young folk can do is withdrawn from using all social media and also only share mobile phone number with those they trust. Its a different world now for young folk but certainly not always better.

Social media (in my opinion) plays its part.
Has anyone looked on a 'Pro Ana' site?
I'm not even sure if they have been policed in some way recently, but they were all about anorexia, with thinly veiled or blatant tips and hints, along with photos of members bodies.

GillT57

I'm sure that 'everyone' has no interest in my or my family's health and there are many like me and mine who have no issues regarding mental health.
I was airing a view that I can't see why some people think harming themselves, solves a problem.
I wonder what upbringing they have had, to attain that mental state, a state which steers them in the direction of mutilation.
If you have a stable home life, surely it doesn't enter your head to behave in that manner.
There has always been bullying and often cliques in the schoolyard but you don't go home and cut yourself.
The mindset is beyond me.

PECS
You're right. I don't understand why young people, in recent times more than ever, decide that mutilation solves problems.
Their mental health must be very fragile and self esteem non-existent which is why I wonder what causes those conditions.
No-one needs to allow themselves to be bullied
No-one needs to be on social media, if indeed being part of it is the problem.
Can no-one stand up for themselves nowadays?

Muffinthemoo
Good grief...your mum? Wow. How awful.

GabriellaG - it's difficult to take you seriously. I'm sure your'e stable enough to take that criticism.
Of course people can 'stand up for themselves nowadays'. If you genuinely don't have any idea 'what causes those conditions', we're all wasting our breath in trying to help you understand.

Muffin - I've just re-read your experiences. You've obviously had a very painful past. Can hardly believe how you survived it. But later, helpful therapy, so thankyou for posting such sensitive stuff.
In the hope that it will encourage others to come out into the open and make this issue less of a hidden topic.

No-one needs to allow themselves to be bullied
Good grief, woman, you seriously think teenagers allow themselves to be bullied? I'll try telling my DD that it was all her fault that she suffered at the hands of bullies throughout her entire school career then, shall I? An experience that has coloured her whole life since. Words fail me

Sorry, that should read "young children and teenagers". My DD was bullied from about the age of 7.

Re Gabriella's post 18.51.41, I too cannot see why anyone would think that harming themselves solves any kind of problem. There has always been bullying and often cliques in the schoolyard but you don't go home and cut yourself. I agree.

With everything that's reported nowadays, it appears those who have experienced bullying of one sort or another particularly at school, are pretty much the norm.

By no means everyone feels the need to mutilate themselves. Muffin's experience at the hands of her mother is surely highly unusual and in such terrible circumstances, it is understandable that someone would continue to self harm. It would learned behaviour.

Muffin your experience was awful beyond words and you are so brave to come on here and put your point of view