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in
the

sponsored
by our
community
partners

A

Some teens resort to self-harming
behaviors to cope with life and
to release the pain.

lana’s parents knew
something was amiss
with their daughter.
She seemed sad, more with-
drawn than before, but when-
ever they tried to talk to her, she
said things were fine. When win-
ter turned to spring, they noticed
she was still wearing sweatshirts

mechanism,” said Alana, who started cutting when
she was 13. “I knew and saw other people who did it,
so I tried and it helped, so I kept doing it. It was a way
to release everything.”
While Alana, who also struggles with Obsessive-
Compulsive Disorder (OCD), was able to stop harm-
ing herself temporarily, she would eventually relapse
and resume cutting. Things came to a head when she
was discovered cutting herself at summer camp. The

The Unkindest Cut

RONELLE GRIER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

teen

mental health

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tlight o
o
p
s

despite the warmer weather.
A friend whose daughter had gone
through a similar experience suggested that
the long sleeves could be a sign that Alana
was cutting herself. When they gently con-
fronted her, Alana broke down and admitted
she had been using old razors to cut her arms.
“It was shocking at first, foreign to us,” said
Alana’s mother, Lori. “It’s emotionally hard to
see your child struggling so much they’re hurting
themselves.”
Lori and her husband immediately reached out
to find help for their daughter, who is now 16. She
began working with a therapist to address the issues
that had caused her to cut herself.
“I was really depressed, and I needed a coping

camp director called her parents and asked them to
pick her up. Once she got home, she worked with a
new therapist and attended an intensive outpatient
program. With the help of her therapists and the sup-
port of her parents, Alana was able to stop cutting
herself and find healthy alternatives to cope with her
feelings.

WHAT IS SELF-HARM?

The clinical term for cutting and other types of
self-harm is “non-suicidal self-injury,” or NSSI. It is
characterized by deliberate self-inflicted harm that
isn’t intended to be suicidal. While cutting is a com-
mon form, other types of self-harm include burning,
hitting, embedding objects under the skin or other
behaviors intended to cause pain.

continued on page 14

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May 3 • 2018

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