so, terrible thing. my girlfriend recently started hurting herself. she's squeamish, so she doesn't ever break the skin. but i am SO. FREAKING. WORRIED. the reason she's doing this is that she's depressed...and also trying to deal with the post-traumatic stress of being pressured into sex at age 13-14, three years ago. and i can't convince her that this is not a good idea...that even though it makes her feel better, that it's the best coping mechanism she has, that it'll be terrible in the long run... and i know it's addictive. it'll get out of control, and eventually she won't be happy with not breaking the skin, she'll want to do more, and do it more often. it's killing me D: therapy is not an option. talking to a counselor is not an option. and her parents are DEFINITELY not an option. I am her only. so please, help me. give me strategies to help her, to try and convince her to stop. i've told her she should try and limit it, and do it less and less over time. but i can't figure out how to say what i want to say so that she'll listen. please help me.. D:
Why is therapy not an option for her? Like you said, people usually cut in order to cope with a certain situation going on in their lives. Sadly, unless they deal with the situation directly, then the cutting might stop, but the depression and other types of self-harm might now :/ I will let other people who are way more knowledgeable about cutting advice you about ways to deal with it, but I am sorry that you are having to deal with it all (*hug*)
thanks, TheEdend. therapy's not an option because she's only seventeen, and her family's completely broke.
I've moved your thread to the general support and advice column where I think you'll get more responses.
thanks KaraBulut. and babyjax13, she's not the type of person who would go and talk about her problems with a random adult. she has trust issues and it's taken her forever just to share everything with me.
so any advice on how i should help her would be appreciated. like, what i should say, how i should explain that this is not a good idea, how to encourage her...or even just facts and stuff about why cutting is a really terrible thing to do
The self-harming that she's doing is serving a couple functions, so even if you manage to get her to give it up, it will leave a void that needs to be filled in some way. The reason everybody is suggesting therapy is that it works on eliminating the root cause of her anger/frustration/hate/everything else. If she's not feeling that so strongly, she'll be far less likely to self-harm. If she won't go to a counselor (at least for now), you'll have to instead find another outlet for her emotions. So you might suggest some of these other options to her. * Some people find that strenuous exercise can afford the same relief as self-harm. Running to exhaustion, for instance, or hitting a punching bag. * I know a few people who found random "destructive" things could take the place of self-harming. Of course, you don't want the actions to be THAT destructive. But I've met people who found relief doing things like digging in the dirt with a stick, or ripping up pieces of paper. * If she still insists on self-harming, you might see if you can keep it as minimally damaging as possible. You might suggest that she slip a rubber band around her wrist, and give it a small "snap" every time she feels the need to self-harm. Doing this will send a sharp but temporary pain to her wrist, and it won't cause any more damage than a slight red mark that won't last long. Lex
Hey I agree with what Lex has said, another thing I might add is perhaps something that would help you is if you went and spoke to the school counselor about the situation it might help support you whilst you are in this difficult situation.
@Lex: I'm going to really try and convince her that therapy (at some point in her life) is something that she should consider. She feels like she will never heal from the traumatic dating violence she went through, because it's affected her in all sorts of ways. I actually just recently suggested we start running together. It wouldn't be to the point of exhaustion, but I know that exercise releases a lot of good chemicals into your brain, and it'll tire her out more so she'll fall asleep better at night, and she feels bad about her weight so it'll make her feel healthier. I'll suggest the destructive idea and the rubber band idea, too... @silverhalo: That's a good idea. I think I'll do that. Thanks, guys. I appreciate this so much.
