She cuts herself! - Help.com

If I was in your situation, I would tell a teacher or someone in authority at your school. These people are trained to know what to do in these situations. They can assess the situation and organise the right help for your friend.

Dont freak out and jump on her with questions like my friend did. Are you sure the slits couldnt have come from sth else? I dont think your friend will be happy if you offer her counselling or psychologists help, though thats what most would suggest. At first, just try to be supposrtive and dont push your friend. Once shell feel confident, shes gonna talk to you. Show her that youre there for her.

Meow… wrote:
Dont freak out and jump on her with questions like my friend did. Are you sure the slits couldnt have come from sth else? I dont think your friend will be happy if you offer her counselling or psychologists help, though thats what most would suggest. At first, just try to be supposrtive and dont push your friend. Once shell feel confident, shes gonna talk to you. Show her that youre there for her.

She’s a minor, it is never safe or ok to know a child is cutting themself. If it is an accident or there is an innocent explination - a trained teacher will be able to see this. No one needs to know who alerted the teachers.

Poster - Please don’t let your friend suffer through this, its better to be safe with these situations. Lets hope its an accident :)

I agree with Raver go to someone who can help at school and don’t worry about your friend being upset with you. She is doing something that is really dangerous and she is lucky that you care about her.

No.. Going to a teacher/parent without hearing her side first is a mistake
Parents have zero training and teachers aren’t much better.
If you talk to her and she says that she did in fact cut herself, then tell someone. You’ll probably know which teacher or adult is right as you know them so.. Just talk to her and find out.

The result is - the consiquences of *overdoing it* are no where near as bad as the consiquences of not doing anything when something needed to be done before it was too late.

I don’t think we should be telling children, to go and talk to another child about self harm and the potential other issues surrounding this?

I use to cut myself.. it could be for two reasons.

One: cutting on your arms is very noticable, and often a cry for attention. On the other hand, it is a body part that bleeds very quickly cause you don’t have to cut very deep and doesn’t hurt as much.

Two: If she is going trough alot right now, she could go into a state of emotional numbness. And cutting yourself is so extreem that you feel something again. Like the lyrics: ‘you bleed just to know your alive’

Talk to her, it might help. A friend of mine talked to me about it.. but it didn’t make me stop. Getting my life on track made me stop. ;)

Hope this helps.

an ex-selfmutilator

Your friend could be doing it to gain some control over a part of her life, or just let feelings out, or a cry for help. Either way, cutting is not good. She needs your support. Right now, telling other people may not be the best idea.
Speaking from experience, it was AWFUL having people confront me about it and telling me I needed help. I would rather have settled for someone to talk to about it, someone to trust, who wouldnt go about telling people, and would just be there for me when I needed them. After 4 years, I am very VERY lucky to have that person now, and I swear to God, I am never gonna let her go

❀❁✿❁❀ wrote:
Your friend could be doing it to gain some control over a part of her life, or just let feelings out, or a cry for help. Either way, cutting is not good. She needs your support. Right now, telling other people may not be the best idea.
Speaking from experience, it was AWFUL having people confront me about it and telling me I needed help. I would rather have settled for someone to talk to about it, someone to trust, who wouldnt go about telling people, and would just be there for me when I needed them. After 4 years, I am very VERY lucky to have that person now, and I swear to God, I am never gonna let her go

You sound sweet,:) I am so glad that she was there for you and that you have her to lean on now. It is so hard to know how to handle this kind of thing, when you hear people who have been there and done it. I just think it would be so sad if she really cut herself and bled out or something, she just a baby i mean that’s in my heart to want to help someone who is crying out in so much pain. I worked with kids for so long I always think of them as my kids, and I would just do about anything to help them and love them better.

♥Rαvєr♥ wrote:
The result is - the consiquences of *overdoing it* are no where near as bad as the consiquences of not doing anything when something needed to be done before it was too late.

♥Rαvєr♥ wrote:
I don’t think we should be telling children, to go and talk to another child about self harm and the potential other issues surrounding this?

If she goes straight to someone who asks her friend about it, and her friend hasn’t been self-harming, it could actually trigger her to.
I’ve been there, I know what I’m talking about