CARROLLTON, TEXAS -
Teenage girls. Slicing, cutting, bleeding, and oddly enough, trying to make themselves feel better.
Including this North Texas girl who doesn't want to be identified. We'll call her Cathy. She says she started cutting last August and has the scars to prove it.
"It's a distraction because you don't have that pain, and then you have the distraction of putting band-aids on it or whatever, and making it stop."
For the past 9 years, licensed professional counselor Lori Vann has studied girls like Cathy. The girls are usually angry, frustrated and lonely. Vann says some start cutting as early as elementary school.
"I've had numerous cases where kids have started at six, seven, ten, eleven years of age and a lot of times it's gone on for years before the parents even discover it."
Cathy covered her wounds with long sleeves, wrist bands and bracelets. Her parents only found out when a cut became infected and she had to go to the doctor. By then, she was already in therapy, and has since joined a self injury support group headed by Lori Vann. Cathy says she could fill two sessions just from the kids she knows at school.
"There is this one kid at my school, and like he has scars all up and down his arms, and they are really big. Like you can just tell, I don't know, I don't think the teachers always pick up on it and stuff."
Vann says it's impossible to tell how many kids self-injure, but wouldn't be surprised it the number is as high as 20 percent.
"The most common reason by far is that the emotional pain gets so bad that physical pain is easier to deal with and it's the release."
As for Cathy, her emotional and physical wounds are now healing.
"Some days are harder than others." Says Cathy." But it's a struggle."
Including this North Texas girl who doesn't want to be identified. We'll call her Cathy. She says she started cutting last August and has the scars to prove it.
"It's a distraction because you don't have that pain, and then you have the distraction of putting band-aids on it or whatever, and making it stop."
For the past 9 years, licensed professional counselor Lori Vann has studied girls like Cathy. The girls are usually angry, frustrated and lonely. Vann says some start cutting as early as elementary school.
"I've had numerous cases where kids have started at six, seven, ten, eleven years of age and a lot of times it's gone on for years before the parents even discover it."
Cathy covered her wounds with long sleeves, wrist bands and bracelets. Her parents only found out when a cut became infected and she had to go to the doctor. By then, she was already in therapy, and has since joined a self injury support group headed by Lori Vann. Cathy says she could fill two sessions just from the kids she knows at school.
"There is this one kid at my school, and like he has scars all up and down his arms, and they are really big. Like you can just tell, I don't know, I don't think the teachers always pick up on it and stuff."
Vann says it's impossible to tell how many kids self-injure, but wouldn't be surprised it the number is as high as 20 percent.
"The most common reason by far is that the emotional pain gets so bad that physical pain is easier to deal with and it's the release."
As for Cathy, her emotional and physical wounds are now healing.
"Some days are harder than others." Says Cathy." But it's a struggle."
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