{"id":1159,"date":"2008-12-08T13:04:18","date_gmt":"2008-12-08T20:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2008\/12\/i-hurt-so-much-i-bleed\/"},"modified":"2008-12-08T13:04:18","modified_gmt":"2008-12-08T20:04:18","slug":"i-hurt-so-much-i-bleed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/08\/i-hurt-so-much-i-bleed\/","title":{"rendered":"“I hurt so much \/ I bleed.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

from the LA Times<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Self-injury on the rise among young people<\/h1>\n

Self-inflicted injuries appear to be on the rise, with some young people actually embedding objects in their skin. Stress may be a factor.<\/p>\n

<\/span>By Shari Roan<\/p>\n

December 8, 2008<\/p>\n

The revelation was shocking enough. That a growing number of teenagers and young adults deliberately embed needles, paper clips or staples in their skin may have seemed unthinkable before an Ohio radiologist presented disturbing proof at a medical meeting Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Even more disturbing than his X-rays and accompanying report, however, could be the size and pervasiveness of the trend from which it derives — self-injury.<\/p>\n

Cutting, burning and biting one’s body is a habit increasingly taken up by young people who find themselves simply unable to cope with stress. Embedding appears to represent a more extreme form of the disorder.<\/p>\n

“We always saw a little bit of this, but it was in people already identified as having a psychiatric disorder,” says Janis Whitlock, a prominent researcher on self-injury at Cornell University. “What doesn’t seem to make much sense is why we’re seeing it so much in seemingly healthy kids.”<\/p>\n

Experts who study the behavior say that 15% to 22% of all adolescents and young adults have intentionally injured themselves at least once in their lifetimes. One study of 94 girls, ages 10 to 14, found that 56% had hurt themselves at least once. It was published in February in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, part of a special issue devoted to self-injury.<\/p>\n

<\/a>The behavior may be building among adults as well. One study found that 1% of adults self-injure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Illinois therapist Karen Conterio, who operates a self-injury treatment program, says 11% of her clients are age 40 and older. And surveys by Whitlock have identified self-injurers in their late 20s and 30s.<\/p>\n

Expressing pain<\/strong><\/p>\n

The leading theory behind the behavior is that cutting, burning or hitting oneself externalizes brutal and persistent emotional pain. A poem published in a newsletter called\u00a0the Cutting Edge<\/a>\u00a0sums up the disorder, says Ruta Mazelis, a consultant with the\u00a0Sidran Institute<\/a>\u00a0in Baltimore, an organization that focuses on traumatic stress.<\/p>\n

“I hurt so much<\/em><\/p>\n

I bleed.”<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

— Robin et al.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>[ click to read full piece in the LA Times<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from the LA Times Self-injury on the rise among young people Self-inflicted injuries appear to be on the rise, with some young people actually embedding objects in their skin. Stress may be a factor. By Shari Roan December 8, 2008 The revelation was shocking enough. That a growing number of teenagers and young adults deliberately […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}