Need help for cutting

[Anonymous]

OP

If you are still reading this, I just wanted to chime in as a former cutter. I did this for a short time in high school. For me, I felt a tremendous lack of control over anything in my life. We had moved every year or two after my parents divorced and I landed in a new school at 13. All the pressures of being a teenager and having to start over were overwhelming to me and cutting felt like a release of that pressure. I don't think my mother ever knew but at some point late in high school I wanted to go to therapy to work through things. The self hate went into a latent stage for about 15 years until I developed an eating disorder late in my 20s that lasted until my early 30s (I am 40 now). I don't know that I ever really sorted it all out but I have had any self inflicted injurious behaviors in over 5 years. I will say that I have never had a good relationship with my mother and at this point in my life, I find myself resentful that she never really supported my emotionally or believed in me. She doesn't know me at all and I purposefully keep her at arm's length.

I say all this only to give you one person's perspective. I obviously don't know you or your daughter but my heart aches as a former teenager that did the same things your daughter is doing, and as a mother who desperately wants to avoid repeating a pattern with my own daughter.

[Anonymous]

Former cutter here as well - my mom took the "just ask if something is wrong" tack with me and it...did not work so great. I cut for years until a college roommate finally talked me into therapy.
I just wanted to reiterate that you're doing the right thing by trying to get help for your daughter. As someone else said, there are likely many layers of issues here that are going to take a long time to dig through. Keep trying until she finds a therapist she likes, and make sure she knows that you will never give up on her.
Both my sister and I did therapy for a little bit in jr high and high school, and both of us quit pretty fast. I'm in my late 20's now and have only just found a therapist I like. I definitely feel that had my parents been more insistent that my sister and I stay in therapy, we would both have avoided a lot of self-destructive behavior in our high school and college years.

I'm so sorry you're going through this, and sorry for your daughter as well. You're doing the right thing by her, always remember that.