Secret Scars
Ideas Segment - Aired May 25, 2006

Imagine a child's arms criss-crossed in deep cuts - painful stripes - they gave themselves. Experts say more and more kids are turning to self mutilation and cutting to help them cope with pain and anxiety. But what is cutting? And should you be concerned about your child? Tune into the next ideas for important information every parent should know.

Flipping through an old album, Laneika Palmer and her grandmother see picture after picture of smiles. But pictures can lie. What the snapshots don't show is that behind every smile, Laneika was hiding a secret.

Laneika Palmer: I would just take the scissors and sit there and cut. I'd break open the razors you shave (with). I'd take my time (to) take it apart. There used to be two razors inside of it, so I'd have two razors to cut with, and I'd just go right through. I (was) just cutting with (it) for a long time.

The scars on Laneika's arms say what she never could. She was overwhelmed and depressed. Only one thing made her feel better: cutting.

Laneika Palmer: When I was in my room, by myself, that's when I cut. I'd have it stored under my bed, inside... it was this box that I had all my notes in, I had it stored under there. I knew my grandma and grandpa wasn't going to go thru it, so I'd put it in there or I'd put it in my closet. In my clothes and stuff. Then I'd go there and I would just start cutting. I'd take all the anger from the whole day, and I'd just start cutting.

Laneika's not alone. Experts say cutting is on the rise. More and more young people are deliberately mutilating their own bodies. Researchers from Cornell University estimate as many as 15% of adolescents have self injured. The scars are horrific. The marks, hard to look at. But why? Why would a child intentionally and repeatedly hurt themselves?

Laneika Palmer: It was like a journal. It's May 2nd, and I write down everything that happened in my day, every problem that I had, everything that went wrong and I'd keep it in my journal, instead I'm just keeping it on my body. It's like tally marks - every bad thing that happened to me.

Colleen O’Connell: What cutting often does for kids is that it's a way to cope with an uncomfortable feeling. So if I'm feeling sad or angry or depressed, I don't really want to feel that. It's easier to feel the physical pain and to see the physical pain than it is to feel the emotional pain.

Stephen Cosby: Sometimes, I've heard kids say that I feel bored, or they feel depressed, and they'll cut and what happens is then the cut will interfere with that feeling, and so they'll have, at least, something physical that they can relate to. And, I guess because it's physical, it's more real to them than something that's emotional is - something that's abstract and they can't really put it into words.

Boxcutters, razor blades... they'll use just about anything to slice into their arms and legs. It looks like a suicide attempt, but experts say it isn't.

Stephen Cosby: Many of these teenagers are afraid to cry or show emotions, so what they do is they find if they cut, than they won't cry and they feel something else.

Colleen O’Connell: It certainly conveys some sort of message that something not right, in this very clear visible way. That often kids may not feel comfortable really talking about the real issue.

Erica: Literally, like a lot of people who cut would describe it as like, nothing goes through your head you're kind of, like, zoned-out. It's a weird feeling. It's like, it's a really strong feeling.

Wire hangers, cigar cutters. It didn't matter what she used - 14-year-old Erica says she never felt much pain. What she felt was a strange high.

Erica: I would just do it right before bed, and it was like I could cope, and then I could fall right asleep. ...You take your mental pain and turn it into physical pain, which for me is easier to handle. I can't deal with my emotions, they are too much, but I can deal with the physical pain which helps. It's kind of a bad cycle - you cut and then you feel better, but then you start feeling bad, so then you cut more and it just goes in a continuous cycle.

Colleen O’Connell: Sometimes, kids get sort of addicted to... the idea of it and they get so used to doing it, and it works every time, so it's hard for them to sort of let it go.

Erica: Just like if you were smoking or drinking. Just like any other addiction, you get cravings.

Stephen Cosby: It's almost like how we used to define alcoholism or other addictive drug use... that you would self-medicate to get rid of the pain, yet when you sober up, the depression is worse or back again, and so it doesn't really solve anything.

Erica: You regret that the marks are there, but you don't regret that it made you feel better.

For years, cutting was most common among teenage girls. Often from middle-class backgrounds, cutters have a strikingly similar profile to those prone to eating disorders. But as cutting increases, that profile is expanding.

Colleen O’Connell: Cutting has really changed over the past five years or so - where it used to be very particular segment of the population, and a really particular diagnosis, and now especially in teenagers we see it's much more prevalent. It's kind of the thing to do.

But what's behind this increase? Some say it's spreading because of wider exposure through movies and the internet.

Winona Ryder in Girl Interrupted: I don't even understand my disease...

Cutting has been portrayed in films like Girl Interrupted and Thirteen. Experts worry that if young people identify with the tortured movie characters, they'll start to mimic them.

Today, over 500 websites and chatrooms are dedicated to cutting. Some say open forums like this have made things worse.

Stephen Cosby: More and more, we seem to see internet sites that are devoted to other kids that cut, so they can communicate sometimes, exchange pictures of their cuts. And they are some pretty graphic pictures of these cuts.

The images are horrific, but experts say there is good news.

Colleen O’Connell: A lot can be done for cutting. It's really a very hopeful if you will, cause there's a lot that can be done.

It's music therapy time at the Akron Children's Hospital Partial Hospitalization Program, a special program created to help teens heal. Many of these young people have struggled for years with cutting. Now they're being taught new ways to deal with their emotions.

Unidentified: We do a couple of things. One is that you kind of accept that life is full of not so great things, and it's full of emotions that may be uncomfortable, so teaching kids to really kind of tolerate that and to be okay with sitting with some sad feelings and then also work with them on how they can soothe themselves.

Through music, art and intense group therapy, these teens are discovering other ways to express pain. But despite new therapies, Laneika and Erica say too many kids are still cutting.

Erica: When I first started cutting, I thought no one else does this. I have it so bad. I'll never meet anyone else who does this, cause I'm messed up. This is my fault, but now it's like, someone cuts. Well, you know I hear of a lot of people that cut. I mean, this is like... I feel like this is over drinking and smoking what kids are doing now. It's a big thing.

Do you agree Laneika?

Laneika Palmer: Oh yeah, definitely. I've learned how to recognize, how to see the cuts, to know that that's from cutting, and there is a lot of people around that I really know that do this.

It's been months since her last cut, but Laneika still remembers the story behind every scar. Those scars will never go away. Laneika sometimes worries that her need to cut may never go away either.

Laneika Palmer: I don't know what I would go through later on. I don't know if it will be something that will be too hard for me, and me knowing that's what what I know how to do. I couldn't tell you.