Topic Title: 16 yr -starting to self harm will SJW help?
| |  "16 yr -starting to self harm will SJW help?"
, Wed 26 Oct 06:12
Hi - I need some advice. I am a mother of a 16 yr old female who has started to self harm. Will SJW help. There is a family history of depression i am taking anti depressants. She feels she is depressed,(she had no idea of my medication or family history) the doc feels she should have counselling which she refuses to go. She has no history of abuse,( that I am aware of)She is my eldest out of 6 children. I don't want her to take antidepressants, I believe she thinks they will make all her problems go away. Can anyone give me any advise on sjw and the dangers. I feel angry with her as her childhood is 100 percent better than mine was, but I also feel comapssionate and grateful that she does confide in me- I also wonder if this self harm is attention seeking or she is doing it because her friends at school do? I don't know what to do! Will St Johns Wort help?
thanks for reading - regards Lesley26
Posts: 0 | | Registered: Wed 26 Oct 2005 6:1 |
| |
| | "Re(1):16 yr -starting to self harm will SJW " , Wed 26 Oct 07:14
It's great that you feel compassion for your daughter, but you really need to get over your anger as it might well make the guilt she is very likely to be feeling worse. Someone can have a very good childhood and very loving parents and still get depressed - it isn't something that works in a straightforward way. And a lot of people that self-harm have never been abused. If your daughter says she is depressed, then it would seem that she's not doing it to imitate her friends, but to express genuine distress, and similarly wth the "attention-seeking" idea; nobody self-harms 'just' to get attention. To a certain extent, however, it's probably to do with people feeling that they can't acknowledge their pain as legitimate unless it's physicalised; and acknowledging that she has a genuine, real problem that the self-harm is only a sign of is the first step to being able to move beyond using it as a coping strategy. Medication may be a way of getting her through this in the short term, and the best thing might be to talk to her doctor about whether sjw would be an appropriate one. Though counselling can be helpful for a lot of people, it will only really work if she wants it to. It's worth being aware, too, that a lot of the counselling offered to teenagers is very poorly done and is often inappropriately provided through child-psychology departments. And also be aware that counselling can be very frightening, especially if she's developed the self-harm as an avoidance or coping strategy. The crucial thing is to understand that that though the self harm will only make things worse and needs to be stopped as soon as possible, it stopping will not mean she has nothing more to deal with. I'm sure she feels very lucky to be able to talk to you, and to have your love and support behind her.
Posts: 1 | | Registered: Sun 12 Jun 2005 13:55 |
|
|
Home
email/admin 
SJW home 
forum index
