Lila ~ May 21

 

As a teenager I wasn't a problem child, at least not on the outside. 

 

Another talk that I attended at the Called to Peace retreat was of dealing with teenagers going through trauma. A lot of the women there were in the middle of leaving a domestic violence situation and have children stuck in the middle of it. 

 

Greg Wilson talked about how to handle these teens. Self-harming behaviors, acting out and dealing with how to set boundaries for teenagers. 

 

I agree setting boundaries with teenagers is hard they all need to learn to take "no" for an answer. But that's very hard when they're dealing with so much other pain. 

 

What about kids who twist knots in their hair or pick their skin excessively? These are also self-harm behaviors though less obvious and not always recognized even by professional therapists. For me, I never cut myself the thought of doing so was terrifying and I couldn't understand when it became such a trend amongst girls my age.

 

But skin picking and twisting knots in my hair was its own release an outlet for the stress and tension that I felt inside. 

 

I've seen other children in school where I work engage in similar behaviors during times of stress and upheaval at home: picking on papers or a candy wrapper until there's nothing left of it. 

 

I didn't act out so much as I turned in on myself, crippled on the inside I knew that if I did act out I would hurt my mom and hurt my teachers who expected me to be well behaved. 

 

I have since learned that there are other ways that hurting kids and teens deal with pain. 

 

Cutting is one thing. Then skin picking in hair pulling, overeating, compulsive masturbation, drugs and alcohol. These are ways of self-soothing of producing dopamine which comforts in soothes us. 

 

I once heard a woman share that she was sent away to live with her grandparents on a ranch out west as a teenager and ate overripe fruit off the trees and their orchard as a way to get her sugar fix.

 

Often times religion condemns people for masturbating and overeating and all sorts of addictions. They tell people that they need to repent. But I think that recognizing that these are ways of dealing with pain, and then healing the wound underneath is a much more effective way at dealing with the problematic behavior than shaming people.