My 13 year old emo daughter is self harming

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My 13 year old daughter is obsessed with My Chemical Romance and other bands of this ilk. She dresses in the emo style and has posters all over her bedroom. I have just discovered she is self harming and am devastated. She says it has been going on a while and it is a way of releasing her anger. She is angry that she doesn't fit in at a school full of "douche bags" and girls wearing too much make up and mini skirts. She spends a lot of time reading and writing fan fiction on line. I have spoken to her GP and we are getting a CAMH referral.
My main dilemma is what to do about her emo identity. My partner thinks we should ban her from these sights and take away her posters. She says this will make her feel even more isolated . I am pretty sure her emo identity is the reason for the self harm . Does any one have any experience with this kind of thing? Thanks

Hi Whatever, my DD is exactly the same, emo, into My Chemical Romance and similar, posters, feels that she doesn't fit in etc. She also self-harms.

However I don't think the emo thing and the self-harming are necessarily connected. I know of a number of non-emo girls who also self-harm. It seems to be the thing for teenagers these days to deal with their feelings (in my day it was drugs and alcohol, no better really...)

My DD's self-harming was initially due to a major emotional trauma to do with her father that she suffered last year. She's had her 6 counselling sessions from CAHMS which did kind of help for a bit but were not nearly enough to deal with the problem. It's a shame they are so under-resourced. My DD is getting better, slowly, but it takes a while

Have a look at this website: www.selfinjurysupport.org.uk/ which has a lot of useful resources and advice.

Good luck with it all.

Sorry, I should have added I'm not sure that banning from the fan-fiction sites and taking away her posters are going to help. In my opinion the risk is to make her feel more alienated and upset, which might cause her to step up the self-harming. I would monitor her online activities to see what she gets up to though, I don't think necessarily the fan-fiction sites are a problem, but there are pro-self-harm sites that I wouldn't want my DD to use.

I have no experience, but I do know that if you spend a lot of time thinking about such things and identifying with them, seeing them as 'cool' then it will all come out somehow. If you read books with tons of swearing in, watch films with it, and surround yourself with people who swear a lot, you will probably start too. Simple.

I don't think banning will be a good thing though as she sounds quite 'grown up' and naturally rebellious. However, I would:

• Explain the long term consequences of self harm. Scars which you are ashamed of as you get older etc.
• Explain that she is not helping herself by immersing in all this stuff

Thanks for your replies. I sympathies GreenMouse , this is so tough to deal with. I think you are probably right about alienating her if I take away her posters etc. How long did it take for your daughters CAMHS appointment to come through after her referral?
Also do you check your daughter for wounds? This feels like an invasion of her privacy but Could it help stop her from cutting ?

It took several months, I can't remember quite how many, but at least 3-4 months, between the referral and the appointment, which seemed like an eternity...

I don't check for wounds but I do notice when she's done it, she then becomes very careful about covering up, whereas normally she's quite happy to walk about the house in her underwear. I agree that it's an invasion of her privacy and perversely might push her into self-harming more.

I know, and I understand, that your first instinct would be to do everything to prevent her from self-harming, that's natural, but one of the advice I've seen is that you shouldn't try to stop her as it's her way of coping with her feelings and she probably does find it helpful, however crazy that seems to you. The advice is to try and help her to find other ways to cope with her feelings.

The other thing that you can do is show her how to take care of her wounds, by keeping them clean, and explain to her the importance of avoiding infection.

I do sympathise, it is very very hard to take and to cope with as a parent. Hang on in there...

I could have written almost exactly this a year ago! (Although DD maintains she has never been an EMO). It took 4 months from gp to first of CAMHS appointments (with CAMHS assessment in between).

In that time, DD lost control and eating disordered thinking took precedence and we have been going through that hell. It is still thwre, but DD has developed ways to keep control over it.

For DD the sh is a coping mechanism or expression/explanation. It isn't suicide, it helps her deal with suicidal thoughts and feelings, or numbness. She uncovered it when she was ready. I just have to remind myself that she has gone through unspeakable anguish to do that, and to be happy she is alive.

Her taste in music has widened. I do have some of her metal songs on my play list and she listens to MCR still sometimes, but also a very eclectic mix of other genres.

I tore the posters down one day when it got too much for me. Too much death there. I burned them. Dd wanted to collect the ashes so I stopped her. It is my house too and I cannot live with that, it makes me worried beyond reason. She can still get the occasional music magazine if she wants, but I won't buy a subscription. She can put educational or happier, more constructive things on her walls.

Just want to add that with DD, the right route was to monitor intwrnet access (but not too closely) aa she was not going to harmful sites. We checked every so often and although there was a bit of complaining about me or DH, and not wholly accurate accounts of things that happened, it was supporting her recovery. I think it would have taken much longer for her to recover from the eating disorder, for example, without her access to recovery blogs and other sites that support people with mental health problems.

Thanks so much for your advise . It really helps to have the perspective of others who have had similar experiences. It's quite a recent discovery although I've had my suspicions for a while. I've been checking her internet activity every now and then for a while. I don't think she's been on any of the nasty sites but the things she reads and posts are all really negative . I found she had posted some horrible lies about her home life which makes me think the whole thing is more about fitting in with the emo genre than anything else. Saying that though, lying and si what ever the reason, still needs dealing with so sensitively . I think I've messed up over the last couple of days by getting too emotional and freaked out by it.

I really am not qualified to give any advice. The more this goes on, the less I know!

We have had meeting with a 'GO with specialism in mental health' which is the nearest we get to a psychiatrist for DD. :( They won't discuss her care plan with me, I will be informed of what 'talking' DD will get to do, with whom and where by lwtter and have a review with this GP in 3 months. Ihate these meetings. They ask such pwrsonal questions and try to put words in my mouth. I cry and firmly correct and say it is not the way they put it. I feel so completely unsupported (them saying I should be proud of refeeding DD is a bloody insult, since it is what any parent would do if they could, and it is luck...and she will always bear the very many scars of her sh that she has had so little help with.)

Sorry for the rant. I am so sick and tired of being pushed from pillar to post.

If she had been in a car crash and broken her spine and was still in a wheelchair, still trying but not able to walk, there would be much better care, sympathy, understanding, qualified support on tap.

But you have to go through it and accept what help is offered. It is something at least.

GP, not GO!

Not sure if this will help but my Husband and I both have and do listen to "dark" music in the form of Metal and Goth and have done since we were about 12 or 13 I guess. I've just asked him whether he thinks it's the music that makes people depressed or want to self harm and he thinks not. I tend to agree also.

We've found it a way of expressing our emotions either musically or lyrically. Sometimes I used to put on certain tracks and just sit and cry but that's what I needed to do. I was in my early 20's just out of a abusive relationship and in hindsight very depressed and lonely. the music didn't make me that way I was already feeling low.

These days with a young toddler I do listen to much more upbeat stuff (it's a bit quieter on her ears!) but I can't listen to it all the time and still need something a bit more substantial at times.

I do think some people think more deeply about things and have deeper emotions/feelings. At that age if I was surrounded by girls in mini skirts and excessive make up, I would be pretty scathing about them I'm afraid and wouldn't want to conform to that lifestyle either. I would have probably thought them shallow. Obviously as you get older it's a case of each to their own.

I'm guessing the music is an outlet and I really hope you can find out what's underneath her unhappiness.

Mental health services are so overstretched its scandalous especially with issues like self harm and eating disorders apparently mushrooming amongst our teenagers and especially the girls.

My dd is also self harming but isn't into all the goth stuff. It's extremely common amongst girls of this age apparently but to dismiss it as a fad or part of a fashion statement is to miss the point.

Taking away her identity and her Goth stuff would be an outrageous intrusion. She needs support and for the lines of communication to be kept open.

There are so many good sites about self harm, why people do it and strategies to help whether that's through distraction or other means.

You have to be really pushy with Camhs. Our school organised a self harm support group for parents and a man from camhs came to talk to us. He gave out his number and with his help I managed to get dd onto a Mindfulness course which seems to be starting to help. (She's done 2 out of the 7 weeks so far.)

Totally agree with all you say Spider! It is completely shocking how little help there is for these problems.

Can you tell me more about mindfulness courses? A support group for parents is also a very good idea, I'll see if we can organise something like that at DD's school

Thank you all for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences. It has helped tremendously. I have gleaned from all this that I have to stop trying to control the situation and stop getting upset and emotional. Just show her love and let her talk when she wants to?

Yes! Blaming yourself leads to being an emotional jellyfish and unable to support her. Blaming her makes her problem far worse as it compounds it with feelings of isolation, rejection, and neglect. Trying to control the situation/her possibly leads to her being defiant to protect herself or, again, undermines her self confidence and isn't supportive of her finding her own, healthy, avenues.

(I'm paraphrasing books for parents of children with eating disorders, but I think it is just as useful for sh and depression.)

Long time lurker but first time poster, so please accept my apologies for any errors. Never felt compelled to write before but I wanted to say how sorry I am that your family is going through such a traumatic time.

I don't have any experience with SH but I know plenty about the music side of things - I took my DD to see MCR when she was just 10. She likes all types of metal music, from fairly mainstream rocky stuff to really heavy stuff, including emo. I have listened to a lot of the music and I can honestly say that I have never come across anything that promotes SH. There's plenty about not fitting in, feeling like an outsider, etc. but it seems to me that the music provides a sense of community, where like-minded kids can find their own niche on the sidelines of "normal" society.

Does she have any friends that like the same sort of music? Perhaps you could offer to take them to a concert, or even go with her yourself? I know the whole scene seems a bit strange, with all the black clothes, tattoos and make-up, and even the dancing is bizarre - running round in a "circle pit" and crashing into each other - but it's just a way to let off steam! At the concerts I've been to, you couldn't meet a nicer bunch of people - very friendly and chatty, believe it or not!

I agree with onionchildren that the music is unlikely to be the source of her unhappiness but just might help her to find a place where she does feel like she fits in. I really hope that you can find a way though this.