To cope, self-harm by stressed kids rising

Sonali Gupta, a

clinical psychologist in Mumbai

, noticed that her young client always wore long-sleeved shirts despite the heat. Four sessions later, she discovered what she had suspected all along. The girl was cutting herself on her forearms with sharp objects—not with a view to kill herself but to cope with her anxiety.


A phenomenon clinically described as “non-suicidal deliberate self-harm”—where adolescents injure themselves with knives, blades or even the pointy compass from the geometry box — is increasingly coming to the attention of mental health professionals. The self-mutilation, they say, is a method of coping with pent-up stress and anxiety. In extreme cases, if not addressed, it can lead to suicide. It is far more common among girls but now boys are self-injuring too.

“It is not a new phenomenon, but it is now being identified as more young people are reaching out for help,” says Dr K John Vijay Sagar, professor in the department of child and adoloscent

psychiatry

at Nimhans (National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences) in Bengaluru. “We see this self-directed aggression across social strata and one thing is clear: Youngsters these days are under significant stress — academic stress, interpersonal stress with peers or parents, relationship-related stress.”

Psychologists say cutting may look like attempted suicide but, ironically, it is the opposite. It is a method of coping—albeit a maladaptive one—with living. It distracts the injurer from unresolved inner turmoil for which they have no other outlet and it is far more common among girls.

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