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Cut

 

I was nervous because I'd written a manuscript about a girl who cut herself - and I'm not a cutter. I was sure the girls would call me out as phony, as a poser, as someone who'd exploited their pain.  I'd spent more than two years working on the book - but I was prepared to toss it the garbage if these girls told me that I had no right to try to tell their story. 
 
One by one, they approached me. With curiosity, with a nervousness of their own. And one by one, they told me their stories. Stories of terrible violence - committed against themselves. But what moved me even more was the secrecy and isolation they suffered. 
 
One girl, a pretty blond with expressive blue eyes, told me she'd worn a turtleneck when she went to the beach with her family; no one asked why. Another girl, with an adorable boyish hair cut and mischievous eyes, said she kept going to the same hardware store to get bigger blades - wishing that the man behind the counter would ask her what she was doing with them. And another girl described telling her parents transparent lies about her cuts - blaming on them on the cat or 'falling on a coke bottle' - always hoping they'd see through her stories.
 
What I realized then was that they wanted to be found out. They were caught in a cycle of hurting themselves, then being terribly ashamed and afraid of what they'd done, feelings that would drive them to hurt themselves again - each time, a little worse. They were practically advertising what they were doing - because they didn't know how to stop.
 
Some told friends - then begged their friends not to say anything. Those friends  were then pulled into the secret and struggled with their own guilt and worry. But a lot of the girls at SAFE Alternatives, the center I visited, were there 



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Tags: Callie, doesn, enough, anything, struggling