Please help, am making a essay on teen depression!

Hey, I am making an annonymous survey and essay on an issue important to me... cutting, depression, and many other factors of depression in teens (sorry for peeps that are not teens).

Firstly, I'd just like to ask if you cut and why? I am trying to get a different version on this, so many people are ashamed of cutters. I just want to give the REAL reason. Also your opinion on suicide, if you have thought about it.

And then if people can give me a little thought of how they feel when people hate them just because they cut, I know some of my friends think girls are freaks that cut. That's why I'm doing this.

And also a bit of why you're depressed, what you feel like constantly... if anyone can help me I'd be grateful.

#1 i cut in order to keep my sanity.. if not i'll be doing something else, which freaks me out.. like talking to myself while walking along the corridor and staircase, cried until i felt like losing my breath.. the pain i felt is so great n cutting defines the pain.. it distracts me from actually thinking of the inner pain.. although it's physical, but it does not hurt me internally but i stopped 2 weeks ago.. because i no longer being hurt.. maybe just not yet

#2 i thought of suicide very much lately.. even until now.. but still i'm not very clear.. still holding myself in the hope that my future will be a better place

#3 i tried my best to hide from anyone knowledge.. so, i'll wear long sleeve.. even if they notice, i'll say it's scratches.. they dont buy it sometimes but it does not bother me becos it's ur decision.. the only thing that freak me out is when my lecturer found out and said that it's an offence.. it really freaks me out though.. as much as i want him to know, i didn't want it to become a serious issue

#4 A family-related problem.. always had an issue with my mom.. a little physical abuse, lots of psychological and verbal abuse.. i'm the underdog.. chaotic family issue.. money problem.. it's something that if u'd only been through it, then u'll understand.. it even came to my dream evrytime i didn't think about it and evrytime i feel happy.. i sort of haunts me.. i had a bad childhood.. i hope it'll be over soon enuff..

well i talk to my teacher.. though sometimes he oversimplifies things and i got pissed off, it helps me a lot.. try to talk to someone.. even if they don't understand it or it didn't come out the way you expected, just having them to listen to you actually works.. and i mean it, eventhough i was in really bad suicidal mode last week~

#1 yes i cut and i ahve done for nearly a year. i cut because i fee it is a realese of emotions and wen i c myself bleeding i feel like all the pain from the inside has been set free. and it honestly does get me through each and every day. people my think when you cut it hurts and yes to many people that may be true but to me it does not because i am releasing the pain.

#2 yes i have also tried suicide i done this because i have feelt so low and i have seen my best friend suffer through my pain. i did not succeed tho because i loved her too much and i ahdnt said all i wanted to ssay to her.

#3 i used to do everything i could to hide but i realised the more i tried the more i got found out so i still hide it now but i dont try as hard it now becomes natural.

#4 there many reasons i do this mainly because i dont really talk about how i am feeling but the main problems for me have been rape, parents split up, and a death of a loved one. and all of this happening aorund the same time.

i do have a PAi talk to coz i feel councellors do not help me coz they r there just to listen where as personal adviser can advise you on things to help.

#1 Yes, i cut. The reason i cut is because a) i feel like everything bad that happens to me is my fault, and b) to get rid of the emotional hell i am put through. Feeling pain on the outside helps to release the pain bottled inside, without taking it out on one of your best mates, for example.

#2 I, myself, have had the fleeting consideration of suicide, but not enough to actually go through with it. One of the things that stops me would be my mates, one of them is going through the same thing, and i need to be there for her. Also, my other mates care a lot about me and even though i sometimes feel it would be better if i was gone, i don't want to put them through that pain.

#3 I think that discrimination against cutters is as bad as racism. My other friends think my best friend [who cuts too] and i are stupid for doing it. Once, my friend actually told me i didn't understand, even though i'm the one going through it! It pisses me off that they actually think they could understand better than me.

#4 My parents split up, i'm the middle child in a family where my older sister is always hurting me and i am ultra-depressed over this guy i've been in love with for a year. I know all these seem like normal problems, but i guess they've been going on for so long i sorta just break down. It doesn't help that i'm nowhere near the best-looking gal of the bunch, so i'm picked on alot for that and the fact that i suck at sport. A lot of people find it find to grind me into the dirt.

I know it's seems stupid, but that's my 2 p worth.

xox, PorteR

1.I cut to forget about everything else because for at least a little while your concentrating on the physical pain rather than the emotional. I also do it because it keeps me from doing something worse like suicide so in a way I guess you could say its what keeps me here.

2.I’ve thought about suicide even though I know it’s the easy way out but life can just seem so hard and you just feel like you have no other option. It sometimes bugs me when people will say that there’s always another way or another option basically unless you experience depression you don’t release how much it can seem like suicide is the only option especially when you constantly want to die and I know lots of people say unless you experience it you cant understand blah blah blah but the thing is its so true no one can fully understand

3.Only three of my good friends know I cut and they’ve had mixed reactions one of my friends blamed himself and pleaded that I would stop basically he said If I could ask one thing of you and have it, it would be for you to stop doing this, another friend keep asking me to stop and said she would cry if I ever took a knife to my arm again and just asked me to promise that I would stop and the last friend who knows didn’t tell me not to do it (he use to cut) he pretty much said that if it helps then ok but just don’t let it get out of had though I don’t think he was entirely happy about it. I think I’ve been pretty lucky that my friends who do know don’t judge me though they do think I don’t do it any more.

4. To be honest I don’t know why I am depressed because I haven’t had a lot of bad things happen to me and I have a good family etc a couple of my friends who know ask me why Im depressed but I can never give them an answer and frankly I would actually really like to know why I do get depressed. The first time I was depressed back when I was about 11 or 12 was because I was getting bullied by some guys it actually got so bad and made me feel like complete sh*t that I wanted to kill myself, then it went away for about three years but I don’t know sometime this year I just started getting depressed again but I don’t fully know why.

Sorry about this being soooo long but I must admit I do feel better just getting this out and hopefully this helps you. By the way if you dodn’t mind and it wasn’t to much trouble I’d really like to read your essay once its done if you don’t mind.

1) I cut , have dun so for 3 years just about, I thought i was the only one in the world doing it until I found out about other people. When i feel really bad this kind of pressure builds in my head, like a sort of deep pain, n then after iv cut it goes away, i dont know if it goes cos im concentrating on the pain of cutting. Physical pain is so much easier to deal with than emotional pain.
Also i found out that when people cut, their brains release endorphines when they see the blood so thats why it gets addictive, its like a drug.

2) Suicide - I've tried 4 times, twice of wich i ended up in hospital. My feelings r a bit mixed, i know some people think its selfish to take ur own life, but i thnk its every person's own choice what they do - sometimes i think if they feel so low and so much pain, sometimes its selfish for people to keep them in this life. I'm not really sure.

3) Nobody has relli said that they hate me cos I cut, its just that loads of people stare at you or don't understand, they think that anything will make u cut, that if they say something nasty u will cut because of them! Some also think you're really unstable if u cut, when i kno loads of ppl who cut but dont agree with suicide etc.

4) My psychiatrist ses I'm depressed cos of an attempted rape incident wich means iv got post traumatic stress and an eating disorder, a traumatic family life which made me suicidal from the age of 9. I've got M.E wich makes me depressed and tired. Also I found out ive got a thyroid problem which altogether means the severity of my depression is severely worse than usual, and i will hav to be on tablets for rest of my life. Basically all of that. My mood goes up and down but i have periods of months where im down every single day. Sometimes i feel so much pain physically and so tired that i can't breathe. Have been admitted to hospital a few times.

Hope any of this helps u, sorry its so long i was tyring to add things that might help,

Love Toni

I'll definetely be using all of your information in my essay. Thanks stacks for it, and I'd still love to get more opinions and stories, my essay isn't due for another two weeks. I will post my essay when I'm done in this forum, so just look out for it if you want to read it! Thanks again for the responces so far.

I have never cutted myself before (yet) but I had attempted suicide and well I'm most likely going to do it again because I'm Bipolar and Manic Depressed, but my reason are from physical/emotional family abuse towards me and well abuse from the world also, I grew up believing and loving this world but once I personally got to know it, I hated it and still wait it until this day......I'll die from from what I have soon anyway so it doesn't matter.