And this isn't the most depressing thing in the news today

[sigma7]

Nearly 1 in 5 students at two Ivy League schools say they have purposely injured themselves by cutting, burning or other methods, a disturbing phenomenon that psychologists say they are hearing about more often.

I wish I could say I was surprised.

Comments

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Well, so far I haven't caught anyone in my shop classes deliberately cutting or burning themselves on the machines. Although one guy seemed to miss the point of "you'll need that for later" and started whittling and otherwise mangling a piece of wood he was suppose to just he flattening the ends of. :/

(Whew. Long day. Dealing with the fact the waitlist doesn't work all morning, plus my own physics class (37 students showed up, summer courses used to never go above 20) and then shop class for a mix of grad students and undergrad research experience kids. And it's the first day I had to get up at 6 AM in the past couple weeks.)

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize I was a cutter for many years after the fact. But it was my home life, not college. I actually got out of the habit once I was out of my parents' house in a dorm.

[solaine.livejournal.com]

I used to cut. With my fingernails. I never told anyone about it except for my then-boyfriend. It honestly upsets me much more when people wear the marks as badges of honor, for attention -- "Look what I did to myself, I'm so hardcore" is more like a badge of fucking stupidity.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

I understand -- for all of my problems, that's never been one of them, but I've had enough friends who did that it's all too familiar (and these were just the ones I knew about). I would've guessed that it was not rare, but 1 in 5 surprises and terrifies me.