h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oy... teaching drama to 9-17 year olds for a week... tons of fun... but I'm sooo glad to be back!

This is all I'm going to say at this time... totally still tired and spent... but it's good to be back!

Raych

sounds painful

Sounds a bit like the old residential courses that we used to have when I was still at school and playing on the County orchestra circuit. All the younger kids were so excited at being away from home for a week that they just *had* to share their exuberance with everyone else - all night banging on doors, opening them and screaming into the room so that no one else got any sleep either. Yes, those were the days!

Breakfast usually consisted of at least three cups of coffee to try and stay awake for the rest of the day!

Needless to say, the concerts were always held on the last evening of the course - and by that time the collective sleep deprivation had got so bad that we were all rubbish.

Yeah, I have to say that it drove me back to coffee for the week. The kids were excellent though... there's a certain happiness you only get from hundreds of waist high hugs!

Awww. Bless

Kids can be adorable if they put their minds to it! If they don't - then it's mega-aaaaaaaaaaarghh all round.

hi hun nice to see you back

andy

for Owly! How've you been?

Yeah, Megapuppy... it was really intense some times. I actually had a kid start self mutilating in a class, it was terribly intense... he was one of the older campers, but still unexpected in the context somehow.

sounds kinda freaky

andy

Zoiks! Rather unusual for someone to start self-harming right in front of everyone like that, though. I guess he must have been either extremely miserable, extremely frustrated, or both - not only to actually harm himself, but to do it in front of everyone like that.

Mind you, teenagers never tend to do anything by halves, do they?

I assume that he got some help of some kind. I can't imagine he was doing it just for fun - there must have been a cry for help mixed up in all of that somewhere.

Yeah, he got help.

I have a feeling that "cutting" is terribly trendy here in the States... it seems to be the very "in" thing to do... and there's enough instability in teenagers to perpetrate it upon themselves with little thought to consequence. It's so heartbreaking!

Hi YS,

I've seen and known a couple of people who have sadly tried to self harm themselves. Its tragic.

I had a mate in school who was off for weeks after he supposedly tried to kill himself. He was never the same afterwards. Theres so much to life to want to give it up so easily like that

I'm not sure whether it's just an 'in' thing, or whether we're just more aware of it nowadays. It's certainly been in the headlines on BBCi in the last week or so.

Perhaps that increased awareness has prompted those teens who 'need' attention to turn to self-harm to get that attention/sympathy/therapy whatever. Those who feel compelled to harm themselves do so in private and keep it hidden - partly out of guilt, I suppose, but possibly because there's a subconscious need to keep it hidden so that people don't try to stop them from letting tension out with the blood. Those who make a big thing of it (either doing it in front of everyone or telling everyone about it) are probably after attention.

I only know of one person I've ever met who self harmed - and I found that out because she wore short sleeves all the time so the scars were on display. There were surprisingly few of them, though - and they were generally stitched, suggesting that she received treatment from A&E. The inference from this was that it was done publically enough to warrant the transfer to Casualty.

If you noticed them and asked how she got them (assuming she'd fallen through a window or something) she would cheerfully say 'Oh, I harm myself' as though it were nothing much - and then tell you all about it. Her reason for doing so was 'depression'. However, another colleague at the time got really annoyed by this claim as she had recovered from severe clinical depression herself, and could see absolutely no evidence whatsoever that this woman was genuinely clinically depressed.

Looking back, I think it was an anger management thing. She freely admitted to regular bouts of rage-related affray - generally in Police Stations and Benefits offices. The usual upshot of this was some form of wound on her arm/trunk which would then require Hospital treatment and lots of attention.

This is only my interpretation of it, mind you, based on events ten years old. I may be completely wrong.