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First Person: Teen's Cutting Experience Leads to Opportunities to Educate

Kid's Corner: Legislators' Opposition To Screening Misplaced

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NMHA Medicare Enrollment Campaign Gets Off to a Strong Start

Research Notes

I started cutting myself when I was 14 years old. I was always depressed, angry and negative about everything. I would hurt my friends at school or my family because I have a tendency to take my problems out on other people when I’m upset or feel helpless. I decided that I didn’t want to hurt other people anymore, so I hurt myself instead. I would cut my arms and legs with razors, bang my head into walls, and rip out my hair when I was upset. I never cried and always bottled up my feelings until I felt like I was going to explode. I was turning my emotional pain into physical pain.

Lori Pede, right, and her friend, Emily Rose, accept 2005 NMHA mpower awards.

I was a fairly happy child growing up in the eyes of my parents, but that was because I always kept secrets from them. I was bullied and harassed in elementary and middle school. But, I always put on an act around my parents and they didn’t know how depressed I really was. I remember writing in my diaries when I was in 8th grade that I thought I had a depression disorder and I wanted counseling. I asked my parents for counseling, but because I always appeared happy to them, they saw no reason for it. In their eyes, I was perfectly normal. I was constantly on the phone or outside with friends. They had no idea what was going on.

Everything went further downhill when I entered the 9th grade. I began cutting myself every day. I would stand in front of a mirror and tell myself how ugly I was and how much I hated myself. The school counselor got wind of my cutting, told my parents and recommended a counselor. My parents were shocked. My mom took it really hard. She kept asking me, “What did we do wrong?” “Did I fail you as a mother?” But, it had nothing to do with her. No matter how many times I told her, she would continue to blame herself. My parents took the school counselor’s advice and put me in counseling. Until now, my parents had never seen any reason for counseling unless someone was “deeply troubled.” I remember my first counseling session with my parents and counselor, Phil. Phil asked me what I thought about my parents’ reaction. I looked at him and said, “Everyone thinks Lori’s ok. But, Lori’s not ok.” When my mom heard me say that, she FINALLY realized I really needed help. That I was not just acting and something was wrong.

A lot of my problems went back to my childhood. My dad was a truck driver for four years. He was only home one or two days a week. I was 9 years old when he went on the road. I had always been a big daddy’s girl. So when he left I was devastated. There were more issues than just my dad. I was insecure about my hair, my teeth, my nose, my body. I had my first boyfriend in 8th grade. He constantly put me down. It was during that period that I started cutting myself. He would tell me I was crazy and make fun of me. He dumped me after two months. I started dating a guy named Will when I was a freshman, three months before I turned 15. He knew about my cutting and encouraged me to stop. Between Phil, my parents and Will, I eventually stopped. I cut for nine months. But I did other forms of self-mutilation for another year and a half. I would rip out my hair, bang my head into walls, punch walls and bruise my fists.

When I was a sophomore, I became friends with Emily Rose. She was also a cutter and had been hospitalized most of her freshman year. We were in the same history class and our teacher assigned our class a history project that was due at the end of the year. We decided to be partners. After doing some research, we selected a topic that was personal to the two of us: self-mutilation.

Emily and I worked on our history project for a few months and I briefly mentioned it to Phil in one of my counseling sessions. He became so excited and offered to do anything he could to help. He took time out of his day to come to our school and work with us in the library. Our teacher never thought we’d be able to relate it to history—but we did. We got a 100 percent on the project.

Phil told numerous people about our little history project, and we were asked to do our presentation at the 2003 Zarrow Mental Health Symposium. This was our first professional invitation, and we presented during our junior year when we were 16. After that, we got numerous invitations. Mike Brose, the executive director for the MHA in Tulsa, asked Emily and me to start a youth advisory board. On January 8, 2004, we started PYRS, Productive Youth Rendering Safety.

During our research for our various presentations, I stumbled upon a man’s personal story of how he overcame self-mutilation. He talked about how he had trust issues and that until he could learn to trust himself not to hurt himself, he would never be able to form meaningful relationships. His description of self-mutilation is that his body cried through blood rather than tears. That’s the perfect description. When a person bottles their feelings up, they’re incapable of crying. When someone cuts himself or herself, it’s the same feeling of relief as when they cry. But, their body’s crying blood instead of tears.

I read his story when I was a sophomore and it inspired me to stop all of my self-mutilating behavior. I’ve always had trust issues with people, especially men, because I was molested when I was five. I learned from his story that I couldn’t trust others until I could learn to trust myself. On June 26, 2003, I decided that I would never intentionally hurt myself again. I have kept my word to this day. I use his story in all of our presentations hoping that it will inspire someone else.

“I know I will never have to feel like I need to hurt myself to deal with my problems ever again.”

Our presentations consist of personal interviews with friends from school that cut, and with people we talked to on the Internet in self-mutilation chat rooms. We combine our experiences with stories from people we’ve talked to. Our presentations include the 2004 Oklahoma State Suicide Prevention Conference, at schools, and to conferences of counselors and social workers. We’ve lost count. Emily and I graduated from Broken Arrow High School in May. We both received the Education Award from the Mental Health Association in Tulsa in November 2004 and NMHA’s mpower Award in June 2005.

I want to become a sexual abuse and self-mutilation counselor. I hope that by telling other people about my experiences that either a fellow cutter will feel less lonely and want help, or that a counselor will be able to better help a client dealing with this issue. I know I will never have to feel like I need to hurt myself to deal with my problems ever again. Between Phil, Mike Brose, Karen LaPlante, my parents, my boyfriend, and of course Emily, I know I will always have all the love and support I will ever need to succeed and accomplish my goals in life and in the mental health profession.

Lori Pede and Emily Rose, both from Broken Arrow, Okla., were two of the six 2005 NMHAmpower Award winners. Through this annual award, NMHA’s mpower program recognizes outstanding young people who have helped change youth attitudes about mental illness, and successfully fought the stigma and prejudice surrounding mental health disorders.