SCARRED

At 17, Megan already has come to terms with a few of her tendencies.

"I'm a pretty cynical person," she says with a tight grasp on her canvas book bag.

The Henderson teenager admits to many traits that others might attempt to hide. She still occasionally listens to 'N Sync, and she used to love the idea of bold red streaks running through her hair. When she was younger, she would wear T-shirts with names of bands that she had never heard of.

Megan, who asked to be identified only by her first name, also freely admits to an old penchant for wearing terry-cloth wristbands. What lies beneath those bands, however, is not so easy for her to share.

"It was my own secret," she says.

On her 13th birthday, Megan became what is known as a "cutter" when she injured herself with a knife. She covered the scratches along her forearm with wristbands and long sleeves.

"My mom had just gone through a divorce, and she was really distant," Megan says, describing the first time she intentionally cut herself.

Her mother "just started screaming" at her friends during her birthday party, and Megan's frustration grew.

"It was just a bunch of buildup," she says. "I went to the kitchen with a knife and just started cutting."

According to research done by the University of Missouri, Columbia, approximately 3 million Americans self-injure. Of these, an estimated 90 percent began hurting themselves as teenagers.

Most professionals agree that cutting is one of the most popular modes of self-mutilation for teens.

"Cutting is a way to either relieve pain temporarily or a way to feel something when your feelings are totally shut down," says Randy Rutkin, a licensed counselor from Henderson who specializes in learning and emotional disorders.

Rutkin says she has seen cases of cutting, but other forms of self-injury also exist.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry states that self-battery, branding and burning are all common forms of self-injury.

"There were times I would hit myself," Megan says. She knew others who burned themselves.

A study published in the August 2007 issue of Psychological Medicine asked 633 students at five U.S. schools if they ever had deliberately harmed themselves. Nearly half of the students reported that they had engaged in an act of self-injury within the past year, but Rutkin suspects the true number was greater.

"It's an issue that is far more common than most people realize," she says.

Rutkin says this is in part because self-harming oftentimes is a symptom of a more severe problem such as depression, autism or an anxiety disorder.

She says statistics show that more than 60 percent of those who injure themselves are female, and she has worked mostly with female self-injurers.

"The way females are socialized, we're taught to put on a good face to the world and blame ourselves for our problems," Rutkin says. "Some of that is cultural, and that's not going to change."

Megan cut herself in private until she was discovered by her mother's friend. The friend then called her mother.

"At first she acted like she was really angry at me," Megan says.

After being threatened by her mother with the possibility of attending a rehabilitation clinic, Megan simply became better at hiding her problem.

"I stopped for a few months, but I already knew how it felt," she says. "It was almost like a high that I got out of it."

Psychologists such as Christopher Kearney, director of UNLV's Child School Refusal and Anxiety Disorders Clinic, insist that a person suffering from self-injury must ask for help before any healing can begin.

"They have to recognize these emotions early on," he says. "The problem is that they're not addressing their emotional arousal in a socially acceptable way."

Kearney says the problem is common in boys, but a fear of coming forward has led to many keeping quiet.

He also says that although someone who self-mutilates may be seeking attention, most teens wish to keep it private.

Rutkin says most teens who injure themselves are looking for an outlet but do not realize how detrimental self-injury can be.

"It's a desperate attempt to feel," she says.

Kearney says relaxation training and other successful treatments work because they allow sufferers to express their emotions in a healthy manner.

"They have the same difficulty coping with certain stressors as others do," he says. "They are just dispensing extremely strong emotions."

Both Kearney and Rutkin encourage other forms of stress relief, including walking around the block, screaming into a pillow or discussing frustrations with a professional who has experience in the area.

"The physical experience of those who self-injure is different," Rutkin says. "It's very complex. Most kids, if they get effective help, do stop."

Megan says she since has learned how to deal with her issues in a healthy way.

"At first, I didn't want to stop," but then, she says, she learned to confront her emotions. "There are more effective ways of dealing with things."

Now, Megan writes often. She says poems and stories help her express emotions that she used to express by dragging the sharp edges of protractors or metal objects against her skin.

She says tough love from her friends became a source of assistance for her.

"There was one person, and he was one of the first people to find out," she says. "He just told me how stupid I was being."

Rutkin says friends are important in such situations.

"If a kid doesn't tell their parents themselves, a close friend will tell them," she says.

Megan says she had to tackle the problem internally. Her constant worry over grades, friendships and family relations was too much.

She says it took her three years to stop cutting.

"Rather than crying or complaining, it was easier to deal with it that way," she says.

Now a senior in high school, Megan has matured and learned to take care of herself first.

"I got sick of making other people happy, and I wanted to make myself happy."