Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness

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Caroline

There was a very fine pain, like the swift and fleeting burn of a drop of hot candle wax. The chaos in my head spun itself into a silk of silence. -

Narrator

Caroline Kettlewell. I felt so empty and so unmotivated, that I didn't want to live, but I didn't want to die either. So I just didn't care. But the act of cutting reminded me that I was here today. I had a knife laying around and I was playing with it, and I decided to see how sharp it is on myself. And I kept doing it. What sane person would think that hurting themselves would stop the pain. Self harm isn't done with the intention of someone ending their life. It indicates that there are very limited adaptive coping mechanisms for dealing with negative emotions, or for dealing with hard times.