girls cutting

kitkattail
Thu, 21 Apr 2005 02:51:21 +0000

I’ve heard also that depression is more common amongst young girls than amongst young boys. No idea why this is true, though.

But yes, this is very widespread. I’m almost hard-pressed to think of people I know who haven’t done this at least once. And with a few of them, it may be to look “cool” and “depressed,” but of the people I know, most of them do it because they actually feel that bad all the time. I very much doubt that many people want to be miserable and unhappy, so I don’t set much store by the “glorification of teen angst” theory. Instead of going around blaming these people for influencing their friends and propagating depression—as if it were some sort of contagious disease or something (“Don’t share drinks with Johnny; he’s depressed”)—isn’t it a little more useful to find out what’s wrong in their lives or in the chemistry of their brains? I think sometimes you have to take people at their word. If they say they’re feeling miserable and they’re upset enough to cut themselves, they probably mean it.