A few years ago, when I was a youth pastor, we were running a typical night of youth group and at one point split up into groups for prayer. When we did, a young girl who had recently started coming was in my group. We were sitting in such a way that I noticed something on the girls leg. It was some sort of scratch, but it just caught my eye as it was a funny shape. As we were praying, I was looking and all of a sudden I notices. The scratches spelled the word “pain.” I was shocked. I looked up and she was looking at me. She noticed me looking and I had no idea what to say.
That experience made me realize I needed to know what to say and more importantly I needed to know what NOT to say. Here’s some things I’ve learned:
DON’T call attention to the actual wounds. For some cutters, the reason they do it is to call attention to themselves. But want to communicate that you paying attention to the person NOT the cutting.
DON’T say things like, “why would you ever do that?”, “that doesn’t make any sense,” “no intelligent person would do that. Understand that even though this may not make sense to you, they are not operating from the same mindset as you. It does make sense to them and the worst thing you can do is belittle them.
DO tell them you love them, do tell them you care for them and do tell them you want to help. It’s ok to admit you don’t totally understand or you don’t always know what to say, but you are there for them.
For more info on cutting and self-injurious behavior, check out our other blog posts on this topic. You can find a list of Word of Life bloggers at Mike Calhoun’s blog here
