Why Do Teens Self-Harm

Today we are talking about why do teens self-harm.

Welcome to Wellness in Every Season. We talk all things wellness to help you align yourself, align with your goals, find balance in your life, and just recalibrate yourself. If you are listening for the first time, welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're here, and let's get started in the rest of the podcast.

Today I have with me Katie K. May, and she is a therapist, and she says that she works specifically usually starting with teenagers. She does not kick them out of the practice when they become 18,

and she also works with the family members involved. Feeling a little vulnerable here, because this is something I went through as a teenager, and I did not have people ask me the right questions, so when this came across my desk, this was a huge yes, because digging into the reasons why absolutely matters.

So Katie, I'm glad you're here, and I see you shaking your head yes to everything I'm saying.

Thank you for having me, Autumn. I'm glad that you started with that vulnerability. I as well was a teen who struggled with self-harm, which really fuels my passion for working with this population, and really hoping that this information helps to shorten the struggle for other families so they don't have to go through that really painful experience.

Yeah. Can you fill in a little bit more of the gaps? I feel like we already got that of your resume of why should we listen to you, why does this matter? Bring our attention so we're not zoning out, having you be background noise.

So why does this matter?

The biggest reason why I think this matters is because when anyone is in the teen years, let's say any teenager, they're really struggling with big emotions, and a not fully formed frontal lobe, right?

They're in this stage of development, and big emotions, when they are not managed or responded to in a helpful or validating way, can lead to self-destructive behaviors. And so I feel like this information that we'll dig into today is really going to support parents, professionals, anyone else who's listening in, how do I respond to the emotions of teenagers in a way that meets them where they are, that is the language that will support them, so that we can be more proactive in this emotion management system rather than waiting until the crisis, which is often how the system works, right?

We don't respond until we see the problem or the crisis behavior. So my goal is really how can we stop that sooner, stop before we get to crisis, before hospitalizations occur, and how do we create more communication, clarity, and understanding between parents and teenagers so that there is more harmony at home, there is more conversation, and it just works better for everyone.

And then the other part of my question, I am really good about having a paragraph worth of a question- Sure ...

so you

can get what I'm saying, is give us a little bit more of your resume of, like, how are you qualified so, like, people are like, "She actually knows what she's talking about," so they're really listening?

Yeah. So I'll start with my story, and then I'll tell you the professional aspect of it. I was a teen who self-harmed. I was raised by a single father who didn't... He was thrown into parenting, didn't know how to parent a teenager with big emotions without a mom in the picture. And so a lot of what I learned on the front end was how to cope and how to move through that without having all of the tools or clinical language.

And then I went back to school and learned about a type of therapy called dialectical behavior therapy, or DBT, which is the gold standard for individuals who are self-harming or suicidal. And there was a light bulb moment for me of this is language for what I intuitively figured out on my own. So it gave a framework and a language to how I had survived in my own life, which is it just resonated so deeply with me.

And so through my career, I became Linehan board certified in DBT. I'm one of a handful in my state. There's less than 500 worldwide who have really been through this rigorous programming to learn how to fully support individuals who are self-harming or suicidal. And along with that, I have trained a team.

I have 18 other therapists who work with me in the greater Philadelphia area, and I just recently signed a contract for my third book, writing in this topic to support teens, parents, and professionals in managing self-harm behavior. So I really have spent my entire life training for this information and supporting others in, containing these big emotions so they're not hurting themselves.

I don't know that I ever heard spoken, besides written, DBT, what it stood for out loud, so-

Oh, okay. ...

if you were watching the video, that's why I had that face of, "Oh, that's what that is." Do we have to be in the same state as you to work with you?

For therapy, yes, but I'm multi licensed state, like licensed in multiple states, as are members of my team.

So I would say if anyone is wondering, reach out. If I can't work with you or if my team can't work with you, I also run a clinical training program, because this is my passion. So I train therapists all over the world in my model and how I work with teens and parents who are high risk. And so I have a directory of therapists all over the place that can support in this topic.

Tell us where to find you. I feel like this is the part where when somebody is listening to this and they need the help right now, let's just give it to them.

Yeah, katiekmay.com is gonna bring you to, it's the hub for all my resources, whether you're a parent, a therapist, like looking for general information.

So that's the easiest place to find all the information collected.

And also if I'm a teenager looking for my own help?

Yes. That's

also a good

one. It also connects to our counseling website,

okay. Because I was that teenager. I had enough abuse going on at home that I was like, "I wanna take care of myself."

So if you're like me-

Love that ...

let's connect you.

Yes.

Perfect.

So let's get into a little bit more of the meat of this a little bit sooner there are many reasons why a child self-harms. Can we talk about what are the most common to start with?

The way that I like to describe it is when you are an individual who feels your emotions in big ways, I call it a fire feeler because what it feels like often is that you are on fire with your own emotions.

So they're big, they're overwhelming, they're all-consuming, they're burning someone up inside. So I really like to have people imagine that, like you're on fire with your own emotions. And when we can really tap into that feeling, that visual, that experience, we can make sense of the fact that your brain is going to come up with solutions to make that fire go out quickly.

And oftentimes, that solution is an escape strategy, whether it's a self-harm behavior, a suicidal thought or behavior. Sometimes it's a numbing strategy, like drugs and alcohol, binging, mindless scrolling, so all of these strategies that the brain comes up with to try and regulate the body. So put simply, when I'm on fire with my emotions, self-harm makes that fire go down more quickly.

It kind of extinguishes some of those flames or makes the fire a little less hot or a little less big and bright and burning and overwhelming. And so for that reason, it works, right? It doesn't work in the sense that I'm condoning it or I think it's a great and helpful and healthy strategy, but it works to calm the body physiology, to bring emotions into a more manageable or tolerable level, and therefore helps the individual to be able to continue on with life, access other coping skills that are maybe more helpful or healthy, or be able to communicate with other people.

That's perfect, and you answered another part where I'm like, "Oh, maybe I should've asked this question first," of what are examples of self-harming. You talked about binge eating. For me, mine of choice was cutting.

Mm-hmm.

That was after everything else that was healthy was taken away from me in a I'm gonna ground you type of way.

I wa- that's not what I started out with. You talked about drinking, drugs- I think anorexia would probably fit in here, maybe orthorexia. But,

So I like to put things under this umbrella of self-destructive behaviors. When I say self-harm, and I know that's like a vague term as well, I'm generally thinking cutting.

That's the population that I work most with, is individuals who have engaged in cutting. And there are other ex- I hesitate to give, like, a whole bunch of examples 'cause I don't wanna tell someone something that they haven't thought of,

Oh,

I

should go try that too." Something that's hurting themselves.

Okay ... that's hurting themselves or damaging their, you know, their skin or their body in some way. That's what I look at as self-harm. But if we broaden that umbrella of self-destructive behaviors, it's oftentimes things that are impulsive because in the moment they help that emotion come down, but in the bigger picture they make life worse.

So this could be things like drugs and alcohol, binging, pr- purging, scrolling social media endlessly, like doom scrolling. Could also be things like running away, like avoiding school. Things that help you manage your emotions in the short term, but in the long term they actually move you further from your goals, make your relationships harder, make your life harder.

But in the short term, they're working for you.

And for me, if you're listening to this and you're not going through this as a parent, a child, whatever, keep listening. The misconception is that it could be because a teen has parents who aren't involved in their lives, or they're overly involved in their lives.

Can you tell us what some of the misconceptions are within this? Because I think that it can happen to anybody.

Yeah. I think the biggest misconception is that self-harm, like cutting, means that you wanna die or that it's suicidal, and that's actually not the case. So I always like to give the example of I have many clients by history who self-harmed because they didn't want it to get worse and move into feeling suicidal.

So it became a blocking strategy. Like, my emotions are big, they're overwhelming, I'm on fire, but if I cut, then my emotions come down and it doesn't get to the point where I'm so hopeless that I do want to die. So it's, in fact, like a survival strategy more than it is a suicidal strategy. I think another misconception is kind of what you were saying, like, it's really, teenagers or individuals who don't have resources or support.

I also see a lot of teenagers who are in affluent areas, private schools, high-achieving, participate in sports, are on, college track, and those pressures and expectations are also what lead them to some of these self-destructive behaviors. So there's no one profile of a type of person who engages in self-harm.

It really is more about their biological sensitivity, the way that their emotions show up in their body, how they experience them. And then if we broaden that to, like, what it looks like for the environment, environment meaning parents, teachers, coaches, grandparents, siblings, how they respond to that individual, that interaction is really important in how they see themselves, trust their emotions, manage their emotions.

I can go more into that, but I'm mindful that I've been sharing a lot,

so for people who might be feeling a little triggered, what do you recommend? 'Cause I know that this can be a lot. This can bring a lot of emotions, even for people who've never experienced this or think that they've never had a relationship with somebody who's self-harming.

The concept of self-harm can be very triggering, and I like when I'm on podcasts where people will say like, "Hold on. Let's take a break. Let's pause. Let's breathe," because people might be triggered, and It's always a helpful reminder for me because I'm immersed in this work every day, so it's...

Which is a good thing that it doesn't trigger me and that I'm like, "Yes, this is normal for me to talk about." But I would say if you're feeling concerned, if you're noticing you're breathing shallow or your heart beating faster, one thing I recommend is sitting back in your chair, putting a hand on your heart, taking a few slow deep breaths, reminding yourself that you are here listening to this information because you want to know more so that you can do better, so that you can be a support, and trusting that that in itself is moving you in a direction of supporting the person that you love.

Love that. And it's hard because sometimes these teenagers have big emotions- because maybe you or your significant other or their parental, whoever, had big emotions as a kid. So it'd be really good to tap into, "Oh, I remember when I felt that way when I was a teenager." It's-

We tend as adults to forget what it's like as children

I think that's accurate.

I remember a long time ago when we ran a parent group, and one of the therapists said, "Who here remembers what it was like to be a teenager?" And for me, I'm very connected to that part of myself, but a lot of parents do struggle because they're so far beyond that or haven't, maybe didn't feel very connected to that point of their life then, or were quick to rush past it.

I wanna circle back to what you said about how parents themselves may be biologically sensitive if they have a teenager who is. When I describe the biologically sensitive individual, parents will often think, "Oh, I'm that, too." So I wanna give you those kind of tenets. It's, someone who experiences their emotions in very deep ways.

It could be very easy to trigger them. Meaning the slightest thing that for someone else might be no big deal would trigger them into feeling, sad, might make them easily cry. An example that's not even a really sad one is, seeing a puppy commercial. I cry at puppy commercials. I'm like, "Oh my God, they're so cute," and I start to cry.

So, like, that's a high sensitivity. It's not even necessarily, like, a negative. It's just easily accessing your emotions. They come on very quickly. They can be easily triggered. So that's number one. Number two is 0 to 60 in 10 seconds flat. Not only can they easily access their emotions, but they increase quickly.

They escalate quickly, right? So, a lot of times this is a kid who has a disappointment, and all of a sudden they're in a meltdown. So it feels like it happens very quickly. And the third part of it is it takes a long time for a person to come back to baseline or to calm down again. So oftentimes when there's a mismatch in two family members, they might have had an argument and one is ready to talk or move past it, and the other can't let it go and it might take a good night's rest before they fully feel recharged.

That's the slow return to baseline. It's a mismatch in how long it takes for us to re-regulate after our emotions are triggered. So when I describe that, parents will say, "Yes, that's my child, but also I think that's me," or, "I think that's my partner." And so, I would say a majority of teenagers who are biologically sensitive have at least one parent who is as well.

That is super helpful. And for me, I was thinking about how hard it can be if you have a child who's very emotional and a parent who is not in touch with their emotions at all.

We call it, like, being a rose in a garden of tulips. I try and move it away from being blaming or shaming. It's not that a parent doesn't want to understand, support, or know the right words to validate their child.

It's more that they don't speak the same language. So, you know, if I'm a rose growing up in a garden of tulips, tulips don't understand what it's like to have so many thorns. So they can't really, fully empathize with my experience.

And I love that you're still using flowers.

Yeah.

Like- ... that whole visualization of they're both good.

Yeah.

They're both things that a majority of people enjoy.

So can you take a minute here and tell us about some of the good qualities-

...

Of people who have big emotions, like maybe some of the good that they've done in the world. Mm-hmm. So especially for the people who are beating up on themselves, like how do I turn down my emotions, something's broken in me.

I'm sure that they've learned that self-talk because of not connecting with people who are tulips when they're roses.

Yep, and those are absolutely internalized messages that we work on in therapy all the time, so I'm glad that you're bringing them up. Biologically sensitive individuals, I would say, make up the majority of our artists, our musicians.

Like, think about the benefits to being in touch with your emotions. We have poets. We have writers. We have people who are writing really beautiful music or expressing themselves as actors in scenes that you're like, "Oh, I felt that," like I was there with them. So all of those people that know how to access their emotions easily are also sharing that as a gift with us in how they express themselves, how they show up, how they create.

Artists and how we can feel an emotion from looking at a piece of art is because that artist had that ability to tap into that emotion in a really big and deep way. And so there are so many strengths. I would also say a lot of, people who are strongly advocating for social justice or human rights or caring about others is because of how they're able to understand the human experience in themselves and really empathize with when others are struggling.

So I think a lot of the people that are doing a lot of good in the world may also... hypothesize, 'cause I don't have the data on this, but may also have an experience of biological sensitivity.

Good. Hopefully that feels like an upper for people.

I'm one of those people. I share this with parents.

Like you, we s- we started by sharing that we've had lived experience in this area, and we're both doing things to help others in the world, right? So here's a sample size of two at least- ... that this is true.

What other misconceptions can you help correct today?

So we talked about the biologically sensitive individual, and we talked about how they can be like a rose in a garden of tulips. So I want to talk about the tulips for a moment, which is the parents, right? Typically, we're talking about parents. And I remember this experience of being in grad school. At that time, my own child was about 18 months old, and my professor alluded to the idea that parents were always the problem.

And so I was like, raised my hand and kind of shy and asked this meek question. I was like, "Are you saying there's no way I'm not going to mess my child up? Like, is this just a reality?" And so then she softened, and she got more gentle, and she said, "You know what? Like, you... There is a theory of the good enough parent.

You do not have to be a perfect parent, and in fact, parents mess up all the time. And it's more important that we know how to repair harm, that we know how to acknowledge when maybe we made a mistake or say how we wish we had done it differently than to be perfect all the time." I think it can get lost in these conversations when we say yes, we have a child who has these needs, and they have big emotions, and, I don't want the message to come across, "And you're not responding the right way," right?

Because there is no right or wrong. And even if I gave you an exact script for how to be validating, how to be supportive, it might not land with your child, because your child might need to hear it differently. And so I always like to highlight this idea that as a parent, it is your job to learn how your child needs to be supported, but you're gonna mess up a lot of times while you're learning to get it right for them.

And honestly, I've had this discussion with my kids that- what is the most important is the repair.

Yeah.

Because we all mess up. I have four children. So it's that reminder of you're messing up with your siblings, you're messing up with us, and it's that as long as you're learning up, growing upwards Right?

And not every day, are we? We're human.

But let's go back and let's try that again, 'cause what I was saying was not right. I didn't use the right tone of voice, whatever.

Yep.

And it's that reminder of sometimes we're so stressed out that we can't tap into the other person's love language and really speak the way that they need.

Yeah.

Or for me, I have one child who's very emotional. Sometimes it feels over the top emotional compared to the other children. And it's teaching our siblings how to respond to this child so it doesn't make it worse, and making sure that everybody feels like they have a chance to be regulated.

Yeah.

And it can be so hard as a parent, 'cause I have to dig so deep. And sometimes it's one of those, there's nothing left, but I'm pulling from somewhere to become regulated for this child. And afterwards it's tapping out with my husband of, "Okay, it's your turn 'cause I need to go recharge."

Yeah.

I'm very depleted.

So I think along with this, it's also making sure that you have a village.

...

What I'm saying doesn't work for somebody who's single per se- Yeah ... but it's making sure that you have other people. So maybe it's a school counselor, a therapist, some good friends. But also adults that can be- Yeah

that mentor.

Yeah. I speak about this concept in my book of the circle of support, which is kind of what you're talking about now, and the way that I look at it is the child is, if we're thinking about it like a target, the child is the bullseye. They're the middle of the target.

And so we're centering the child, right? And so the child can have supports in these outward concentric circles, which could be parents, siblings, school counselor, friends. The child or teenager can look outward to any of these circles to get support. But we as caregivers can't look inward, meaning that I can't look to my child and say, "Can you just get it together?"

We had an experience of school avoidance for a little while, so I can't look to my child and say, "Could you just get it together and go to school so that I can have a regular workday?" Because that's an unfair expectation for the child who's struggling at the center in this bullseye. So what I did do, what I needed to do, was look outward to my own supports, my partner, my friends, a therapist.

Parents can look at, we run parent groups, like support and skills groups. So looking to outward circles to have your experience validated, because that's the foundation of what I teach to parents is- If you have a child who has a biological sensitivity, the most powerful skill that you can support them with is validating them, letting them know that they're not crazy or too much or, any of these things that they might hear about, "I'm, there's something wrong with me because I have these big emotions."

The opposite of that is validating them. It makes sense that this is overwhelming for you. It makes sense that you feel bad. This seems really hard for you. But when your capacity is tapped, those validating messages become so much harder to deliver, which is why we need our own support as well.

And let's be honest, there are so many times where we've heard somebody say something nice to us, but we can feel what's underneath.

Mm-hmm.

Our children are the same way.

Totally.

And it goes back to, every animal can sense this, and this is our sense of security.

Is it safe? And we can sense when people are safe or not. Mm-hmm. Even personality, like the whole person, but also that moment. Is this safe for me to be vulnerable?

And it's really hard when you are having a strong emotion and you're not in a place that's safe for you to have that.

Yeah, which is that idea of co-regulation.

Like I as a parent, it's my job to regulate myself so that my child feels safe coming to me or being around me. You know, we can feel it when someone around us is just bubbling over, and it doesn't feel like I can come to parent. And I hear that a lot in my work with teens is they'll say, I don't wanna disappoint my mom by telling her that I self-harm," coming back to our self-harm topic.

Like, "I'm worried that she'll fall apart." So th- those are, the work of parents is to say, "I can handle what you send my way. I'm here for you. You don't have to take care of me and my emotions when you're the one who's struggling." And it's hard work. I'm not saying this is easy, but it's, the things that I highlight to say, like parents going first, parents doing their own work is what really does support the child in this situation.

Yeah. And I'm gonna highlight that even more. That is why I went back to therapy was to help this child. I needed to find better resources than I had. Mm-hmm. Because I wasn't given them as a child.

Yeah.

And I was remembering how much I was failed as a child. Mm. And I did not want that for any of my children, but for this one in particular with his really big emotions.

So we also, my husband and I try to have a household where we are teaching our children in their language and in their time, 'cause we don't wanna overwhelm them with just how ugly the world can be- Mm-hmm ... and is in some ways, of making sure that they're aware enough to help out their peers.

Sure. Like, if they're noticing abuse, that type of thing.

And we also encourage our kids to invite their friends over. We can be that safe space.

Love that.

So having other family members having that thought that are listening here, what recommendations do you have for them of what to look for so that they can be that resource?

Because we know how hard it is to be a parent.

The you and I we, and everybody who's listening, parenting is hard.

Yes.

If anyone's ever said it's easy, I'm laughing in your face. It is so hard. It is so worth it, and it is, the biggest journey towards self-discovery and self-healing of like, "Oh, this is what I need to work on next.

Okay, great."

Yeah. "

We're working on that now." What are the warning signs that people should be looking for? And then when they see them, what is the best course of action if it's especially not their own child?

Yeah. I'm gonna give you two answers to that, if that's okay.

'Cause the first one, I got a little emotional as you were talking because I was thinking about, you know, like through the course of the pandemic onward a lot of teenagers were struggling. There was so much loss and so much change and so much transition, and I thankfully have a very good relationship with my own teenager, and they're comfortable communicating with me.

I mean, I'm a therapist mom. I am the safe place in my home, right? And so there were several times when they came to me and said, "This friend is struggling," or, "This friend is having suicidal ideation. Can you call their parents?" And so that was the emotional piece of, like, feeling like I could be the safe place where it's awkward or vulnerable for me to be like, "Hey, Mom, your kid is expressing this," but it's also lifesaving, and we've gotten lots of kids in therapy that way.

So my first tip is always, start with the relationship with your own child and have a safe enough relationship. Practice communication about hard topics so that they feel comfortable coming to you about hard topics, and I think that in itself can be really impactful. And then when you ask about signs, it's going to look different for everyone, but my metric is always is something off for two weeks or more?

Is a teenager more isolative? Are they more withdrawn? Are you noticing they look more heavy or fatigued or are making more self-critical statements or have been crying more often? And you might not see that if it's a child's friend, but maybe they see that. And so if something's off and it's been, a sustained period of two weeks or more and it's not just, like, a one-off, "I had a breakup and I'm sad," but more of a, like, "My baseline has changed," then it might be helpful to check in.

Invite them over, open a conversation, check in with parent, "Hey, how's Johnny doing?" Or whatever. But I think open communication is the key, and not stigmatizing these kinds of conversations behind closed doors. I really do think we've been able to create a beautiful village in, my community of a lot of friends who are in therapy and parents who talk about the friends that are in therapy, so it's not a secret.

Oh, I love that so much.

And circling back, it just brings up the reminder of when I'm still mad at this friend. Yeah. I've been graduated from high school for a while. And I'm still mad at this friend that she found out what I was doing, and she called my grandmother.

And it ended this whole thing.

Friend. I'm sorry, but...

She did not call my safe person.

Oh, I see. I'm sorry.

Yeah. So that's the thing, is that happened, so then- I don't know how it ended up, but I ended up at this mental health place, and they were checking in with me. And the first question is, "Are you suicidal?"

So I'm glad that you pointed out that's not the reason why-

Yeah ...

so many of us self-harm. And I don't anymore, because I'm not around that abuse.

Mm-hmm.

Like, it makes such a big difference. But like we said, that's not the reason why others self-harm. Yeah. That was my reason.

So there are myriad of reasons So for the person, you said she was a good friend until I told you that she went to my not safe person

advice.

I jumped in too quickly.

Yes. Let's unpack that from a therapist- Mm-hmm ... standpoint, and especially because you have the life experience of this as well.

Yeah.

Okay. Pretend I'm that friend in her shoes. What would you recommend?

You're the friend who's struggling?

No, I'm the friend- You're the friend-

who's realizing ...

who's

realizing that they have a friend Pretend i'm her-- I'm the friend that I said that I still haven't fully forgiven.

So my- I'm wading through the recommendation in my mind, because part of me thinks going to the friend, "Hey, I'm concerned about you. I'm worried about you."

And then if, depending on that friend relationship, offering to go to a trusted adult with that friend to help them talk about it. And so my first thought was, like, can we go to the school counselor? But I hesitate with that thought, and I'll tell you why, because schools have very different rules about crisis reporting than therapists do.

And so if that were to occur, you might land in a hospital setting you don't wanna be in. So depending on your state or where you are. So a trusted adult maybe outside the school setting is a better first choice. "Can we go to your mom together? Do you need support with this?"

Like, "How can I help you?" But I think that, like, "I'll go with you to talk to someone if you're scared," is a helpful step for a friend.

Yeah. And I like that it's talking to the friend, because that did not happen.

Yeah.

Because that gives the chance of trusting your gut-

Yeah ...

finding out more of what's going on.

Absolutely.

Because for me, it was everything happened within... My parents are divorced, so everything happened within the household that the trauma was happening in, instead of- the other household where I felt safe and loved. And they were starting to find out about what was going on. And they were starting to go through the channels that I needed.

So it ended up making things a lot harder and murkier, for sure.

I think when somebody tells on you rather than talking to you, it can have that feeling like you're in trouble

Yeah ...

rather than being supported through it.

And it makes you wanna be more secretive.

Yeah.

Okay, is there anything that we haven't covered that we should cover?

We talked a lot about how self-harm can show up when your emotions are too big to cope with, and that one of the most important things is for support people to validate your pain. But that doesn't mean that we're condoning the behavior, which is an important distinction for parents, that you can say, "I understand that you're in a lot of pain, and I understand that this is the solution your brain came up with, and I'm here with you, and I wanna help you come up with healthier ways to do this."

So you had mentioned at one point, like, getting punished for self-harm, as was my experience when I was a lot younger, too. And so I wanna be mindful of that piece, is that we have to be able to validate your teenager is in pain. This is a survival strategy. We can shift it over time, but we need to start with just understanding and validating the pain, and then calling in professional support to help you plan for how to shift that pattern.

I love that.

And the other question, so we talked about in the beginning that this is more for teenagers and for family members of the teenagers.

I wanna back up for a second. This doesn't just happen to teenagers.

Correct.

So let's talk about that a little bit more, especially if somebody's like, "I am 50 years old, and I'm doing this, and I never did this as a teenager."

I picked an arbitrary age, let's unpack that, though.

Self-harm can happen at any point. I mean, I've known 10-year-olds who have self-harmed. I've known 65-year-olds who have self-harmed. It is a coping strategy that shows up at a time when the ability to cope is inaccessible. The emotion is bigger than the ability to cope, and therefore, this is a strategy.

It is a resource. It's a survival mechanism. And so the behavior may look different. I think sometimes as we move into adulthood and find socially acceptable ways to be self-destructive, such as drinking too much, using drugs, really unhealthy relationships, even, like, overworking or throwing yourself into work in a way that can be debilitating to some people.

I think that's why we notice it more with teens, because they have less access to some of these other ways that are also self-destructive. But it doesn't mean that there aren't adults out there that are also cutting or using other self-harm strategies like that to regulate. So I would say whatever age you are, if you're resonating with this idea, a DBT therapist is your best bet, and there are DBT therapists all over the world.

And that would be my recommendation as a starting point, because that is what we're trained for. That's what we do every day.

I love that you mentioned the overworking part. And I love that you mentioned earlier on doomscrolling.

Mm-hmm.

Because those are things that, society does. Or going out and partying.

I wanna take a pause and just reflect on that for a minute, let everybody reflect on that. Because when we think of self-harming, we think of cutting, we think of burning ourselves, we don't think of these things, like you said, that are becoming more and more the norm.

I was a teenager who self-harmed, and once I was in my 20s, I was a young adult who abused drugs and alcohol, but was absolutely self-destructing until I found the path to my own trauma healing and figuring out how to cope in healthier ways and build a life that I loved and didn't need to escape from.

And I think that's really the message is, like, the behavior may change, but until you figure out with the right support how to create a life that you don't want to escape from, that behavior will just kind of whack-a-mole into something else, 'cause you're constantly trying to escape from a very painful existence.

And that goes with several episodes ago, I interviewed somebody who does solo travel trips. She'll, plan them out for women, sometimes they're group travel trips too. And it's that whole idea that you can leave the environment-

...

But you're still you, right? Yeah. Your personal baggage is still going with you.

So it's that idea of what do you need to heal so when you're taken to a different environment, that stuff's not coming with you.

I love that. That's absolutely true.

Yeah, and we have so many different things. You talked about relationships. We know so many people that go from toxic relationship to toxic relationship.

So the idea of self-harm can be so much broader and deeper than we think about at first glance-

Yeah ...

compared to what it actually is.

Okay, so tell us about your book names, and can you eventually write one for teenagers that notice other teenagers?

Yeah, so I'll give you the progression of my books. My first book is called You're on Fire, It's Fine.

It is for parents of teens with self-destructive behaviors, and you can get that anywhere online where you buy books. But again, all of them are linked at katiekaymade.com. My second book is for clinicians. It's teaching them my framework for treating high-risk teens and their caregivers, and it is called, what is it called?

Pull up your website.

Why am I all of a sudden blanking on my own book name? It's called Teen DBT in Practice, because that's what it is. It's a comprehensive guide for clinicians treating high-risk teens. My third book is, I'm under contract now, I'm writing it. It is for teenagers. So I had the book for parents, I had the book for therapists, and I felt like, I work with teens every day, so it's the companion guidebook, which would be helpful for teenagers who have a friend who's struggling, because this book is the entry point into the treatment for teen self-harm and other self-destructive behaviors.

It can be used alone as a journal, but it is recommended to be used within the context of therapy with your therapist as a guide to bring you through the process.

Perfect. And it makes me think, there are so many therapists that become therapists because they've lived through some kind of trauma.

But I know several who it's because their best friend has. Totally. And they didn't have the tools that were needed, so here you go. Yeah. Here's your intro to if you wanna become a therapist,

here for you.

Yeah Is there anything else that you want to leave us with? Like, let this be your soapbox moment.

I think we covered a good deal of really good information. I will leave you with the message that learning how to manage your own emotions is a gift that you can give anyone in your life, because you're a more whole and healed version of yourself, and that ripples outward. And then if you wanna help others, you can.

If you wanna just exist and enjoy life, you can. But I think that's really the task as humans is how do we find ways to hold life experiences without them taking over for us.

I love that, and it brings me back to when you were telling us about different artists or people who have made an impact to the world who are emotional people.

Think about art, music, whatever artistic thing you enjoy. What emotion does that bring to you, and what big emotion do you think they had when they were either acting or painting or writing a song, performing the song, whatever?

Yeah.

I wanna leave that with you again so that maybe when you finish this episode, if you're not ready to go onto another podcast episode, maybe go pick up that song that you really like and reflect on that because...

Or pick up on the songs that you really enjoyed as a teenager. That might bring even more emotions.

Yeah.

It's amazing to reflect on that, of realizing those people were not broken. They were using whatever art medium to express themselves, and how healthy was that?

Yeah.

And it's sharing those emotions with other people in a healthy way.

Yeah. Thank you for this. This is so needed, and like I said, it was something that resonated with me because I've lived through it, and instant connection because you have as well. So know that you can become a healthy adult.

I love that. Yep.

Or healthy in the next stage of life if you already are an adult.

This does not mean you are stuck here forever.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Well, thank you, and I will see everybody else in the next episode, and Katie May, I'm excited for your next book.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Bye.

Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope that you found the answers that you needed and you had some amazing aha moments. Please share this episode with others because it helps us align ourselves and then better align the world so that we can seek the healing that we really are looking for.

As part of the legal language, I am a certified life coach with a bachelor's in applied health. That is what I am leaning on for this. This is general advice, take it as such. See you in the next episode.