Self-Harm is this year's black
There is an organisation in Blandmore called Brite Eyes*. It consists of a block of forty brand new bedsit-sized flats, 24/7 warden, secure gated entrance and off-road parking, and is only open to 16-24-year-olds. 90% of the occupants are just 16 or 17. Their rooms are cleaned and furnished for them, and there is a communal area offering free refreshments, so most of the kids at Brite Eyes have little to do with their day. Suffice it to say, we are called there several times a month.
I once went there to arrest a couple of teenaged robbers. I disturbed their sleep at 11am to discover 5 fellow robbers bunked down on their floor. As I cuffed 17yr old Jay, I noticed a fresh wound to his right forearm.
"What happened, Jay?"
"I cut myself, innit."
Inwardly, I'm thinking Cell Watch. Outwardly, I finish cuffing him and search his flat. Two of the five guests on Jay's floor have bandaged forearms. As I reach the window, I see an ambulance pulling up outside and a teenaged girl being led out to it with white gauze pressed to both wrists.
"That's Selica," Jay tells me, "She's trying to get admitted to Brook Hospice cos her friend Kylie got put in there last month and it's well safe." **
A small crowd of sobbing blond girls follows Selica to the ambulance. Another looks on enviously from the sidelines, scratching frantically at her own forearms with bitten nails.
I turn around, and robber number two, Patrick, has taken a knife out of the kitchen drawer and is carving little slivers in a neat line down the outside of one arm. He makes a disappointed whine as my crew-mate takes the knife away and handcuffs him.
For some, self-harm is a serious business.
Not for the kids in Brite Eyes. For them, self-harm is just the latest fashion.
I once went there to arrest a couple of teenaged robbers. I disturbed their sleep at 11am to discover 5 fellow robbers bunked down on their floor. As I cuffed 17yr old Jay, I noticed a fresh wound to his right forearm.
"What happened, Jay?"
"I cut myself, innit."
Inwardly, I'm thinking Cell Watch. Outwardly, I finish cuffing him and search his flat. Two of the five guests on Jay's floor have bandaged forearms. As I reach the window, I see an ambulance pulling up outside and a teenaged girl being led out to it with white gauze pressed to both wrists.
"That's Selica," Jay tells me, "She's trying to get admitted to Brook Hospice cos her friend Kylie got put in there last month and it's well safe." **
A small crowd of sobbing blond girls follows Selica to the ambulance. Another looks on enviously from the sidelines, scratching frantically at her own forearms with bitten nails.
I turn around, and robber number two, Patrick, has taken a knife out of the kitchen drawer and is carving little slivers in a neat line down the outside of one arm. He makes a disappointed whine as my crew-mate takes the knife away and handcuffs him.
For some, self-harm is a serious business.
Not for the kids in Brite Eyes. For them, self-harm is just the latest fashion.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in all good bookstores and online.
* OK, it's not called Brite Eyes. But the real name is just as sickening and inappropriate.
** For those of you who don't work in the public sector, 'safe' is vernacular for 'sweet', 'bad' and 'waxa', which all mean the same thing. But you knew that anyway.
* OK, it's not called Brite Eyes. But the real name is just as sickening and inappropriate.
** For those of you who don't work in the public sector, 'safe' is vernacular for 'sweet', 'bad' and 'waxa', which all mean the same thing. But you knew that anyway.
posted by PC Bloggs at 12:11
46 Comments:
I'm sure custody sergeants all over the UK are relishing the thought of that fad taking hold, as if nspis and cjsss aren't time consuming enough as it is!
17 March, 2008 17:04
Let them carry on hopefully one or two of them will ermmm slip with said knife and cut to far, that may stop a few of them
17 March, 2008 17:23
The old cell (suicide) watch eh? Bet you're looking forward to that Ms Bloggs!
Hours on end staring at a young scrote who has nothing better to do than ask you if you've ever had to kill anyone or beat anyone up...
17 March, 2008 17:27
There's a girl on my beat who tries (always unsuccessfully so far) to cut her wrists every time she sees me. Only me, no one else seems to have that effect. I'm begining to get a complex about it!!
17 March, 2008 17:46
Have you seen Winehouse in the Daily Mail today. Seems she's caught it too.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles
/showbiz
/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=537189&in_
page_id=1773
17 March, 2008 18:46
Didn't the post about CC Todd and PC Hardwicke mention the latter's awful suicide? The ultimate in self-harm? Don't mock self-harming, especially when I don't see any of you having any particular expertise in psychiatry. Self-harm can often be a way in which distressed people gain relief from that distress. Self-harming behaviour needs careful assessment and diagnosis and can be escalatory. That means today's scratcher is tomorrow's death in custody. Do be careful.
17 March, 2008 20:32
Drugsblogger, who's mocking it? The kids that do this as a form of attention-seeking or teenaged bonding don't have much respect for it themselves.
17 March, 2008 20:36
When the drug damaged kids do it they believe they are getting rid of the voices in their heads that are taunting and torturing them that they cannot shut up.
17 March, 2008 21:33
And should said selfish pain junkie manage to top themselves within 48 hours of release, its a big hello to the boys and girls of the IPCC
http://nightjack.wordpress.com/
17 March, 2008 22:11
I wish they'd do some carving a bit higher up. Perhaps in the area of the jugular vein!
Hey, have any of you seen The Bank Job yet?
17 March, 2008 22:20
experts in psychiatry? no, but we're considerably more experienced in dealing with people with mental health problems than pretty much anyone outside the NHS (and for that matter a great many within the NHS who have had the input and training but never actually laid 'hands on') considering we're the ones who get called to deal with them all the time.
Genuine self harm is a sign of mental health/anguish or depression most evidently in teenagers and is certainly a symptom that needs help. I personally have some considerable experience with a family member who self harmed when she was a teenager it it was a nightmare for everyone when she was going through it.
Cutting yourself up to get a place in a hostel, or a nicer ward or so that you can have your own personal copper sitting outside your cell to talk too/abuse is about as sympathy worthy as someone who threatens suicide every time they get drunk, but never actually having the bottle to go through with it.
Its not a cry for help, its more like crying wolf and its a f&cking nuisance and makes it harder for those people who need it to actually get help, as it's wasted on losers who can't be arsed to sort their lives out and they see it as a way of getting what they want faster.
17 March, 2008 22:30
MCM obviously didn't read the bit about releasing voices in the head as there are genuinely sick people who self harm.
18 March, 2008 09:21
This comment has been removed by the author.
18 March, 2008 10:22
thing is Drugsblogger,all this is hardly a police matter is it?It annoys me no end that we are always left to pick up the pieces of any mental health/drugs issues-we are nto trained to do this and I want to be out dealing with criminals,not dealing with mental health issues/lack of care for juveniles or teenagers,of course they cross over but dont knock police when you are on the other side of things!
Thoughts running through my head (cant log in for some reason!!)
18 March, 2008 11:45
Agree with drugsblogger. Pretty appalled that PC Bloggs could write this unsympathetic tripe.
Self-harm is *never* "just the latest fad". Just because *you* don't think someone is serious, doesn't mean it isn't; it is a sign of genuine distress.
The comments hoping they will "slip" are repellent.
18 March, 2008 12:02
'Safe' was also the name of a BBC drama about the homeless. It contained a lot of self-harm too.
It ended after a leading character accidentally self-harmed his carotid artery.
In the comments above, I notice some have heartlessly suggested an ending like this as well.
Just struck me as ironic, that's all.
18 March, 2008 12:17
Sorry, forgot to add: it is at least fluently-written unsympathetic tripe.
Bloggs seems a bit too well-educated to remain a PC for long. Didn't graduate entrants used to be called Fliers?
But I don't know what helps someone to rise in the modern service.
18 March, 2008 12:39
Don't wind me up about how much more of taxpayers money is squandered by "guardian reading" liberals on those too mazy to wipe their own *rses.
Free flats, food etc etc...
And th'awd dears are workers are being taxed to death.
Nu Labours Britain makes it more financially rewarding to do nothing and throw yourselves on the mercy of the state.
18 March, 2008 13:54
Blame it all on the politicians but its no good trying to vote them out as the only alternatives are other equally bad politicians, so a no vote is now as equally valid as a vote for which ever deceitfull lying scum you may choose to vote for.
18 March, 2008 15:45
dave h - She's a graduate?
Maybe some second rate sociology degreee from some third-rate Poly (sorry - New University).
Should shine where she is then.
18 March, 2008 16:29
I couldn't agree more - with the Grauniad bashers, that is. Most of us felt depressed or just down at some time in our youth - I certainly did. But the need to make a living always ensured that I got on with things and sorted out my problems.
If I'd been paid to sit around on my butt all day and ponder the meaning of life, I too would probably have ended up slitting my wrists, or at least harming myself just to get attention.
Tell these berks to find work, and take away their dole money. I don't see why anybody under 21 years should be given dole anyway. If you've no work, go and scrounge off your mum and dad, like the rest of us did. They'll look after you ten times better than a bunch of hand-wringing liberal-nihilist Grauniad readers!
18 March, 2008 18:03
I'm now a police officer and a lurker on Bloggsy's blog, but when I was a teenager, I self harmed for four years and i have scars all over my body. I was very ill. For some teenagers, self-harm is a serious symptom of depression.
Now it's a few years later, obviously. I got better with help from lots of people, but the issue is, I suppose, still sensitive. However, I agree with Bloggs for the most part. It sounds like those kids are doing it for manipulative reasons. For some people, self-harm can be attention seeking (as in a cry for help), but for those kids it just seems like they have seen someone genuinely suffering and noticed how that person was being treated slightly differently, so decided they would try it for themselves to see what would happen. That's a shame, because the kids who really need help might get overlooked because their friends are so selfish.
When I was in hospital for anorexia at the same time lots of the people there self harmed. Except most of them tried to keep it a secret like me, and none of them would EVER cut in front of anyone. That is just manipulative.
By the way, for the posters who link s/h to people topping themselves, other than the fact that it means we have to go on suicide watch, s/h doesn't necessarily have anything to do with suicide. It might just be someone's way of crying.
18 March, 2008 18:12
Why do you assume her degree is a "second-rate" one from a "third-rate" institution?
That's ridiculous. Maybe she's not money driven and conceited, but really wanted to be a police officer, despite the fact that her degree could get her into many better paid jobs?
18 March, 2008 18:22
Well, Glove Puppet -
-something numerate?, something that requires actual reasoning ability? (rather than mere scholarship and the ability to regurgitate pre-digested pap)
That is, a proper degree.
A lower-echelon Plod?
The sort of question that kind of answers itself, don't you think?
18 March, 2008 18:35
You only get called there "several times a month"?
In Ruraltown it's the local YMCA and we virtually have an office in there!
I thought about issuing the Warden with an old PR Radio set on our frequency a few years ago so he could call us direct and cut out the 999 operator middle man!
They didn't go for it because they thought it would get nicked.
18 March, 2008 19:10
I was hoping to spread the word about the incredibly inspirational story of Mike Kralicek. He was shot LOD, became a paraplegic, and is now a motivational speaker. I was hoping to share his story with as many brothers in blue as possible.
Here's the video:
http://www.policeone.com/policeonetv/clip/1670391/
18 March, 2008 19:16
Exactly what anon 18th 18:03 said... for some people s/h is another form of crying but these idiots in this post are just being munipulative tw@ts!
18 March, 2008 19:32
Ah, Anon 19:32
Or our old friend, "PC Plagiarism" ,old MetCountyMounty himself.
Nice to see you expressing yourself in your usual fashion again now.
Self harmers are "..manipulative tw@ts.." you say. Do you have any evidence to back you up on this?
Maybe they really are calling out desperately for help.
(What does Peter Hitchins say about it?)
18 March, 2008 19:49
it's anon 18:12:
In my experience, from myself and the people I knew, the self-harmers who actually wanted people to know let people see their cuts, but did not let anyone see them actually cutting. Generally the people who would let people see their cuts let a few select people see them, rather than all of their friends.
That's why these people seem manipulative. Then again, I guess everyone is different...
18 March, 2008 20:31
They all sound a bunch of effing lunatics to me!
18 March, 2008 21:25
anon 19:49,
No no no! I didn't mean that at all, I meant the fact that these people are s/h in front of police officers and where everyone can see them is quite 'attention seeking', I understand that some people do genuinely (sp?) need help and I would do anything to try and help them, but in my experience (and I was a s/h myself) they generally try to cover their scars and cuts up- at any length. I used to wear jumpers in the summer and cover up my arms at any cost, to me the people pc bloggs describes do not sound genuinely in trouble, to me they sound manipulative. I might be (and probably am) wrong, but that is just how I see it, given the description.
Sorry if I offended you
=]
Oh and btw I’m not MetCountyMonty or whoever you thought I was! Sorry!
19 March, 2008 15:38
I used to work in a prison and have seen loads of self harm. Most of it just for attention and sympathy, and they draw attention away from those who need it.
I have only ever felt sympathy for a few, the truly damaged ones. They are usualy the ones who do it in private and it's not always obvious. Most just want to go to healthcare for a easy life.
The ones that really piss me off are the sex offenders who try to paint themselves as the victims.
As for the copycat suicides in south Wales, most of them were friends of some of my old inmates and ex-inmates themselves. Good ridence! It's not like they were productive members of society, or died fighting for their country.
There are boys their age in Iraq losing their lives, and their mates are just told to get on with it.
19 March, 2008 17:34
I'm wondering if someone tried to calling me a Glove Puppet in a reply at 18:35.
If that's the case, it's confusing for me because I don't have a clue what it means, except perhaps as a term of endearment. If that's correct, thank you; I'm always grateful for spontaneous gestures of affection.
I think I know what a sock puppet is, and that would make more sense. But anonymous wasn't me anyway.
19 March, 2008 17:38
Anon 18:35
Without wanting to get sidetracked by your trolling, you do seem to have quite a hang-up on education. I am not clear how you define a "proper degree" as one that doesn't involve "mere scholarship" but I guess that is up to you.
Perhaps if I sent you one of my degrees it might cheer you up. It would certainly be the only way someone so small minded is likely to achieve a postgraduate qualification :-)
Oh, I am also a "lower echelon plod" - you know - the people that are first at the scene of your emergency. What was your job again?
19 March, 2008 17:53
... and you so very artfully decline to mention exactly what your qulification is in.
Women's Studies, Equine Studies, Theatre Choreography..... ?
19 March, 2008 18:32
A person can be in serious need of psychological help, AND a manipulative, obnoxious little cutter, all at the same time. The fact that they need help doesn't negate the fact that they're intentionally being emotionally manipulative of those around them, and vice versa.
19 March, 2008 20:29
Anon 18.32
Ha ha ha! Cutting comments indeed!
When you have need of a further degree just let me know, until then - what was it you do for a living?
I presume that trolling police blogs does not constitute your only employment?
19 March, 2008 23:26
I've got a degree in MEDIA STUDIES! Yep. Three years of watching films, taking pretty photographs and writting long and involved essays about adverts on the telly.
AND now I'm a frontline PC.
Is your blood boiling yet anon?
19 March, 2008 23:59
Weedly PC -my blood boiling? .. to the contrary, I truly am delighted.
You have re-affirmed my conviction that useless Micky Mouse degrees are being issued to stupid people to take them off the dole queue figues.
The DoE has really now become an adjunct to the department of unemployment.
Why not study Physics or Maths or some such? Too " boring" I suppose (i.e. completely and utterly beyond you)
You "studied" labouriously and hard to for years to get a piece of paper, which I have no doubt your mother dutifully pinned to the fridge door.
You thought that your degree would be a ticket to a good job .... and instead you ended up in the only place with standards low enough to accept you.
No?
Anon 18:32 - My employment is such that it truly would astound you. I would explain what I do but to be honest it would most likely be beyond your rudimentary powers of comprehension - even if you were capable of being able of the hard study for years that would be required just to understand the maths.
Ha!
Watching you Plod bragging about sociology "degrees" and trying to be "clever" is like wartching a dog trying to play the trombone.
Carry banging on about diversity and thought crimes and suing each other for sexual harrassment eh?
20 March, 2008 04:57
"Anon 18:32 - My employment is such that it truly would astound you. I would explain what I do but to be honest it would most likely be beyond your rudimentary powers of comprehension..."
Oh, wow! With that hightened sense of your own (totally undeserved) importance and your condescending attitude and inability to take in anything that's been said to you - got to be a doctor!
20 March, 2008 12:51
Like shooting fish in a barrel, it really is. You aren't a very good troll anon.
Re. the self harm issue:
In my opinion anyone who self harms is troubled. There are those who keep it under wraps because it's their only coping mechanism and they're ashamed of needing to do it. Self harm is often linked to sexual abuse.
There are also those who are crying for attention and appear to be faking, but it's such a dramatic cry for help that it can't be ignored, hence the cell watches and the questions everyone admitted to custody has to answer about whether they've done it or not.
As a copper it's frustrating. We're not in any way trained to deal with it and only people who have some experience personally understand it.
20 March, 2008 16:54
Anon 18:32 - My employment is such that it truly would astound you. I would explain what I do but to be honest it would most likely be beyond your rudimentary powers of comprehension - even if you were capable of being able of the hard study for years that would be required just to understand the maths.
I have to agree with you - I would be astounded. Most well-educated people of my acquaintance tend not to have such overblown ideas of their own self-importance or such patronising, bigoted and stereotypical views of other people.
I am afraid I may have to withdraw my offer of sending you one of my degrees as I fear that you though you might understand the maths, the basic science and the objective reasoning required would undoubtedly be beyond you.
Instead perhaps one of my outdoor qualifications in a practical skill might be more useful to you. It may balance out the clear bias you have towards achievement measured solely on an academic level.
Please let me know if you want one of those :-)
20 March, 2008 17:04
"My employment is such that it truly would astound you. I would explain what I do but to be honest it would most likely be beyond your rudimentary powers of comprehension"
You must be a university professor, surely.
I'm pretty sure that if you spent a shift out on the beat with us, THAT would truly astound YOU.
20 March, 2008 19:27
PC Bloggs wrote: 'Inwardly, I'm thinking Cell Watch. Outwardly, I finish cuffing him ...'
For a fleeting moment Gruff thought he had read 'Inwardly, I'm thinking Cell Watch. Outwardly, I finish cutting him ...' and was disappointed to find that he needs new spectacles.
23 March, 2008 01:58
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15 April, 2009 10:17
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