Adolescent Treatment For Girls

I was thinking today about how when I was younger, I was obsessed with reading the stories of struggling girls in the back of Seventeen magazine, or through the messed-up-teens-help-books my mom got. I didn’t read them to identify; I read them for inspiration. I remember a particular article about a teenage anorexic that made me feel especially competitive. “That girl got down to 80 pounds? I’m only at 89? I have to get skinnier!” I learned new tricks and techniques, and each article or book I read pushed me closer to my disorders- not to recovery. From those articles, I felt like my self injury, eating disorder and drug use were all somehow validated. I had it in my head that the girls in the articles had gotten bad enough to deserve attention and to deserve help. When I had begun to feel like I could no longer carry on doing what I was doing, I resisted asking for help because I wasn’t as bad as the kids in the articles. I didn’t weigh 80 pounds, I weighed 89. I hadn’t gotten stitches, but I couldn’t stop cutting myself. I wasn’t a teenage runaway on heroin and crack, but my drug problem was getting me into trouble at school. I felt like in order to get help, I needed to be worse off.
Fortunately, the people around me thought that I was deserving of help and recovery. At Visions Adolescent Treatment Center, I was able to receive help for all aspects of my disordered thinking. I worked on the core issues that had blossomed into my self injury, eating disorder, and drug abuse. I met other teens like me, and learned not to compare myself to anyone. The most important thing I think I learned there was that everyone’s story is different, and that it doesn’t matter how bad it got for me. The only thing that matters is a desire to get better. Everyone is deserving of a chance at recovery, and I’m so glad I took mine. Click here for adolescent treatment for girls.

Tips for Parents with Troubled Teens

Many teens exhibit rebellious behavior, or even occasionally make bad choices, but some engage in destructive behaviors that have seriously negative effects on their lives, their families, and their futures. Working with a troubled teen can be a very discouraging experience as a parent; the closer you try to get the more they pull away. Troubled teens may struggle with drug abuse, alcohol abuse, poor academics, behavioral problems, self injury, or adolescent and eating disordered behavior. It may feel like you are watching your teen self destruct without any way of stopping the nightmare. Fortunately, you don’t have to deal with it alone.

The most important solution is to seek professional help for your child. An intensive, therapeutic environment helps teens to restructure their lives, giving them new tools to deal with old behaviors. Professionals help guide teens through the breakthroughs necessary to help them craft a new healthy life for themselves. Equine therapy, art therapy, and specialized education programs provide gentle avenues to change. Individual counseling and group therapy in teen drug treatment addresses the root causes of self destructive behaviors head-on, and establishes a path to sobriety and healthy living. Family therapy and counseling can help to reestablish deteriorated lines of communication, helping families learn how to recover themselves, and to how to be as helpful as they can be to their changing teen. Sometimes teens need more help than parents alone can give them.

Visions adolescent drug treatment Center located outside of Scottsdale can be that extra help. Some parents feel like they are helpless in helping their teen. We are here to help. Contact us today for a consultation for your troubled teen. You and your teen are not alone.

Self-injury and self-mutilation is an Addiction

Self-injury

Many of us don’t think of self-mutilation as an addiction. We think of drugs, alcohol, gambling and even sex as addictions, but rarely do we classify cutting, burning or other self-harm acts as an addiction. Many people turn to self-mutilation as a consequence of simply inadequate coping skills, the same reason that many turn to drugs. Nearly 2 million people identify themselves as “self-injurers” in the United States alone. Self-injury is defined as a deliberate injury to one’s body that causes tissue damage or marks on the skin as a way to deal with overwhelming feelings or situations. Self-harm is usually not done with the intention of suicide, yet in some cases death does occur. There are many different ways in which people self-harm, they include: cutting, branding, picking at skin or wounds, hair pulling, hitting, excessive piercing or tattooing and even drinking harmful chemicals. At first people usually stumble upon self-harm due to hearing about it and think that it may help them cope with unbearable feelings that they don’t know how to other wise express. People will continue to self-harm if it proves as a successful way of relieving uncomfortable emotions. Endorphins, which are the “feel-good” chemicals in your brain are released during self-harm and are natural pain killers. People recognize the relief self-harm grants them as well as the feeling that they get from the release of endorphins and thus the behavior turns into an addiction. Once the behavior passes into that of an addiction, even though the person may be feeling shame or remorse they find it increasingly difficult to stop.

People who self-harm exhibit some similar traits. Having a limited social support system may contribute as well as growing up in a family where expressions of emotions are discouraged. Many self-injurers usually are also dealing with substance abuse issues, eating disorders, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. There are many ways that a loved one can contribute to getting someone help. Some examples of ways that a loved one can help a self-injurer include: encourage expressions of emotions, offering a listening empathetic ear, offering to share enjoyable activities and offering support in the way of a therapist of professional. It is also very important to shy away from judgment or shame as it may trigger the self-injurer to want to harm themselves more due to low self-esteem and a feeling of worthlessness.