Those who cut themselves - many as young as 10 - are often dismissed as attention-seekers. But their distress is real, and their numbers are increasing, reports Kate Hilpern
© UnknownWith celebrities such as Demi Lovato, the US singer, increasingly making public that they self-harmed, it's a concept that is much more likely to be on a young person's radar
Chloe was just 12 when she started self-harming. "I was very quiet and an easy target for bullies. My brother was unwell, so I didn't want to bother my parents, and I had very few friends. One day in class, I dug my nails into my arm to stop me crying, and I was surprised by how much the physical pain distracted me from the emotional pain. Before long, I was regularly scratching myself, deeper each time."
The following year, on another particularly bad day, Chloe came home to find a knife on the kitchen side. "It felt almost instinctive to cut myself and afterwards, I felt so much better. By the time I was 15, I was using scissors or blades several times a day and never left home without something sharp."
Chloe hid her scars, but one day a friend saw her diary. This led to Chloe's mum, Jo, finding out. "It was a big shock," says Jo. "Chloe, who is now 17, has always been a very sensible, studious young lady. I didn't even know she was unhappy. Making matters worse was the fact that I got such bad advice. I was told not to discuss anything with Chloe, just to march her into treatment. It didn't work."
Last week, official statistics revealed an alarming rise in children who self-harm.
These figures show that in the past year, NHS hospitals treated more than 18,000 girls and 4,600 boys between 10 and 19 after they had deliberately harmed themselves - a rise of 11 per cent. During the same period, cases involving children between 10 and 14 rose from 4,008 to 5,192 - a rise of 30 per cent.
According to Sarah Brennan, chief executive of YoungMinds, "An equally striking finding, which reflects Jo's experience, was the lack of confidence among parents and professionals about how to deal with it."
So what's going on? Why are so many young people - children, for goodness sake - self-harming? And where did the phenomenon, one that many people hadn't even heard of until recently, come from anyway?
Rachel Welch, project manager at selfharm.co.uk, isn't convinced self-harming is on the rise. It's just we are more aware of it, says the 35-year-old. Indeed, even the Bible includes stories about self-harming and the World Health Organisation has long recognised it as a problem, not just in the West but in developing countries.
Comment: That's cop-speak for "We're letting this one fly."
There's no such thing as an "off-duty undercover police officer." These state agents often go undercover for years, even decades, at a time.
The officer's superiors protesteth far too much about "canning" their man, while completely contradicting themselves by not having any of this biker gang prosecuted.
Take a look at the original video of this car-chase. It's pretty obvious that Cruz's account of what happened is very unlikely. The biker gang was chasing the victim's car; once they had it surrounded, Cruz slammed on his breaks hard, forcing the victim to 'bump into' his motorcycle, at which point the gang gained 'just cause' to chase him all the way downtown, then beat him to pulp in front of his wife and daughter.
In Amerika, criminals walk free because they work for the Federal Government, while innocent people are tased to death because "they looked at me funny."