Cut

After therapy Tiffany goes to Anger Management class; Tara goes to Relaxation Therapy, and the others go to the infirmary to either make sure they aren't taking drugs, or to make sure they are taking vitamins and food supplements.

Callie also says nothing at individual therapy sessions and says nothing to her family when they visit, even when her mother tells her that the insurance company won't pay for her stay there since her injuries are self-inflicted.

Then, one day, a new girl joins the group and she is also a cutter. The girl uses the argument that it's her body, so it's her right to cut herself if she wants to. It ends up that everyone finds out that Callie is also a cutter.

Matters worsen quickly for Callie. Her mother tells her on the phone that the mental hospital might send her back home since she's resisting treatment, and the school refuses to let her back in unless she receives treatment. She returns to her room and removes a hidden aluminum pie plate and cuts herself, but this time it doesn't bring the release it normally does. She has someone bandage the cut and turns the aluminum pie pieces over to a worker, thus reaching a turning point in her recovery.

Callie says that the school found out about her cutting when she was sent to the nurses office and a substitute nurse checked her out. In doing so, she saw the cuts that Callie had made then informed her mother. Callie tells her therapist that she really does want to stop cutting.

Later in an individual therapy session Callie says that she feels everything that goes wrong with her family is her fault along with other things. She also says that she feels as if she is a bad person.

A number of events are covered and then Callie runs away from Sea Pines (which she and the other "guests" call Sick Minds). She calls her father and he picks her up and she returns to Sea Pines, knowing that she want to get better.

This book reminded me in a lot of ways of Girl, Interrupted. A different reason for being there (cutting vs. attempted suicide), but a lot of the same kinds of things going on with the people. I thought Girl, Interrupted was a good book and I also think this one is good.

The idea of cutting (or other forms of self-inflicted violence like wrist-banging, hitting, etc) is something that most people cannot even begin to understand. Yet how many are aware that Princess Diana, one of the most beloved people in England, was a cutter? In one interview she said:

"You have so much pain inside yourself that you try and hurt youself on the outside because you want help."

Approximately 2 million Americans are involved in Self-Inflicted Violence, which can include cutting, hitting, wrist-banging, burning, etc. That is 30 times the rate of suicide attempts. See my review of A Bright Red Scream for more details.

This novel ends with hope, which is good. For many people they seems to be no sign of hope in their lives, no hope that things will ever change or get better. I'm not talking necessarily here about the terminally ill, imprisoned, drug-users or the like. I'm talking about "ordinary" people who feel so much emotional pain for some reason (rejection, parental abandonment, real or perceived prejudice, etc), that SIV becomes their only way to deal with the intense, on-going emotional pain that they feel.

As in shown in the novel, SIV can be a desperate cry for help. The person himself or herself may, for some reason or another, feel that they cannot actually tell someone about their problems. They might feel that the other person won't listen; the person might brand them as "crazy," the person might become angry at them; for whatever the reason, seeking help verbally becomes something that no longer seems to be a viable option.

Thus, the person turns to cutting, hitting, etc. I'm not saying that in all cases it's a cry for help, especially on a conscious level. The person might be practicing SIV as a form of punishing themselves for some reason. It might be that the person does that in order to try and maintain some control over their emotions, afraid that if that control slips they will "fall apart" totally.

This also involves an intense loneliness. One saying from a science-fiction TV show I heard once went something like this: what's worse than being alone in an empty room? Being alone in a room filled with people.

The person practicing SIV may feel as if they have absolutely no one they can turn to at all. They might also be afraid of turning to the ones who are "supposed" to deal with such problems, people such as teachers and administrators, parents, friends, ministers and related individuals. The person can feel that such people not only would not understand why they are doing SIV but they might even "betray" them and tell their parents (which could lead to even more problems for young people), their spouses (such things do happen to older people on occasion; the young don't have a total monopoly on emotional pain), or brand them "crazy" and have them locked up somewhere against their will.

The book also shows one horrible problem in our society relating to the treatment of such "illnesses", and that is the people who need help and who are willing to receive help might very well not be able to get any because of the high cost of treatment and the failure of insurance companies to want to pay for that treatment.

So many people who practice SIV are unable to get the help that they need, either because they don't want the help (at least consciously), or they (or their parents) cannot afford the high cost of getting that help.

Yet what is the cost to our society of not providing that help? The person continues to suffer emotionally. Their "problem" could end up having an effect on others. The person might never really be able to take their "proper" place in society and become a "productive" worker. But it's not just an economic loss that society suffers by not providing people with proper treatment.

It's a moral failure on a terrible scale. What is the purpose of our existence? If there is some diety that is responsible for our being here, then there is some reason for our people here. Various spiritual systems come up with various (and often competing and opposing) reasons, but in my mind it boils down to three words.

To help others.

That is our purpose for being in existence. I'm also not talking about making massive financial contributions to charities. I'm talking about everyday kindnesses and considerations that anyone can practice. Even a smile to a person at the right time might help that person make it through their day in a much better manner than they would have otherwise.

And by not providing affordable care to those who need it our society commits perhaps the worst of all sins; failure to help others. Emotional pain can be very, very real and just as bad as physical pain; in some cases, even worse since the person having the emotional pain may see no end in sight for their pain ever, no matter how long they live. If we (or Society, in general) knows that there are people suffering terrible emotional pain then it is the moral duty of that society to find some way to provide those people with the help that they need so that the concerns in the book Cut, that people might have to leave the treatment facility they desperately need since their insurance won't cover it, will not continue to happen.

Cutting, SIV in all its forms, can be an incredibly lonely, hopeless and emotionally painful way of living, but if a person is willing to put their hand out for help then there should be a hand there to hold theirs and not slap it away since they aren't rich enough to receive that help.

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