DR MAX THE MIND DOCTOR: The awful truth about why it’s fashionable for teens to self harm

A terrifying epidemic is consuming young people. It’s not an infection, although it is infectious. Nor is it a disease, although it does require medical attention.

This new affliction striking down so many is self-harm.

Speak to staff members at any school or university and they will tell you that self-harming behaviours have become so commonplace that they are almost the norm.

One teacher told me how, on an almost daily basis, she has students who will routinely deliberately stab themselves with compasses or scratch their arms. There is no secrecy about it.

Speak to staff members at any school or university and they will tell you that self-harming behaviours have become so commonplace that they are almost the norm

Ministers do listen sometimes. I’m delighted to report that the Government has finally agreed to reform the NHS pension scheme.

A quirk of the system has already led to scores of senior hospital consultants and long-serving GPs quitting early to avoid sky-high tax penalties on their retirement savings. Around one in ten senior clinicians was said to be considering early retirement.

Let’s hope the proposed new scheme has been properly thought through and will stop the staff haemorrhage.

A mother related how her teenage daughter said ‘everyone’ in her class had cut, burnt or inflicted some other injury on themselves. They wear their scars like badges of honour, she said.

These anecdotal observations are backed by figures published this week that show rates of self-harm in those aged 16-24 have trebled since 2000, with the biggest spike among girls and young women. Nearly one in five females in this age group now report self-harming.

That is a staggering number and poses a significant public health issue. It has prompted mental health charities to call for a crackdown on websites and social media posts that promote or ‘glamorise’ the behaviour.

Certainly, the internet is a factor in this epidemic — but I think it’s more complicated than that.

From my experience, self-harming seems to be ‘catching’. Once one person in a group of friends or in a class starts doing it, others often follow suit. This is known as contagion — the spreading of a harmful idea or practice.

I believe that the biggest driver for many youngsters who adopt self-harming behaviour is not deep emotional distress, but the bandwagon that has developed around mental health issues. For decades, mental illness was shrouded in secrecy and shame, ignored, ridiculed or feared. Not any more.

Now, the mental health and emotional struggles of celebrities and royalty are leading a national conversation on conditions such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, low self-esteem, bipolar disorder and body dysmorphia. An unexpected consequence of this is that it’s become ‘normal’ — I’d even go so far as to say fashionable — to be diagnosed with a mental illness.

I do not mean to be flippant, but as psychiatrists we are seeing more and more people referred for mental health treatment who don’t actually have a problem. They may simply be feeling sad, upset or angry — normal reactions to the ups and downs of life. (A teenager told a colleague this week that it was ‘cool’ to have depression. No, it’s not. It’s absolutely earth-shatteringly horrible.)

For those who want to go further in gaining access to the exclusive club of the mentally ill, one surefire way of displaying emotional distress is to self-harm.

There is now a power in emotional fragility — you acquire status and special treatment. Being tortured and sad is a way of making yourself stand out.

It may sound harsh, but I think this explains the new wave of self-harmers. Not the youngsters in genuine need of help — those who have severe underlying difficulties in managing their emotions, who secretly cut in order to numb their psychological distress and hide their injuries — but those who self-harm as a theatrical act in order to attract attention.

Mental health services are becoming inundated as a result, and those who really do need help may miss out. This is a tragedy.

While we should never go back to the time when mental illness was something shameful, I think things have swung too far the other way.

Don’t put suicidal people in the dock

I’ve been horrified to read recent reports of suicidal people being arrested and prosecuted for causing a ‘public nuisance’.

The latest case to hit the headlines is particularly poignant. It involved a teenager who was grieving the death of her mother.

She went to a bridge over the M602 in Greater Manchester and threatened to throw herself off. The motorway was closed for 20 minutes while she was eventually talked down by a police officer.

A teen went to a bridge over the M602 in Greater Manchester and threatened to throw herself off. The motorway was closed for 20 minutes while she was eventually talked down by a police officer

The youngster had been battling suicidal thoughts and had made several previous attempts to take her own life. Earlier that day, she’d been seen at a hospital but was discharged.

Despite this, magistrates fined the girl £200 — which well-wishers have now paid for her after her plight became known — and warned her that she’d caused ‘massive inconvenience’ to the public.

Yes, having your journey disrupted is irritating. But attempting to kill yourself is a desperate cry for help, or a sign of utter despair.

And yet here we are humiliating victims and even punishing them.

What a callous way to treat people struggling with mental health issues. Cases like this have no place in our courts, however ‘inconvenienced’ the rest of us have been.

How to get more nurses into work

Health Secretary and Tory leadership contender Matt Hancock said this week that nurses who’ve taken time out to raise children must be actively wooed to return to the profession when their family responsibilities ease.

Health Secretary and Tory leadership contender Matt Hancock said this week that nurses who’ve taken time out to raise children must be actively wooed to return to the profession

He’s right. These highly trained professionals are a valuable resource we need to nurture. And there are encouraging signs of a more pro-active approach with advertisements on Mumsnet aimed at getting women — it’s mainly women — back into our hospitals and health centres.

But we also urgently need to address the fall in numbers of trainee nurses, a consequence of the introduction of tuition fees and then the scrapping of maintenance grants last year. This must be reversed — and quickly.

Next, we need to make it easier for nurses (and doctors) from outside the EU to work here. Their numbers have plummeted since stricter visa regulations were introduced in 2010.

Dr Max prescribes… 

manfood by nutritionist Ian Marber

Last month I was shocked to discover that despite being fairly slender and boasting a 32in waist, my body fat has crept up to nearly 25 per cent. Ugh! That means nearly a quarter of me is fat.

So I’m revamping my diet and this book — ManFood: The No-Nonsense Guide To Improving Your Health And Energy In Your 40s And Beyond — by one of Britain’s leading nutritionists is targeted at us males, particularly those approaching or well advanced into middle age. 

I like its straightforward tone and it will appeal to men like me who want to lose a few pounds and keep them off, but who don’t want to follow a formal diet.

A good obituary can cheer you up

Do you suffer from ‘Headline Anxiety’? It’s a new phenomenon triggered by the alarming or depressing breaking news ‘soundbites’ delivered to us via social media or our smartphones.

Ofcom, the government communications watchdog, reports that nearly 80 per cent of us worry about the impact this has on our mental health. We feel overwhelmed and anxious, powerless to act in a world where bad stuff seems to happen relentlessly.

I may be a mental health specialist, but I certainly recognise the symptoms in myself and the low mood that can follow a spate of news about bombings, murder and, of course, the latest developments in the Brexit saga.

But I’ve also got the perfect antidote. After ploughing through the news pages or websites to keep myself informed and up to date, I finish by turning to the obituaries (and I never miss the Mail’s Extraordinary Lives slot on Fridays).

I can guarantee that they will entertain and inspire you and leave you with a smile on your face. Despite being about dead people, they are, counter-intuitively, thoroughly life-affirming.

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