Hi Chris,

Thank you so much for sharing your story.  What an incredibly hard situation for you.  Unfortunately, as you probably know, you (and your daughter) are not alone.  Cutting is a coping mechanism that far too many young people (girls AND boys) are using to try to ease pain in their lives.  This is especially true for children like yours who have experienced sexual abuse and / or a traumatic relationship with a parent.  

Of course you're right that it's really important for your daughter to receive help from a professional therapist.  As you continue to work with her mom on this, we have some articles on the website that may help you understand what your daughter is doing.  Here are a couple:

http://www.education.com/magazine/article/cutting/
http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Self_Mutilation/

Also, what you're doing about asking her to wake you if she feels like cutting is a great idea.  Many therapists use this technique and actually make it more formal by creating a written "Contract" that the cutter and therapist both sign.  Maybe you could try a contract with your daughter.  On the contract you can help her create a list of five or ten things she could try to do instead of cutting (this list should include waking you up to talk but it could also include other things that sometimes help cutters avoid cutting like:   holding an ice cube in her fist until it melts, writing a poem about how she feels right then, taking deep breaths, taking a hot shower or bath, punching her pillow, drawing lines on herself with a red marker, writing a letter to her mom or her mom's boyfriend, writting in a journal, snapping a rubber band that she wears around her wrist, etc).  On the contract you should ask her to agree to try at least three of these before she cuts.  You should agree to love her unconditionally, to continue to support her, not to punish her if she does cut, etc.  Then you should both sign it and talk about it often.  If she breaks the contract, talk about what happened and create a new one.  If she doesn't break it, let her know every day how proud you are of her.

I think it's wonderful that she has an open relationship with you and is willing to talk to you about her pain and what she's doing to manage it.   Many children don't share those things with their parents so it says a lot about you that yours does.  That's something for you to be really proud of.

Thanks again for sharing.  I look foward to seeing what other parents in our community have to say.  Please let us know how your daughter is doing.

Kat
Education.com Community Team