Cutting myself meant I was in control; One in five youngsters have self--harmed. Here one Tyneside teenager tells her story.

Byline: LIZ LAMB

SITTING alone in the bedroom of her grandparent's house 16-year-old Katie Hamilton grabbed a pair of scissors and started slashing her arm until pools of blood appeared.

In despair, the teenager was desperate to make herself feel better after a traumatic three months.

"Things had been getting worse and worse," she explains.

"I'd never done anything like that before but I had problems with my parents. I'd left home and, to be honest, I found things really hard to deal with."

With no-one to turn to Katie found solace in slashing her arms, first with scissors then later, razor blades.

When the scars on her arms became obvious, she started to cut her stomach and legs instead and, at her worst, Katie was selfharming up to ten times a day.

"I probably shouldn't say this but I really enjoyed it," says the youngster from High Heaton, Newcastle.

"Once I started doing it regularly, I became addicted to it.

"I really enjoyed it - it was like a massive sense of control and it was nice to be able to punish myself.

"I felt like if something went wrong it was all my fault and it was nice to do something about it."

Katie felt like her life was changing for the better when she was accepted for a place at a prestigious dance school in London.

The now-20-year-old left Tyneside to start a new life in the capital but, sadly, her problems got worse instead of better.

She confides: "I took on a lot of my parents' stress and I thought problems were always my fault.

"I became comfortable being bad and feeling bad, so when I left home and did my dance training and everything was going well and it was all about me, I couldn't handle it.

"It didn't make sense to me."

Katie, who is speaking about her ordeal for the first time, eventually confided in two friends who then told teachers at her dance school.

The teenager's mum was informed and Katie took time out from the school.

She says: "I was told to get help and to try and sort myself out but at that time I was a real mess.

"I went to the doctors and they said I was perfectly fine but I wasn't at all.

"I really shouldn't have gone back to year. I beca about rea o school for the second ame really obsessed dancing, I worked ally hard and I stopped ta alking to everyone.

o "I was getting obsessive thoughts about self-harming.

"Everyone had told me I was fine and nothing was wrong, so I convinced myself I was fine.

"I didn't want anyone to know what I was doing, I could not be normal.

"I was selfharming and not sleeping and I was just completely obsessed.

"I had to be because I thought if I didn't keep going then I would crack up."

Sadly, Katie's obsessiveness took its toll and when a psychiatrist confirmed she was not well, she sunk into turmoil.

"It was the biggest shock ever,"says Katie.

"People had been telling me for so long that I was fine. I knew I wasn't but I'd spent a long time convincing myself I was and when the psychiatrist said that, I couldn't deal with it.

"I started to get strong urges to do something."

Katie was at London train station planning to return to Tyneside when she felt she could no longer cope. She downed a cocktails of drugs and was found by strangers unconscious on the floor in the middle of the station. "The next thing I knew I was in hospital," she says. "I was transferred to an adolescent unit but I turned 18 in there so they sent me to an adult ward, which was horrific and traumatic as the patients had really serious problems."

Disturbed by what she witnessed, the teenager discharged herself and returned to Tyneside but fell out with her dad and found herself homeless.

She was put in a refuge in Sunderland before eventually moving into a student house in Newcastle.

It was a turning point for Katie. She was so afraid of being sent back to hospital that she vowed to stop self-harming.

She says: "I never wanted to go back there. I had to put all my fight into stopping selfharming.

"I found it difficult and it was extremely hard as I got urges to do it.

"Eventually the urges stopped and then I stopped thinking about it."

Katie was able to talk about her problems with other sufferers on YouthNet's TheSite.org website which provides online advice and forums for a host of issues including self-harm.

"It's good because you can be anonymous, so you can go on there and talk about all your troubles without feeling ashamed or someone finding out," says Katie.

"If you have no-one else in your life that you can talk to then it's a great place to go to speak to people who are going through the same thing.

"If there is anyone else who is in the same situation, I would tell them not to be ashamed.

"Many people do it, it's a common problem and you are not alone.

"I would stress that they need to learn as much as they can about themselves and about what makes them feel like they have to selfharm."

Katie has now not self-harmed for over a year and is proud of her achievements.

She says: "Things have really improved and I am at university now.

Self-harm support online ople have self-harmed d friends are illhem with support. 16 to 24 year-olds (21%) cording to the results of ental health charity 42nd ssness charity Depaul YouthNet.

ONE in five young peo and many families and equipped to provide th More than one in five have self harmed, acc a survey by youth me Street, youth homeles UK and online charity The YouGov survey of aged 16 and over also and family of people w giving well intentioned advice, because of of the best ways Key survey findi More than h 24-year-olds su who has self-h A third (32% said that their discovering tha them was self-h ask them to stop f over 2,000 people o indicates that friends who self-harm may be d but potentially harmful f a poor understanding to provide support. ings include: half (57%) of the 16 to urveyed knew someone harmed in the past %) of 16 to 24-year-olds first reaction to at someone close to harming would be top - advice that experts say is understandable but could be counterproductive as it can place unrealistic emotional demands on the person.

Psychotherapist and TheSite.org self-harm expert and advisor, Andrea Scherzer, says: "Traditional methods of accessing health information are losing favour with a younger generation who are used to gathering information online, anonymously and instantly. "This is why it's essential that factual, accessible advice on mental health and selfharm is made available online, allowing young people affected, and those around them, to get a real understanding of the issues and the best way to provide and access support."

This year, a new online resource for young people affected by self-harm was launched in response to increasing rates of self-harm in the UK, as identified in the report of the National Inquiry into self-harm among young people 'Truth Hurts'.

What is self-harm? SELF-HARM can take many different forms. Cutting is the most common form of self-injury, but others can include: burning; scalding; stabbing; banging heads and other body parts against walls; hair-pulling; biting; breaking bones; jumping from heights or in front of vehicles and swallowing or inserting objects.

Self-poisoning is the term used for overdosing with a medicine or medicines or swallowing a poisonous substance.

If you need help or more information visit www.TheSite.org/selfharm or Childline 0800 111 111. NHS Direct: 0845 4647

CAPTION(S):

BETTER - Katie attending a ball by website YouthNet HIDDEN MISERY - doctors told Katie Hamilton she was fine SCARS - Katie Hamilton's arm after years of self-harming