GLK, I think this is probably not the kind of problem which can be solved over a long weekend or anything, and we have even more evidence that she is doing some experimenting (?? at least that is what we hope that it is) with other maladaptive coping.
Her crowd runs into variety as well-- the geek/nerd kids (she basically has close friendships with the top 0.5% of yesterday's graduating high school class), the gamer/emo crowd, and the social rejects, I guess I'd call them. That latter descriptor, by the way, is lovingly intended, as I hung with that group a lot of my high school career, too.
Anyway-- perfectionism + abuse + emo culture...
toxic cocktail, pretty much. Her girlfriend apparently has reported "cutting" behavior to her mom, which she then reported to ME. I thanked her, and I wasn't terribly surprised, but I've not seen evidence that it is a significant issue, more of a sporadic/exploratory thing, if that makes sense.
So I've opened a non-confrontational dialogue with her about it, using proxy constructs in order to keep her from HIDING the behavior (which we obviously do not want).
Keeping her busy definitely seems to help.
I still can't quite figure out how it all fits together, though-- how much is genuinely endogenous versus how much is a response to external forces.
Being 14 really is awful, isn't it? I had repressed it, or maybe just hoped that my memories of this point were warped.
