a 13 year old cutting herself...how much drama is enough drama?
PLEASE HELP.
brief but very important story. my stepdaughter-13 year old- is a very smart lovely child but there is always the "dark side" to her. now that she hit the teen years the dark side gets expressed in her writing of very good but devastating stories where everybody dies, kills, bleeds, commits suicide, its abandoned, etc, etc. she reads books about the same stuff, wants to dress in black...and you get the idea..... I fight back with great activities, colorful clothing, healthy stuff. and although it sounds contradictory she is funny, talkative, interested in stuff and curious. but the "crimson bloody shit" as I call it is part of her life.
now, I understand that most girls that age lean towards the drama and the bloody vampires and such...but the other day her dad and I were mad (very mad) at her because she was doing something on line quite inappropriate -if you catch my drift-chat rooms etc.
we did shout at her and we took the access to the internet away for the rest of the summer. the next day we find marks on her wrist, not super deep but marks, she did bleed. I talked to her, she cried and cried and told me that she got scared and that I got too mad and was scary. side note: I do get loud when mad, I know... but at the same time I felt that she wanted to pin me for what she did. as most stepmoms know we often are blamed for everything in the house, since we are involved, caring and are present...(her mom sees her a couple of hours a week, her dad -my hubby- a very good dad but works a lot and like most men are a bit "emotionally challenged" 
I explained to her how serious that was and that it is not an option to hurt ourselves when we are upset...long conversation. the whole thing was very confusing and emotional.
and today I find that she wrote many "suicidal notes" to friends and family, and of course left them in her room for me to find.
although I know that she was kind of acting up her stories and books and trying to be dramatic it REALLY scared me. I wonder what to do. im not sure what to think or what to do. please share your wisdom.
She needs a therapist now!
She needs a therapist now! That will only get worse.
I'd take her to a psych
I'd take her to a psych hospital for an assessment. Either she really does mean all this stuff and in that case a hospital is where she needs to be or it is all for attention- and she will likely dislike the hours long process of an assessment, often spent sitting and waiting, possible resulting hospitalization in which she is literally locked up and will realize this is some serious business and people are going to lock her up so she ought o cut it out.
SHE NEEDS URGENT CARE. Get
SHE NEEDS URGENT CARE. Get that child to a GP for immediate referral for mental health care. This is not "normal" teenage acting out. The adults on her life need to address this NOW, TODAY.
My now bs18 did that for a
My now bs18 did that for a little while when he was 14-15 yrs old. He was living with his dad at the time and was NOT happy. I had him in therapy when he came over to visit and though he didn't want me to tell the therapist he cut himself I did with the agreement that they wouldn't discuss it per se but at least it was known. It took my son a lot of sessions to finally start feeling safe and I won custody at that time for him and my ybs. Divorce and having other adults in their life is hard for a lot of kids. Be there as much as possible for her (a soft place for her to fall per Dr Phil) but also encourage DH to really be involved. He should set aside 15 minutes nightly to tuck her into bed and talk about the day in private. I did that with my kids starting when they were 2,4 & 6 yrs old until the divorce and then now recently started again with bs15 b/c he's starting to have issues again. My bs18 says it was the one thing that kept him grounded! I got that idea of the nightly routine from a very good child psychologist! I loved it so much b/c my own parents did the same for me and it worked for me too!
Hugs and hope this scary period passes.
My SD did the cutting thing
My SD did the cutting thing also, however hers was for attention and it was more like scratches. She used a CD case and then posted the pictures on facebook. Her excuse when she was confronted by a teacher (friends turned her in) was that she didn't know why, however she told her friend the night before that it was because her father told her she was adopted (complete bull- conversation never happened and she is not adopted) SD did get in trouble the night before for posting things she was not suppose to on the web, needless to say she did not get out of punishment from that and had to sit through a long talk with myself and DH about suicide and if this continued sending her to be assessed. Needless to say after talking to the teacher and SD, she is not a cutter and her reason was that another girl was doing it and got attention so she wanted the attention also. SD is a attention whore, some of her stories are good ones. Not to say that SD doesn't need councilling (been fighting with DH about that one for a few years) however, she is not a cutter and it was for attention.
What I am trying to say is you and your DH are the only ones who know why she is doing this and if you feel that she is at risk then have her checked out.
I should also mention that my brother uses the suicide excuse to get out of trouble and he is in his 40's. One time he tried this, he faced criminal charges and was admitted to the hospital for accessment. Our family was quite worried and he was forgiven by his wife. Needless to say the second time he tried this to get out of an even bigger lie, it did not go over well by the family and he still had to face the music.