Scars

The first time I saw the scars on her arm I was scared. Terrified.
She was sitting in a chair in a psychiatric hospital. She'd been staying with her father for several months, and he sent me a text saying she had brought a suicide note to school. They took her to the ER, and then she was transferred to the hospital.
I was on a plane the next day.

She stopped cutting for a little while. Then last week, for reasons unknown to me, she started again. Not just her arm. Her ribs and abdomen were covered. Her hips and her thighs, too. Someone mentioned she had been scratching at her leg and so I asked her if she had been cutting. She admitted it easily. When I asked her to show me, she did. I felt like I had been punched in the face. I told her I would help her find a safer way to deal with things, and asked her to please try not to cut herself.

In my research on this behavior, I've discovered some interesting things.
Self-harming isn't just cutting. It can take many forms, including but not limited to : banging your head, carving things into your skin, pulling out your hair, and biting.

Wait, I've done all of those myself! So now I'm left wondering - is this hereditary? Or contagious? Did I somehow pass this on to her without knowing? And is it sick that the turmoil I'm feeling makes me want to return to those destructive patterns myself?

But I did have an epiphany. She told her friend that she likes the way it feels, and she likes the way it looks. "It hurts, and it looks cool".
Isn't that why some people get addicted to tattoos and piercings?
I haven't figured out how, but I feel like this information can somehow help her.