What we know is that teenagers are capable of anything—from setting Olympic records to suicide—and when they recognize the extent of their newfound potential, they are primed, biologically, to act on it. This may be why the doctor told me to wear a rubber band on my wrist and snap it whenever I felt the urge to cut. He was bargaining with my teen brain—which couldn’t be talked out of its cravings, only talked into alternative methods of relief.
