Cher feels pain girl....

Read this testimonial on one of my ex-students' Friendster: "WHY U GO CUT YOURSELF BECAUSE OF ONE GUY? ASK YOURSELF LARH WORTH IT MAHH? NOT WORTH IT LORH HE'S NOT WORTH YOUR TEARS YOUR PAIN!!! ): "

Of all the words that are written in Caps, the word CUT sprung out (yes, literally "sprung"). Things I used to see in drama and reality TV are happening to my kids! I wonder if they learnt from these shows, or they are also able to "无师自通" when it comes to alleviating the pain in their hearts.

Kids have all sorts of problems. Some are big, some are small. Yet, the fact is any problem usually seems BIG in our eyes, so long as it's OUR own problem. Isn't it? Young teens going through puberty probably aren't that "philosophical" enough to see things from different perspectives (Well, this may be an over-generalisation, but still..), and it hurts me seeing them suffering in silence most of the time.

So when one girl decided to cut herself (in what manner i don't know), you can probably imagine my feeling. Yup, the word CUT felt like a razor, and left a deep scratch on my heart.

Whether as a teacher, a senior, a big brother or just a friend, I believe in sharing others' happiness and troubles. I've been through ups and downs too, and without my friends, I would probably have cut myself in May 2005 as well. Seldom mentioned this incident, but I just held a rusted penknife to my wrist as I sent an SMS to my Chinese friends and said, "how great if everything just ended". It was subconscious, and all of a sudden I've come to understand what suicide is all about.

Yet, for my kids, they were not trying to escape, just trying to find ways to come to terms with things. Some choose BGR as a way out of family problems and poor results, and end up hurting themselves more. When you have a group of people all with hearts either scratched, hurt, torn or broken, sometimes encouragement becomes a burden too.

The girl we're talking about - well, her friends criticized her for crying. Would you say the latter were not concerned? Definitely not. It's just the way they expressed themselves.

Sometimes, looking at these kids makes me ashamed. What are we adults doing to make them go through all these? Do they deserve these at all? While adults don't care much, they're finding thousand and one ways to deal with all the pressure, and move on with life...

To me, these kids are angels landed by accident into hell.

Over here in Shanghai, though all of us have Internet, nothing beats being by their side, listening to them relate their stories, and at least giving a pat on the back when I have no concrete solutions to suggest.

All I can do now is hope that they understand that their "Cher" here feels their pain, coupled with remorse for not doing enough.

"For those fighting their way out of the tunnel, it is important they know that adults have not given up on them. They do not need the support of many adults. Just one."