cutting... what you think about it

[Hel Daughter of Loki]

I grew up in a very... broken home. My father was an alchoholic and he beat my mother and I daily. He liked to hit me with... with his belt, broken bottles, and even loved to stomp on me with, these big black boots that had spikes on the botton, like golf cleats... My mother he would just hit, and kick, and threaten. The constant beatings... and the drugs that I think she took, drove my mother insaine. I can still remember... remember walking into my parents room and seeing my mom holding one of my father's guns to her temple, begging the voices in her head to stop talking. When I Tried to stop her, she turned the gun on me.

I left their home in second grade when my mother, in a fit of sanity, abandond me at my grandmother's house to save me. I waited for her for a week, standing outside in the pouring rain day after day, but she didn't come back.

Three years later, my grandma moved. While I was in my room packing boxes, one of the movers came in, shut the door, and raped me. He held his hand to my mouth and told me that if I ever told anyone, he would kill my family in front of me. I didn't said anything, and he was there for the rest of the move, which took four days. My family still doesn't know.

I started cutting a year ago when, while I was taking a shower it all suddenly caught up with me and fell down and cried for hours until I eventually passed out. It's the only thing I know how to do that makes the pain go away. I'm trying to stop because it huets those around me, and I wont let anuone else suffer because of me...

 

[ArynChris]

Words now flee my tongue
I am not fit to speak them
May I write them in its stead?
Or is this lost to me as well,
all I've left when my voice is naught in the realms of Man?
Lord, lend me voice to me prayers.

Oh God,
for the pain of man
For his children and his wife,
and the lives of those who reach
but touch not the sorrow of night
yet reach on still
eternal
until the pain is too much to bear
until it sears them too tightly
and buries them in its might.

For Heaven
For God
For Satan
For Hell
For Asgard
and Summer's End
and light and the end of shadows
may we all find thee
may you satisfy
may we come?

Oh God,
I pray to Thee,
to Thee I pray,
that all that may
come to pass as a good end
after all
after we have come and gone away again to seek the arms of shadow,

death, and time.

I ask Thee,
"Might we know Your plan?
"Might we see some hope?
"For these are great burdens to bear,
"and they are too much for us but for dreams of joy."
And You say YES.
as You always do,
You,
You,
Oh, God, to forsake Thee!

This option is--
--why?
Wherefore art this, Lord?
Wherefore art?
When man is troubled
by some wound,
oh why
may he break else--
else more--
and fell better?
Oh Lord I ask Thee
tell me why

I pray Thee,
and to Thy Son
and inside beg of Thy Spirit--
God, why?  

[AS574]

I accually think for some really low people it's healthy. If a person is about to jump and you give them the option to stay alive for a while longer with a dirty secret. I self harm and I really think it's the reason I'm still alive. If I didn't have the short bits of happiness to get me out of the house to be around people I'm sure I would have killed myself I long time ago.  

[boneshaker baby!]

This will sound bad and I really am sorry if I trigger anyone trying to recover from cutting, but

i wish i could still cut. I was in treatment for 3+ months for cutting among other reasons. things have been really stressful lately and i wish i could cut. I dont want to end up in the hospital again though.  

[Aubrey of the sliver line]

the first time i cut myself was cuz i wanted to see if my emotional pain was greater and it was but now i do it because i love pain and the sight of blood...  

[Rowan Birch]

I know someone who cut fora while. I was really shockedhwne I found out, since she wans't the 'type' that everyone assumes cuts.
She only did it a few times (as far as I know) durring a time when she was just unsure of everything.
Come to think of it, that's the way she does everything.
This is thoughtful, careful, metodical cutting; it's the ones who don't think about what they're doing that are the worrying ones. ones who just do it.  

[kat-fks]

Many people cut them self for many reason. You can't really pinpoint just one reason. I knew many people who did it, I have also done it time to time but have stop. My reason was because physical pain and wounds are easier to heal the emotional ones. Yes your right when ever one say you can't help someone who doesn't want it. I guess you can never truely understand it unless you've done it first hand.  

[Kohanna13]

I do not know one person that cuts because there sad. Every one in my scool will do it for kicks and its cool. I think its cool. You can like be more then the pain.
And this is how it starts stare People who cut themselves because it's cool or to fit in with people are kinda pathetic. I used to hurt myself because of family problems but I've stopped. Some people believe that they're doing it for attention and this can reinforce that belief.  

[IY_and_MCR]

I am just reposting after moving a thread. Original thread can be found here, for the time being

SaiBlackNight

Why does self-injury make some people feel better?

It reduces physiological and psychological tension rapidly.
Studies have suggested that when people who self-injure get emotionally overwhelmed, an act of self-harm brings their levels of psychological and physiological tension and arousal back to a bearable baseline level almost immediately. In other words, they feel a strong uncomfortable emotion, don't know how to handle it (indeed, often do not have a name for it), and know that hurting themselves will reduce the emotional discomfort extremely quickly. They may still feel bad (or not), but they don't have that panicky jittery trapped feeling; it's a calm bad feeling.

Some people never get a chance to learn how to cope effectively.
One factor common to most people who self-injure, whether they were abused or not, is invalidation. They were taught at any early age that their interpretations of and feelings about the things around them were bad and wrong. They learned that certain feelings weren't allowed. In abusive homes, they may have been severely punished for expressing certain thoughts and feelings. At the same time, they had no good role models for coping. You can't learn to cope effectively with distress unless you grow up around people who are coping effectively with distress. Although a history of abuse is common about self-injurers, not everyone who self-injures was abused. Sometimes invalidation and lack of role models for coping are enough, especially if the person's brain chemistry has already primed them for choosing this sort of coping.

Problems with neurotransmitters may play a role.
Just as it's suspected that the way the brain uses serotonin may play a role in depression, so scientists think that problems in the serotonin system may predispose some people to self-injury by making them tend to be more aggressive and impulsive than most people. This tendency toward impulsive aggression, combined with a belief that their feelings are bad or wrong, can lead to the aggression being turned on the self. Of course, once this happens, the person harming himself learns that self-injury reduces his level of distress, and the cycle begins. Some researchers theorize that a desire to release endorphins, the body's natural painkillers, is involved.

What kinds of people self-injure?

Self-injurers come from all walks of life and all economic brackets. People who harm themselves can be male or female; straight, gay, or bisexual; Ph.D.s or high-school dropouts or high-school students; rich or poor; from any country in the world. Some people who self-injure manage to function effectively in demanding jobs; they are teachers, therapists, medical professionals, lawyers, professors, engineers. Some are on disability. Their ages range from early teens to early 60s.

In fact, the incidence of self-injury is about the same as that of eating disorders, but because it's so highly stigmatized, most people hide their scars, burns, and bruises carefully. They also have excuses ready when someone asks about the scars.

Aren't people who would deliberately cut or burn themselves psychotic?

No more than people who drown their sorrows in a bottle of vodka are. It's a coping mechanism, just not one that's as understandable to most people or as accepted by society as alcoholism, drug abuse, overeating, anorexia and bulimia, workaholism, smoking cigarettes, and other forms of problem avoidance

Okay, then isn't it just another way to describe a failed suicide attempt?

NO. Self-injury is a maladaptive coping mechanism, a way to stay alive. People who inflict physical harm on themselves are often doing it in an attempt to maintain psychological integrity -- it's a way to keep from killing themselves. They release unbearable feelings and pressures through self-harm, and that eases their urge toward suicide. And, although some people who self-injure do later attempt suicide, they almost always use a method different from their preferred method of self-harm.

Can anything be done for people who hurt themselves?

Yes. Several websites offer self-help ideas. Many new therapeutic approaches have been and are being developed to help self-harmers learn new coping mechanisms and teach them how to start using those techniques instead of self-injury. These approaches reflect a growing belief among mental-health workers that once a client's patterns of self-inflicted violence stabilize, real work can be done on the problems and issues underlying the self-injury. Also, research into medications that stabilize mood, ease depression, and calm anxiety is being done; some of these drugs may help reduce the urge to self-harm.

This does not mean that individuals should be coerced into stopping self-injury. Any attempts to reduce or control the amount of self-harm a person does should be based on the person's willingness to undertake the difficult work of controlling and/or stopping self-injury. Treatment should not be based on a practitioner's personal feelings about the practice of self-harm.

What problems may be encountered when getting professional help?

Self-injury brings out many uncomfortable feelings in people who don't do it: revulsion, anger, fear, and distaste, to name a few. If a medical professional is unable to cope with her own feelings about self-harm, then she has an obligation to herself and to her client to find a practitioner willing to do this work. In addition, she has the responsibility to be certain the client understands that the referral is due to her own inability to deal with self-injury and not to any inadequacies in the client.

People who self-injure do generally do so because of an internal dynamic, and not in order to annoy, anger or irritate others. Their self-injury is a behavioral response to an emotional state, and is usually not done in order to frustrate caretakers.

What problems may be encountered in the emergency room?

In emergency rooms, people with self-inflicted wounds are often told directly and indirectly, that they are not as deserving of care as someone who has an accidental injury. They are treated badly by the same doctors who would not hesitate to do everything possible to preserve the life of an overweight, sedentary heart-attack patient.

Doctors in emergency rooms and urgent-care clinics should be sensitive to the needs of patients who come in to have self-inflicted wounds treated. If the patient is calm, denies suicidal intent, and has a history of self-inflicted violence, the doctor should treat the wounds as they would treat non-self-inflicted injuries. Refusing to give anesthesia for stitches, making disparaging remarks, and treating the patient as an inconvenient nuisance simply further the feelings of invalidation and unworthiness the self-injurer already feels.

Although offering mental-health follow-up services is appropriate, psychological evaluations with an eye toward hospitalization should be avoided in the emergency room unless the person is clearly a danger to his/her own life or to others. In places where people know that self-inflicted injuries are liable to lead to mistreatment and lengthy psychological evaluations, they are much less likely to seek medical attention for their wounds and thus are at a higher risk for wound infections and other complications.

SOME ALTERNATIVE COPING SKILLS

*Holding ice (painful to do, and helps those who crave the pain)
*Using fake blood, or red marker to mark on areas you want to cut (for those of who need to see the blood and the color)
*Treat yourself whenever you feel like cutting. Hot bath, candy, etc.

*Rubber Band around the wrist. Snapp it when you feel the urge to cut for the pain
*Stay in a public place.
*Clean (this is what I do sometimes ^_^)

*Using face paints to paint where you usually hurt yourself.
*Drawing and painting what what feel inside is easier than expressing it in words.
*Tearing up newspapers. This uses up a lot of strength and anger.
*Playdoh can take a lot of anger out of a person and can be remoulded and used again. This keeps the person entertained and using their hands, thus helping to take their mind off their problems.
*Bottlebanks are a great way to smash glass when the need arises, but in a safe environment.


There are many alternatives to cutting/self harm out there. I can personally say that the ice works well, as does the marker/paint/fake blood and the cleaning method. Everyone is different though, so experiment.

 

[Hunter of the Dammed]

Okay I know who someone who cuts and well it worries me. I'm trying to find some way to help her. Shes qiute insecure, and has a habit of going out with the scum of the earth. ( I've got the challenge list to prove it.) She also has bad depression wich she tries to cure with drugs.Shes in therapy but I'm worried it wont work. Will someone tell me how I am able to help her please?  

[DieiNoctis]

Well, giving her the above list would probably help. Suggest seeing a counselor about it.
The big things though are that she needs to either get away from the things/people that lead her to cut, or to find other ways to vent her despair.

Also, be a good friend. This means raising her self-esteem, praising her if she cuts less, and letting her know that you're worried. Give her small compliments, help her when you can, etc.
Generally people who feel good about themselves don't feel a need to self-injure.  

[Hunter of the Dammed]

DieiNoctis

Well, giving her the above list would probably help. Suggest seeing a counselor about it.
The big things though are that she needs to either get away from the things/people that lead her to cut, or to find other ways to vent her despair.

Also, be a good friend. This means raising her self-esteem, praising her if she cuts less, and letting her know that you're worried. Give her small compliments, help her when you can, etc.
Generally people who feel good about themselves don't feel a need to self-injure.

her parents are getting her counseling
I give her plenty of compliments
ans she knows im worried told her to call no matter what time of day. if she starts to think about cutting)
so Im doing the right things. Asfor what might put her down well Im taking care of that I thank you and blessed be  

[X~.McRfan.~X]

Well, I cut myself one time but then I hated myself even more for doing it. I'll never do it again because it just makes me feel even worse.

 

[Slayer Igraine]

I have no desire to divulge my 'story' - it doesn't interest me, so I don't see why it would interest anyone else; but for me, the whole thing has a lovely tinge of bitter irony.

I used to cut in places that no one could see, or wouldn't scar (or both) Thighs, soles of my feet, etc. So no one knew. Then I stopped; finally found some anti-depressants that helped, etc. yadda yadda.

And it's npw that I get the filthy looks and glared of people. Because I have eczema. Always have had, but recently, it got a whole lot worse. I have to wear bandages constantly. On my arms, torso, legs; face, everywhere. I'm a walking mummy. And people just look at the bandages, and assume that they're hiding self-inflicted cuts. if I don't wear the bandages, people just stare at my scab-mottled arms in disgust. Either way I lose.

So after hiding it all these years, it still comes round to bite me in the arse for an entirely unrelated reason. They look at assume they're hiding cuts; assume I am a Self-harmist, and was. Before I wanted to bleed - now I bleed over 20 times a day whether I want to, or not. Before I wanted to feel pain, now I deal with a constant low-level pain which increases exponentially at certain times.

If there is a cosmic entity, it certainly has a sense of humour.  

[Redwing~Shadow]

Mina Lilith

I grew up in a very... broken home. My father was an alchoholic and he beat my mother and I daily. He liked to hit me with... with his belt, broken bottles, and even loved to stomp on me with, these big black boots that had spikes on the botton, like golf cleats... My mother he would just hit, and kick, and threaten. The constant beatings... and the drugs that I think she took, drove my mother insaine. I can still remember... remember walking into my parents room and seeing my mom holding one of my father's guns to her temple, begging the voices in her head to stop talking. When I Tried to stop her, she turned the gun on me.

I left their home in second grade when my mother, in a fit of sanity, abandond me at my grandmother's house to save me. I waited for her for a week, standing outside in the pouring rain day after day, but she didn't come back.

Three years later, my grandma moved. While I was in my room packing boxes, one of the movers came in, shut the door, and raped me. He held his hand to my mouth and told me that if I ever told anyone, he would kill my family in front of me. I didn't said anything, and he was there for the rest of the move, which took four days. My family still doesn't know.

I started cutting a year ago when, while I was taking a shower it all suddenly caught up with me and fell down and cried for hours until I eventually passed out. It's the only thing I know how to do that makes the pain go away. I'm trying to stop because it huets those around me, and I wont let anuone else suffer because of me...

Wow, that's a harsh life. How old are you now?