cutting... what you think about it

[Raze Krieger]

KupoWrath

Well... DarkxMoon is right. We both have our own opinions, and they are both valid ones at that. I see where your thoughts are coming from, and I apologize for being my normal stubborn self ^^;; I will still stand by my own views. I will continue to cut until I wake up one day and decide that I don't want to anymore.

Also, I've had just as many problems as you, but I've pushed them behind me. I don't believe in wallowing in the past. I'm not saying that we need to forget the past, because if you forget, history repeats itself.

Great job in overcoming all that you have. I'm proud of you, but you don't need my... Proud...ness... of you. That made no sense, but you know what I mean. I don't think people who cut are weak, they are just misunderstood.

Proudness is a word in the Raze world. I think what you meant to say was that I didn't need you to be proud of me because me being proud of myself is what matters. At least I think that's what you said.  

[Kupo Ikari]

Yup! That's what I meant. See? I knew you'd know what I meant even if I can't properly come up with the words to express it.............

....I need to stop with the long sentences.  

[2on]

Former, serious cutter.
Probley on this forum one of the few times I've confessed it, seeing as the word 'emo' would spring up if ever i told my friends, and even as a joke it would agitate me.
Touchy subject. It was my coping mechanism, I reached a point were I was unable to cope with life. I'm not talking about physically. I mean emotionally. Every response to a situation was automated, and feeling uncabable of feeling any emotional response I was unaware of pressing the shards to my flesh.
I'm not trying to make it sound poetic, but it's a difficult response to explain.

I haven't cut myself for over 3 months. There are times when I feel like I have to. But I've become much better at coping with my emotions and not masking them. I have the scars, and thank goodness they're not in a place where they can be seen constantly.

Whilst not approving of it, I do think it's something that to be quit, first must be decerned by the cutter the reason why.  

[WhiteZombieBoy]

I use to cut myself about 6 years ago, before I even heard of the term ''cutter'', I felt empty and I still do. But I stopped, it didn't feel necessary anymore. I knew what I felt inside, ugly and I wanted to bring that ugliness to the outside. I felt sort of like I needed to be hurt, punished for being a live. I felt dead and when I would bleed, I felt like I was living for something... to feel sorry for myself. Now, I just write... There are moments when I'm on the floor, with my back against the wall and something in the back of my head is scratching to be heard. Telling me that I'm worthless and hollow still, and unfit to be alive. Just taking up space. But I don't do it anymore. I stopped medications also and I just deal with it. I don't listen, I don't move... I just sit there till it passes. And it does.  

[Sulhir]

Cutting is hard to hide. I used safety pins or hypodermic needles (my dad is a vet, our basements full of them). The pins leave small holes that could be mistaken for razor burn. The needles provide an easier access to blood than cutting, just make sure to apply pressure or you will bruise. Both leave minimal scarring, none at all if done properly.
Never cut for attention, it always backfires. Don't leave scars if you can help it. Designs are just silly, they are more noticable.
This is if you DON'T want to be put in a psych ward. And believe me, they are not fun places.
For me, cutting felt good when I couldn't feel anything else. I knew people loved me, I knew I had worth. It just was such a wonderful release. It probably didn't help that the doctor's kept misdiagnosing me with ADHD and the ADHD medications only exacerbated my General Anxiety Disorder.
They finally stopped giving them to me (I was so screwed up I don't even remember the times when I was on them) when I kept getting worse. They kept trying higher doses and stronger medications and it screwed my brain up. I can't remember most of my past now, and making new memories is harder than it should be.
Don't cut. If they find out, they will do their best to get rid of you. They aren't trying to help. They just try to remove the problem. And in their eyes, the problem is you.  

[anime_freak777]

I can't stand when people cut to see how it feels or to be cool. I know an Emo poser who used to intentionally get her cats to scartch her to look like she cuts. After starting to self harm for real because everybody caught on she really got the cuts on her arms, she started self mutilation for real. Now she brags all the time about how deep she cut yesterday, how much she bled,and what she used.  

[Fallentowards]

such a serious topic, and honestly if i hear all people who cut are emos one more time when i am at school someone is gonna die, it's really sad how people just stereotype people from a single judgement and not even knowing the persons back ground. I have heard of it being a fad which is horrible. I have known about 5-6 people who used to cut themselves, one being my cousin, another being a best friend. My cousin nearly died because of it and was hopitalized for a couple weeks. so when i hear the emo stereotype i want to hurt people, someone who can cut can be anyone, it's classified as a pyscholical disorder much like anorexia where someone is over come by an event, too much emotion stress or anxity, depression, anger, abuse, and so on and so forth where the hurt them selves physically to take away emotional pain. I honor anyone who has been there and over come this and isn't afraid to speak up and tell their story because people do need to listen.  

[Ms. Chaos]

there was a period of my life that i was a cutter. It was during 8th and 9th grade. My stepdad was abusive, we lived in a broken down trailer, i was in a state of paranoia. I didnt really have any good friends. I felt like my life meant nothing and i would never know the comfort of being loved by someone else. So i cut myself, never to much to do bad damage, but i still did. I also used to take pencils and scrape them across my arm cause i liked the way it felt. I used to keep small knives in my dresser, actually, i still do have two small knives in my dressser. I had confided in my sister, because we had to share a room together and i was very upset one night. She made sure that i didnt do it again.

Now i guess my life is better, since we live in a decent house now, but my sister doesnt share a room with me anymore, so she wouldnt know if i did start up again. To be honest, even though my life is better, i still feel alone, and i feel as if no one will ever love me for me, so i keep the knives there, just in case. Sometimes i get the urge to do it though, i dont know. sigh cry  

[Erik_Red_Rose]

I do have some friends that cut, and I myself soemtimes cut.

Case 1: friend
My one friend cuts because her dad abuses(not sure) her and her mom critizizes her constantly. She said it was her only true happiness. I told her to stop, she said she did, btu one day she showed me her arm that had cuts on it, and they were visible (she normaly cuts her thighs... so no one will see it) I ahd to lend he rone fo ym arm covers so no one would be able to see the cuts.

Case 2: friend
She had cuts all up her left arm, she lied saying she was attacked by a dog... but she admited yto su at lunch she wasn't attacked by a dog... she sued a razor. I don't knwo why she did it... and my one friend made her promise not to do it again.

Case 3: personal
I never cut deep... I only ahve little scratches, that way none of my friends can tell. I don't like them to see whne I cut. I didn't tell anyone untill I got in soem trouble with a harrassment thing and the guidance counciler (who was my teacher last year) asked me why I started crying (long story... pm if you want to know) and it progressed to me telling her I'd sometimes cut... so she called my mom and talked to her. I didn't cut since then untill last night. I am obsessed about a guy in my band class, we're friends and all...but thats it. And I don't know, but soemthing snapped and I went depressed lsitening to 'Ohio is for lovers' by hawthorne heights. I actualy left some marks. I have the guy I likes name on my chest along with a few scratchs. But after a while I told myself to stop.... "You can't have any marks dammit!" I yelled at myself. So instead, I wrote. Writeing and music have allways been my alternative to cutting. Most of my cutting-subsitute stories are dark, or bassed on why I wnated to cut. -shurgs- I've never caused noticable damage... but I'm not certain that I never will.  

[sadensilk]

i used to cut quite alot as in every other night i have been as i like to say cut free for almost two months. i used to cut not because i was sad or depressed but because i liked the feeling of the blood running across my flesh. i liked the pain i felt when i showered after i cut and let the water run over the fresh cuts stinging and smarting. i liked to lick the blood off my wrist after watching it drip a bit. i hid blades all over the place and still have at least one. i used to carry a blade in my bra and cut in the bathroom after math.(yes im a girl)i would constantly have angry looking red marks on my wrists and ankels. i had trouble hiding them from my parents and friends and they found out countless times. i dont know why i have stopped i wish i hadnt. i started to flick myself with rubber-bands and give myself red welts because i pulled them back so hard i even broke a few of them for pulling too hard. i think i have wrote enough abaut me^^'  

[Spooky Ames]

My friend used to be goth, and got picked on by older ones, so she quit. She did cut, and she told me that she cuts occasionally. I know why she cuts, and I'm not very worried, because I haven't spotted any scars anywhere. It doesn't sound like she's been cutting lately, but I always check to make sure she's alright.

Cutting isn't a very good way to release sadness and anger, just because it's very dangerous. I will admit that I've been tempted to before, but there are better ways to release unwanted emotions. I like to write poetry.  

[DieiNoctis]

Here's my story.

A few years ago, I decided that I didn't like feeling emotions. I don't know why. I think it's because I've alwys been very free with my emotions. When I was happy, I'd smile, when I was sad, I'd b***h (Crying was never really an option in my family), when I was angry (It was always with my brother, he's the only person on earth with the capacity to make me angry) I would get into fights, stuff like that. Well, I got sick and tired of it, so I decided to get rid of my emotions.
Now, I've always been good at self-control. I can resist most any temptation just with willpower, and the fact that emotions got the best of me made me a bit agrivated. So what I did was I slowly programed myself to not feel. To not feel happiness, sadness, pain, fear... anything at all. I disabled my emotions. Locked em' up and threw away the key.
I really should have kept the key.
I fell into a sort of depressed state. It wasn't really depression, but that's the best way that I cna describe it without writing a book on the subject.
It was a great apathy that took over my life. On the surface I still looked the same. I'd smile, laugh, act perturbed, but I only did it because I knew that it was the propper response, not because I felt like doing it.

This went on for about a year, then I got tired of it. I was tired of not feeling like doing anything. Tired of not really laughing. Tired of not being able to love anyone. So I tried unlocking my emotions again... Bu tI'd thrown away the key. I knew how to disable them, but I had no clue how to get them back. So, I started with pain.

I figured that physical pain would be the best way to slowly pull myself out of my rut. A sort of sadness that would allow me to once again gain full use of my other emotions.

At first, I had a sort of "I hear this works, let's see what it feels like."
It worked, a bit. But it was a sort of a quick fix. A peice fo duct tape when a blowtorch was needed.
But, it was sort of like crack, at first, I was just going to use it as a way to help me got to an end. A way to, temporarially, escape the void of depression I'd willingly thrown myself into.
It bacame a sort of addiction, gaining that temporary release so that I could feel again, if only pain.

I was smart about ti, and I wish I hand't been. I think it would have been better if someone had been there to stop me, to send me to councling or something, but there wasn't, I was too smart about it.
The wrist was too obvious, too visible. I didn't want to kill myself, just to cut, and there were too many large veins runnig there for my liking. And I didn't want massive scars. You can't like about deep cuts for long, people aren't that stupid. But surface scratches, just enought to draw a line of blood, there's a million excuses for those.
So I moved up teh arm, and to the legs. At first I used a boxcutter, but that wasn't good enough, so I took apart a shaving razor and used that. (They make fabulously depe cuts wiht little effort, and leave less scaring due to the sharpness of the blade). I'd cut around the top of the bicep, near the shoulder, and right above the ball of my ankel where it was covered by hair.
It's so easy to cover those areas, no one really looks at your ankels, they're under socks most of the time. As for the bicep, it's far enough up to be covered by shirt all the time. And any time I was shirtless (like after I'd wake up and was walking to the shower) I'd just drape something like a towel over that shoulder.

Well, eventually I realized that even though I wasn't leaving physical scars (I cut deep enough to draw blood, not deep enough to leave noticable scars) I had let something controll my life. I'd let a physical obsession take over my life. And really, I was no better than alchoholics, or drug adddicts. In fact, that's sort of what it was.
When a cut is made on the human body, endorphines (The chemical that makes you happy) is released in small doses. It's used as a sort of light anesthesia. I was addicted to the small ammount of happiness that I was given from my pain.

But, I knew I needed to stop. So I did. It wasn't easy, but I worked ways around it. (A fabulous way is to wear a rubber band around your wrist. Whenever you feel like cutting, just snap it, fairly hard, a few times. The momentary urge will subside long enough for you to get controll over it.)

Once I'd elmimated the effects, I had to find a way to get rid of the cause. So I started opening the emotions back up again. It was harder than locking them away, but I'd force myself to think of something that once gave me joy, or somehting that made me really sad, or angry. And after a while, I slowly was able to stop faking emotions in everyday life, and actually feel them.

Now, I'm not perfect, and sometimes I regress and make a few new nicks, but by and large I'm back to normal (Which was pretty strange to begin with).

That's my story.  

[Kupo Ikari]

Ok... I need help.

I finally came to terms with the fact that I do, indeed, have a problem with cutting.

I found this out when I said I would stop cutting, just to show that I didn't have a problem.

I can't stop. When I'm not cutting I feel horrible like it's not worth it to even live. I have no clue what to do. I haven't cut for a week now, but the urge just gets stronger and stronger. I'm afraid I'm going to cave in...

I've tried replacing cutting with other things, likes exercise, piano, acting... Nothing works. I just want to grab a razor and slice myself up...

Does anyone have any advice?  

[Dr_lecter1988]

KupoWrath

Ok... I need help.

I finally came to terms with the fact that I do, indeed, have a problem with cutting.

I found this out when I said I would stop cutting, just to show that I didn't have a problem.

I can't stop. When I'm not cutting I feel horrible like it's not worth it to even live. I have no clue what to do. I haven't cut for a week now, but the urge just gets stronger and stronger. I'm afraid I'm going to cave in...

I've tried replacing cutting with other things, likes exercise, piano, acting... Nothing works. I just want to grab a razor and slice myself up...

Does anyone have any advice?

Sadly my friend, i know exactly how you feel. there's nothing you can do to lessen the urge, FIght it. GET through it. it will always be in the back of your mind. but once you fight it, and get through it, it will feel so much better. i haven't cut in three months, but my greatest fear is that something will happen to allow the urge to become strong enough again to overwhelm my self control. Fight, find a friend you trust to talk to. its amazing how much talking about it to someone will help. and remember, we're always here for you too. i wish you luck. and my thoughts go with you.  

[Kupo Ikari]

Thanks for the encouragement... I was doing great... Until today. I did it again, and now I feel horrible. My mother was screaming at me like she usually does, and I couldn't take it anymore.

I have no one to talk to. Whenever I try, they always berate me, talling me I shouldn't cut. They don't even listen. They don't even care.