Why do you cut?

[The Batman]

I really would like to know what causes you guys to cut because it might make it easier for us to help you quit. Don't be afraid to post we're only here to help.

[-Silence]

I started cutting at 13, my mom and I had a very abusive relationship and it was the only way for me to get it out, it was the cause of bottling everything up. My mother and I got into it in the kitchen she left and I took a knife and made a slit from my wrist down to my elbow. That's how it started and then any time something happened or I was upset I resorted back to my razor, and it helped for a long time. Seven years later I am still battling the addiction and still I get questions about the scars on my arms. If I could, I'd take it all back. That's my reason.

Many common reasons are:
(This is taken from here (http://self-injury.net/faq/#sec7))

Relief from feelings - Often people hurt themselves to try to relieve intense emotions and feel better. These intense feelings can seem uncontrollable, frightening, and dangerous. When people have them they may think that hurting themselves is the only way to escape these feelings.
People who hurt themselves often are unable to control their emotions. They cannot experience and express them the way most people do: by crying, screaming, yelling, etc. This can be due to a number of reasons.

It may have been unsafe- for psychological or physical reasons- to express your emotions at home, etc. The expression of your emotions may have been ignored, denied, or disputed. Your parents or people you grew up with may have not been able to express their own emotions in a safe and direct manner. Or if they did express an emotion such as anger they did so through violence. You may have seen people relieve their feelings or depression or anxiety through drug and alcohol use. You may have never been shown how to express feelings in a normal and healthy manner.
You may have seen others SI to release their feelings, and have mimicked them.People who SI often say that they feel depressed, isolated, alienated, isolated, or frustrated before they SI. This can cause an uncomfortable level of anxiety and torment, which they feel they must escape. SI will lessen these feelings temporarily.

Coping Mechanism - A coping mechanism is a method of coping people use to help them get through difficult times. SI is an extreme method that provides a sense of relief- as you know by lessening physical or psychological feelings. Thy physical damage and pain cause the body to employ its own coping methods to deal with them. SI is a negative coping mechanism because it causes people further harm and puts them in dangerous or uncomfortable situations.

Stopping, Inducing, or Preventing Dissociation - Dissociation is "a psychological state in which the indivual experiences an alteration in consciousness, memory, and sometimes identity." People who experience it may feel detached from their bodies, a floating sensation, or a sense that they are separated from their bodies, watching themselves. Everybody has experienced mild dissociation- for example tuning out when someone is talking to you. But some people use dissociation as a coping mechanism. The dissociative states they may experience sometimes become overwhelming because of how long they last or their intensity. SI is way to reduce, prevent, or stop a dissociative state.

This is how it generally occurs: The extreme anxiety that precedes SI often can cause people to dissociate where physical pain is lessened. Some people welcome their dissociative feelings because they can be a relief from emotional pain. However, other people feel that dissociation is uncomfortable, frightening, or alienating. SI increases self-awareness in these dissociative states and reduce or end it.

There is an extreme form of dissociation which can lead to alterations in identity, known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly Multiple Personality Disorder). For some people with DID SI is a way to gain control, avoid, or end the switching of personalities.

While people SI dissociation block or reduce the feelings of physical pain. This can be very dangerous at times because people lose awareness of how much damage they're inflicting on their bodies. They may hurt themselves more severely than they planned.

After SI-ing the level of dissociation decreases. You may return to a level of normal consciousness so that you might treat your injuries. SI helps you temporarily cope, tolerate, or reduce overwhelming emotions and control your level of dissociation.

Euphoric Feelings - When people SI they, of course, are hurting their bodies. The body responds to the injuries by working to minimize pain and damage and to heal the wound quickly. The brain releases substances called endorphins (has similar effects to morphine) that work as pain-killers when you hurt yourself. Endorphins can also cause a pleasant physical sensation and can become addictive. So, some people SI to produce feelings of euphoria.

You may feel tingling sensations before hurting yourself. Or feel at peace or full of life while you are SI-ing. You may even feel sexually aroused. All these feelings are due to the endorphins.

But the problem is that the body can produce a tolerance to endorphins. The feeling of euphoria won't be as strong in following SI acts. You may even injure yourself more severely to experience the high euphoric feeling you felt during your first SI experience.

Physically Expressing Pain - The physical expression of emotional pain causes some people to achieve certain goals such as:

Evidence (scars, etc.) that you are suffering psychologically. Sometimes people with SI minimize or doubt their internal feelings.Communication - SI is sometimes used by people to express what they are thinking, feeling, or experiencing to others. By doing this you are more likely to get what you need from family, friends, or others. You might be trying to send out messages such as "I need help," "I hurt," etc. but that is not always the ways others perceive it. They might interpret your SI as "You're crazy," "You're trying to kill yourself," etc. Other people might see you using your SI as manipulation.

Self-Nurturing - For many people SI provides them with a way of nurturing themselves physically when they are unable to do so emotionally. SI is sometimes used to heal yourself. To make the internal pain external so that you may nurture and heal what only used to exist on a psychological level. You are caring for your internal and external scars. The self-care may be the gratifying part of SI.

Often people who SI feel unloved or alone in the world. SI results in a situation where nurturing occurs, and you have to take care of yourself. Some people even have rituals for nurturing themselves after SI-ing.

Self-Punishment - Statistics show that more than half of the people who SI have been abuse physically, sexually, and/or emotionally as children. It is common for people to blame themselves for the abuse or to feel that they "deserve" it. They may have been taught that certain thoughts, feelings, or behaviors deserve punishment. People who SI are often critical of themselves which leads to feelings of condemnation and shame which leads to SI.

Reenacting Previous Abuse - SI can be a way to reenact abuse that took place at an earlier time. You may do it to feel a sense of control, which you didn't have when you were abused. Some people may act out the previous abuse as part of post-traumatic stress during a flashback (an episode where you think you are reexperiencing the abuse). Some individuals with DID have an alter personality that will injure another alter to reenact abuse. Since the personalities are in the same body this is SI.

You may replicate the abuse in exactly the same you were hurt as a child. Or in a slightly different way due to pysical or psychological limitations.

Establishing Control - Control is a necessary part of people's lives. and knowing we have some control is important for mental health. When we feel we are in control we feel better. SI is a way some people use to replicate a sense of control over their own bodies. Episodes of SI might be triggered by overwhelming feelings of depression, alienation, isolation, etc. which are out of your control. By SI-ing you are controlling your emotional states. Also, you may be using SI to control a dissociative state. Thoughts can also be controlled by SI. By changing your behavior, emotions, and physical feelings you affect your thoughts. You may use SI to control your thoughts. So, in SI, a person has control in a situation, over their body, their thoughts, their emotions, and their behaviors. This feeling of control may make a person feel more controlled, at peace, and comfortable.

Remember, not all of these reasons may apply to you or a person you know who SI's. They are just the one's most commonly known.

[Kaleidoscope Eyes]

Preventing dissociation, I forgot about that one. I used to dissociate a lot when I was stressed or anxious. I still do, but it doesn't happen as often. It gets me away from whatever is bothering me, but I usually can't find my way back when I want to. It feels like I'm forcibly pushed back from my life , and even though my body is moving, I'm not there. (Imagine your mind as a little person in your head, looking out through your eyeballs and pushing all the buttons to make you move and speak and such. When I dissociate, that little person is pushed as far back as they can go without popping out the back of my skull, and they're held there, more-or-less immobilized.) I can be looking someone in the eye while they're talking to me and even though I want to know what's going on, nothing they say has any meaning to me, it's just noise. Sounds get really loud and muffled, and everything looks far away. I've been told my eyes glaze over and that it makes people want to shake me to see if I'm in there anymore. These days it happens most often in crowded areas and when I'm discussing something particularly difficult with my shrink. When it happens there, she stops talking as much and tries to prompt me to talk. If I can manage to start talking, and keep talking, it's easier to come back.

I get that its a coping mechanism, but I've never been able to control it, it's completely automatic, and sometimes that makes the situation worse. Sometimes I want to work through the situation, but I dissociate and I can't. It begins to feel almost as if my body isn't real, and nothing around me is real; the only real things are in my head, and thats why I stay in there. It's hard to try to break out of it, because I get so convinced that nothing's real. I mean, why would I try to talk to someone who isn't real, even though they obviously want a response? Why would I move this body that isn't real, or pay attention to any of the unreal things going on around it? At worst, I can stay like that for a few hours at a time.

Sometimes though, I would feel it starting to happen, and if I could cut myself, the pain brought me back into my body again. Things that aren't real don't feel pain, so if my body could, it had to be real. Now, when I dissociate, I do my best to either find someone to talk to, or put on some music and sing along. The act of concentrating on the words, and moving my mouth to form them, tends to keep me fairly grounded.

[Malcolm Tucker]

I do it because I get soooo stressed. I dig my nails into my arm, and it doesn't bleed, which makes me more stressed. =\

I have psoriasis and that goes loco when even the slightest bit of anger or stress happens, and it makes my want to just get relief from the pain.

I always say, I would rather have the world ignore me, and be happy, than have it treat me the way it does now and cause me this pain.

[tombstonequeen]

ya i feel the same about the ignorance part

[Techno Monster]

I dont but i have the urge a lot.

[Axellance]

I dont cut anymore but i used to. I recently had a slip up but im all better now:). I think i used to cut because i was filled with anger and hurt but i had no way to relece it. I tryed to tell off the people who cased alot of it, but all that did was get me in trouble so i had no way to vent. The anger would build up and build up untill i would loose it. I had to let the anger out on someone so that became me.

[hardcore-smile]

I pretty much cut just because my friend died, and then my other friend started to make fun of her death. this all happend last year, and then it just hurt so much because i missed her and people were making jokes about it. and saying shit,. so then i slit my wrist with a razor blade, and then after i learned why my friend made fun of her which was a really sad thing i stopped. but it started up agian like 2 months ago because of my relationship with my family, we dont get along at all. and then i started to cut myself with a protractor, because razors didnt hurt all it did was bleed , i wanted the pain. so my family got a little better, but then me and my boyfriends started having problems and this was like 2 weeks ago, so i started it agian and i havent stopped yet,
and the reason i do it is because of all the pain around me , slitting is the only pain i can atchually control.
hope i helpped. (:

[Nihilus]

its a way for people to basicly release their stress but in the process they hurt themslves more.:(

[Dom]

copping, control. my life is losing all control so i did it to relieve all my stress and have something in my life that only i could do and i could choose every inch of how i wanted to do it. i did it for a long time and after 5 months of trying i have stopped.... however now im smoking. i want to start cutting again too....... i just dont know...

[brokenfaerie]

it first started as a suicide attempt. i'd never heard of cutting before. i was in 6th grade and i tried to slit my wrist but i was scared so i didn't go deep enough. but just that release got me hooked. it gets all my adrenaline pumping and gives me a real high. but it got really really addicting.