This entry may be triggering or difficult to read for some people.
Self-injury behavior is something that is more common than many people realize. (In one study by researchers at Brown University of high school students, 46 percent had injured themselves in the past year on multiple occasions.) It is often misunderstood, not just by the lay public, but also by the mental health professionals who ostensibly should know what self-injury it is and how best to treat it.
Self-injury is used by people as over-drinking is used by others — to drown out emotional pain with something else. In the case of self-injury, that something else is physical pain. It focuses your attention and takes your mind off of your emotional pain, if only for a little while.
Cutting is the most common form of self-injury — making skin-deep cuts on one’s arms, wrists, or less noticeable areas on one’s body. The cuts are not meant to cause permanent damage or harm, nor are they meant as a suicidal gesture. The cuts are the means to an end themselves — they provide a source of immediate but non-serious physical pain (as long as they are allowed to heal cleanly). Other forms of self-injury include burning, or keeping old wounds open or inviting infection in them to keep them painful.
The people with the most severe self-injury behavior often can think of little else as they go through their day — it becomes something more than just a way to deal with emotional pain, it becomes its own obsession, as it did with Becki, a person who self-injured and is profiled in an article that appeared online in Newsweek last week:
Becki describes it as an obsessive battle, and one she often lost. At her worst, she says she spent every hour living and breathing self-injury. She dreamed about it. She’d think about it at school. She bought every book published on it. She searched for self-injury Websites, and compiled what she found into a 13-page Website of her own. “I was cutting 10-plus times a day, and still, if I didn’t do it, I would feel like I was missing something,” she says.
Newsweek’s article is a fairly good read on self-injury and self-harm, describing what self-injury is, using Becki as a case study, and brings us up-to-date on treatment options and the latest research into self-injury. If nothing else, it helps bring this behavior out into the open more, helping people understand that it is not something that one should be ashamed of and that it can be treated.
As the article notes, self-injury isn’t recognized as a mental disorder by itself. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be treated. Treatment usually is done through psychotherapy, and focuses on helping the person identify their own triggers for self-injurious behavior, and find alternative methods for helping them deal with the emotional pain in their life.
Read the full article: Why She Cuts
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12 Comments to
“Cutting and Self-Injury”
Great post and article. It seems as society becomes less connected on a personal face-to-face basis and with the breakdown of family that one of the consequences is lack of modeling of how to deal with our emotions.
I started self-injury when I was about 5 or 6. The urges continue to this day. I know that it is an indicator of intense emotions usually anger and just wanting to numb the pain. The other reason is self-hatred and that becomes scary because it is when I really, really want to injury myself like break a bone or something. I don’t hear much about the last reason. For me, they are very distinct states.
To me, cutting is just 2000s version of poping the bottle or doing drugs. Another way to cope with emotional pain…
Speaking from experience. 
Physical Pain
Thanks for that…
Im 13 and I self harm I have been for nearly 2years, I stoped for about 2monthes and just started again last week!
I feel ashamed but I don’t know what else I can do! And also im a dancer so wearing a leotard sometimes people notice cuts on my legs… you get stares from people who don’t know you! I stopped because 2009 im going to a full time dance school but I just couldn’t keep myself from doing it!!
I have been diagnosed with depression and have probably had it most of my life. A number of times I have been suicidal. It was usually as I was heading toward one of those episodes that I would beat myself - usually on my thighs or scalp where no one would notice the bruises. A couple of times my self-hatred was so intense that I gave myself black eyes and/or fat lips. The physical pain became an outlet for the emotional pain that I just couldn’t deal with. I feel very fortunate that I have found (finally) wonderful mental health care professionals that are helping me but I still have so much shame around the self-abuse.
“In the case of self-injury, that something else is physical pain. It focuses your attention and takes your mind off of your emotional pain, if only for a little while. ”
Not always about physical pain, Dr. Grohol. The Newsweek article points that out.
“In the case of self-injury, that something else is physical pain. It focuses your attention and takes your mind off of your emotional pain, if only for a little while. ”
Not always about physical pain, Dr. Grohol. The Newsweek article points that out.
Wow. Dear Rachel, ….and everyone else….
I’m 14 years old. I dance at school, and I started cutting last month…before that I had slapped myself every so often when i had a bad thought or something. Part of me wants to stop, and part of me doesn’t…its weird isn’t it?
Please be wary of generalizing about self-injury. I am a research who focus on self-injury and, while there is definite evidence to support the use of cutting as a distraction or substitution for emotional pain, there may be many other reasons as well. Studies have found a plethora of reasons, from stopping pain, to communicating, to avoiding actually attempting suicide, to release of tension and on and on. I think that people do it for different reasons and we shouldn’t assume everyone who engages in this behaviour is the same.
For the teenagers who have posted here about self-injuring: Please tell someone! It is surprisingly common, you’re not alone but you will me much happier if you can find a more positive way to deal with the many difficulties of life.
Through my eyes.
A poetry book based on self harm and the hidden depths of a teenage mind.
This book was written to show self harmers and people with mental health conditions that they are not alone there is someone out there who understands.
Also for people helping others deal with self harm, helping them understand what they are going through.
Written by a young author who suffered from self harm and depression throughout many stages of her life.
She wrote poetry throughout her teen years to help her to stop self harming and gain control over her life again.
For more information Visit: myeyez.co.uk
I’m a teenager, and I cut myself. I don’t know why it doesn’t seem like a serious problem to me, but I know I’m sort of in denial about it. I see a counselor, and now she and my parents want me to see a psychiatrist as well. The problem is, I don’t feel depressed. I laugh and smile just like everyone else. I wish I could find out if something really is going on.
I didn’t read the ‘NewWeek article’, and as usual, I come across this writing when it’s already outdated. i have also noticed that the author, at least from what I have read by him this past week, does not respond top comments. I do not like that part,but don’t feel like putting too much effort into explaining.
Two quick thoughts.
Yes, self cutting is very ‘addicting’, and I am only mentioning this because I am surprised nobody has used the word ‘addiction’ here.
There are many common reasons, or shared reasons why people do it, but there are also private reasons. (Again, just want to bring this up as ‘food for thought’.)
Further, I don’t think that ‘pain’ is such a great way for communicating purpose either. I mean, often it doesn’t really hurt at all, and this has much to do with the cutter’s state of mind at the time.
If I were to take a knife right now and stab myself with it, yes, I am sure that would hurt. But I think one reason people do it, and when they do it, is not only when, or because they are in emotional pain but because something even worse is going on, and that is that they are feeling totally numb, and/or feeling ‘nothing’.
The cutting, or whatever, helps to bring feelings back to the person, and usually in this case the ones that come back are feelings of well-being and/or euphoria.
So much for my contribution of wisdom today. kat
PS: by feeling numb, or nothing, this can be a generalized feeling, or it can also become, or feel, more specific. (i.e. one’s arm may feel completely detached from one’s body and like a ‘tree trunk’, or foreign object that is not even connected to the body. When that happens, the cutting is surely not painful in the least.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 6 Jan 2009
