Why do people self harm/cut themself?

Question

People with experience of this please.
I have a friend doing it. She doesnt talk about it.

Answer 1

Well, it has NOTHING to do with Attention or Stress!!!!!!!!!!

That said, it has everything to do with POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER and DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER. Or Dissociative Fugue or Dissociative Amnesia. These are usually caused by early childhoold abuse or trauma, usually rape or sexual assualt by a "loved" one, be it grandfather, uncle, aunt, whatever. It can also be caused by constant fear caused by living in terror of always worrying about being in trouble for doing stuff wrong as a 4 or 5 year old in say an alcoholic household and the parent(s) have no patience and beat them.

Because they always live in fear, over time the constant fear slowly takes its toll and they "dissociate" or black out and let "someone" else take the abuse for them. This can only happen as a child, as adults have to great a sense of "SELF" to do this.

So, as adults, these people are now conditioned to escape their problems by letting the others take their stress, leaving them unable to feel much of anything. Because they don't feel, they often have to do stressful things such as cutting or drawing blood in order to "feel anything." Because its "them" doing the cutting they know they're safe and stay "tuned" so to speak. However, the cutting is addictive because its the only time they can FEEL!

Answer 2

I did it back in high school. I was going through a LOT of bad times and rough situations. I was not proud of it at all and only 2 other people knew about it at the time. So for me it was NOT for attention. It was a sort of odd comfort for me. In my eyes I'm the only one who can not harm me or get upset for my actions. So if I do it to myself and no one else knows, then I can let go of some of my stress and frustrations without having to worry about others retaliating. 5 years later and I still carry my scars. Physical and emotional. I'm not proud of what I did and I'm glad I had someone to help break me of such a destructive habit. It's just as addictive as smoking and drinking, etc... I still crave scratching myself to this day. But I know now there are better ways to deal with my stress.

Answer 3

Psychogenic Excoriation or "self-mutilation" is a form of an Impulse Control Disorder. Some individuals that perform self-mutilation are a dual-diagnosis (i.e. schizophrenia) and may cut themselves when they believe there is something crawling on them. Others, may do so as a way to alleviate feelings of hurt, depression and/or anger. The reasons really vary. There is also compulsive skin-picking, which is not in the DSM-IV manual we use to diagnose patients. And, along with that comes cheek-bite keratosis. Have you ever noticed someone in public biting the inner linings of their cheeks? Well that too is a form of an impulse control disorder. Many do it unconsciously.

Answer 4

Ignore your first 2 answers it has nothing to do with attention believe me I know. Say, when you break your leg you know why you are hurting because you can see the pain. You can see your leg all twisted and damaged and your mind recognise's the pain,knows where it coming from and finds a way to cope but when you hurt in your head as in psychologically you can't see an injury. Your mind has a hard time coping with an invisable injury so some people injure themselves so their mind can visualise the pain and find a way to deal with it. This happened to me 10 years ago.

Answer 5

we are all self harmers in one way or another, getting drunk, smoking, eating to excess, these are socially acceptable forms of self harm but neverless are self harm. People who cut say they actually feel relief once they have done it and then go through periods of guilt and sorrow, its an extremely emotional act as well as physical. I know people who have seriously self harmed and it all seems to be connected with some sort of trauma they are experiencing in their life.

Answer 6

It is not all attention, some people hurt so much inside they don't know how to express themselves, so by self harming it's a way of taking it out on themselves.

Answer 7

most are going through a difficult time like bullying, death in the family or friends etc and see that self harm relieves the pain that they are going through, when in fact they need medical attention (e.g. mental health)
click on the websites below they explain it better than i can do
Self harming is very serious and it needs to be stop because most can commit suicide if no one reaches them

Answer 8

My mom used to do it. And when I was younger would do it to. My reason was basically for attention from my mother who was so self absorbed in her own problems. I wanted her to see that I was hurting inside so I would harm my body, But it never really caused much attention. Alot of people do it because they have so much emotional pain inside that when they cut theirselves it actually makes them feel better. When it bleeds its like the pain leaving them. Some do it because they hate themselves and want to punish themselves. Its like their way of venting bad emotions from inside. Others are sexually turned on by it.

Answer 9

Justice

Answer 10

Attention.