can someone please tell me why some pple self harm and claim 2 feel relief it looks painful to me y do it?

Answer 1

What Is Cutting?

Injuring yourself on purpose by making scratches or cuts on your body with a sharp object - enough to break the skin and make it bleed - is called cutting. Cutting is a type of self-injury, or SI. Cutting is more common among girls, but guys sometimes self-injure, too. People may cut themselves on their wrists, arms, legs, or bellies. Some people self-injure by burning their skin with the end of a cigarette or lighted match.

When cuts or burns heal, they often leave scars or marks. People who injure themselves usually hide the cuts and marks and sometimes no one else knows.

Self-injury is not new. It's also not a very common behavior. But lately people are talking about it more. As guys and girls hear about cutting, they may feel curious about it and why people do it. Because it seems a little bit forbidden, some younger teens may think that cutting might make them seem daring, grown up, or popular.

With all the talk about it, cutting can almost seem like the latest fad. But cutting is a serious problem.
Why Do People Cut Themselves?

It can be hard to understand why people cut themselves on purpose. Cutting is what experts call an unhealthy coping mechanism. This means that the people who do it have not developed healthy ways of dealing with strong emotions, intense pressure, or upsetting relationship problems.

The urge to cut might be triggered by strong feelings the person can't express - such as anger, hurt, shame, frustration, or depression. People who cut sometimes say they feel they don't fit in or that no one understands them. A person might cut because of losing someone close or to escape a sense of emptiness. Cutting might seem like the only way to find relief, or the only way to express personal pain over relationships or rejection.

People who cut or self-injure sometimes have other mental health problems that contribute to their emotional tension. Cutting is sometimes (but not always) associated with depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, obsessive thinking, or compulsive behaviors. It can also be a sign of mental health problems that cause people to have trouble controlling their impulses or to take unnecessary risks. Some people who cut themselves have problems with drug or alcohol abuse.

Some people who cut have had a traumatic experience, such as living through abuse, violence, or a disaster. Self-injury may feel like a way of "waking up" from a sense of numbness after a traumatic experience. Or it may be a way of reinflicting the pain they went through, expressing anger over it, or trying to get control of it.

Answer 2

There are medical reasons that people self-harm - the basic one being that it feels good. Cutting is an addictive behaviour, just the same as using drugs or smoking cigarettes. When someone cuts [or otherwise hurts him or herself], his or her brain releases endorphines. These are the same brain chemicals that cause 'runner's high' and are like opiates - which are the same chemicals that are used in cocaine. In other words, your body gets pleasure-causing chemicals when you cut yourself, almost exactly like the chemicals your body gets artificially if you were to use cocaine. This is why its SO addicting and SO hard to stop - after all, people find it very understanding that people have a hard time quitting drugs.

Endorphines can also make the 'relief' feeling that some people feel. Personally, when I used to injure myself, after I did it I could take a deep breath and really calm down, whereas before I was usually freaking out. The endorphines both calm you down and cause pleasure, so it can definitely be relieving.

Beyond the physical reasons, there are a lot of psychological reasons that people self-harm. Some people do it as a way to control one thing in their lives, often times the same reason a person turns to an eating disorder. Others do it as a way to feel something when they feel numb emotionally. Still others do it as a way to show their inner pain on their outsides.

I don't think that people who don't self-harm will ever understand fully why people do it and why they get relief from it, or even like it. I know it sounds crazy, and to a certain extent, it is - no one who is mentally fully healthy hurts themselves on purpose.

Answer 3

They claim it relieves the pain for lack of a better way to put it. Cutting in particular becomes less "painful" the more you do it. (Like when I was in labor with my daughter and the doctor made an incision, I felt the skin seperate and no pain.) The main reason they do it is because it's a "pain" they can control. They've usually been abused in one way or another and emotional scars don't always show. In a way, the scars they create are symbolic of the scars you'll never see physically.


edit :
Again, for lack of a better way to put it, YES it is a cry for attention. This cry for attention can be likened to screaming rape during an assault. Please don't trivialize these peoples problems. They need help, and trust me they don't want it. It's not as simple as "relief" or "a cry for attention".

Answer 4

Sometimes the pain of reality is so bad that pain in the flesh is a lesser pain. I can't tell you how this can be, but I know it to be true. I was a cutter in my early teens, and it helped me drown out some things in my life that were more unbearable. I didn't know it was an illness til many years later when I saw it on a talk show. Luckily I matured and learned to deal with things and am fine. We can't possibly know the pain that some people are suffering mentally or emotionally. Physical pain is sometimes much much less.

Answer 5

You would need to do a little study of biology. Pain releases chemicals into the brain that can mimic pleasure. This is why some people like tattooing for instance, or piercing....

Think about marathon runners or professional bikers like Lance Armstrong....there is a high that you get from getting into the pain.

Hey, I dont 'get it'....but I understand it biologically.

Answer 6

There are a lot of written 'expert' answers to this human, phenomenal, behavior . . . you can invest a lot of time and energy reading all this insightful information . . .

BOTTOM LINE ----

Unless or until you experience the desire to participate in this behavior, and then actually 'do it', you shall never be able to fully understand the motivation for it.

Personal experience = ear piercing in high school
My only 'self-harm' physical pain event --- I'll NEVER do that again, or subject my offspring to same . . . no matter how lovely (seductive) earrings are - and I'll NEVER understand today's phenomena with body piercings, etc. . .

Answer 7

Some do enjoy the pain ! Pain to them could be taken as pleasure - this happens when your nerve system needs a lot of feeling to satisfy it self.

Answer 8

It's bad when others hurt you, it's a shame when you hurt yourself.

I think when anyone self mutilates themselves, it's a loud cry for attention.

It's best to get attention from achieving ones talents and goals then harming ones self.

Find something else that makes you feel good about yourself and do that instead of hurting ones self. O.K...

Answer 9

not everyone knows how to deal with their emotional pain. it's hard to know that other people can hurt you deeply and you have no control over it. when a person self-harms it is a way to be in control of the hurt, to take the control away from other people.

Answer 10

Because people can control their pain that way. Usually they are in pain because of other people and now they want to take charge. It probably is painful, but in this case it becomes mind over matter, and I guess it doesn't hurt as much because their mind is taking control of the situation.

If you do hurt yourself, then you need to seek help. Immediately.