can cutting be addictive?

Question

I have to write a paper about how an addiction has effected
my life, and i have cut, and i was addicted, and alot of my friends have cut too. but i don't know if cutting is really technically addicting.

Answer 1

That is a great question, and there are two schools of thought. One says that cutting is a learned behavior that people come to depend on. Its not addictive, its just comforting.

Others argue that a person can become addicted and dependant upon the chemical release that the brain gives off when a person is cutting.

Personally I think it is addictive. I literally went through withdrawl every time I tried to stop. I would be weak, and anxious - more prone to panic attacks. I would feel sick. I'd be irritable and emotional. The idea of doing it just one more time consumed me. I couldn't concentrate on anything else. I tool a class on Chemical Dependency and everytime we went through the withdrawl symptoms of some particular drug - I could check off a bunch that I had experienced after trying to quit.

Also addiction is characterized by an increasing tolerance level. This simply means that you have to do whatever it is your doing more frequently and more of it in order to receive the desired effect. This is definitley true for cutting. If starts off with just a single cut or a few cuts - and for most people just keeps escalating - so therefore a person has to cut themselves more, and deeper in order to get the same satisfaction as they did in the beginning with just a single cut.

It took years for me to quit. But as of today I am 1 year 2 months and 9 days cut free! :) YAY!

Anyways - I hope this is helpful. Good luck on your paper. And good luck on your road to recovery!

Answer 2

Well the act of cutting is used to relieve a person of another pain either physical or mental. When you do something that makes you feel better then that act becomes addictive no matter what it is that you are doing to relieve this pain. You are negatively reinforcing the behavior by taking away the pain. When it's a negative reinforcement then you are taking something away even if it feels good or bad. If you positively reinforce then you're adding something even if it's good or bad and an example of that is spanking, yelling, or praise. Do you see how both types of inforcement can be bad or good?

And by the way, it's classified as avoidant or escape problem solving because you're avoiding the real problem and fixing it with another. That would be the same for drinking alcohol or using drugs to escape a problem.

Answer 3

It is an addiction. The reason is that it releases chemicals in the brain like serotonine and the same chemicals that are released when you run, like a runners high. Not to mention that it does make you feel better in the moment or it at least calms you. Cutting is just as much an addiction as any drug.

Answer 4

Yes it certainly can be.

An addiction is a behaviour that gets out of control, basically something that you can't stop either thinking about or acting out, in that respect anything can be addictive...

Chocolate
Speed (as in going fast, not the drug)

To answer your question bluntly, yes cutting can be very addictive to people that get a sense of relief from doing it. It's a very dangerous path to follow as it gets out of control and can leave you in a terrible state.

One of the best sites I have found on the topic is www.enotalone.com , you can find lots of people with experience of it on there if you want more first hand accounts of it.

Hope that helps :o)

Answer 5

Cutting used to be rare. These days because of movies and an overload of information on the internet, you kids have learned about it so it is quite wide spread these days. Cutting is an illness, if you are 'compelled' to do it. You are not. You are doing something you learned about, heard about so you are copying this behavior. You said it all when you said this sounds stupid, because it is. You're not sick, mentally ill, suffering from psychosis, you're just trying something you heard about from your friends. I think you are an idiot. You have no idea what cutting is all about. If I were your mother, I'd kick your @ss.

Answer 6

Yes it is. It releases a chemical that is basically a "feel good" chemical, so you want to keep doing it. There are some sites that go into more detail but from what I have heard, being a cutter and reading the sites can be tempting to make you cut again.

Answer 7

I don't think it's physically addictive (like drugs are) but I think you know as well as I do that you definitely can feel like you "need" to cut. You could proaabably use it for you paper I would imagine.

Answer 8

Katie, check out this site...
http://www.teenhealthfx.com/index.php
Type "cutting" in the Search box.

Many people who are depressed or under severe pressure resort to "cutting" as a way of relieving tension or expressing anger.
Anyone who does this needs professional guidance to help overcome this self-injuring behavior and get to the root of the problem.

Good luck!

Answer 9

You just said you used to cut and you were addicted. If you don't know how real it was, who would?

Answer 10

Yes, it can be, since the body releases endorphins in response, which are a kind of opiate, but, like opiates, tolerance develops, and ever more is needed to achieve the same result. See http://www.ezy-build.net.nz/~shaneris on page 4: self harm.