Can cutting be a lifestyle choice?

Question

Please, serious answers only please.
People use a lot of different methods to cope with stress. Some don't eat, some overeat (a BIG problem in the US), some have anxiety attacks, some smoke, and some people cut tehmselves, or self-mutilate. Now, being overweight and underweight, and smoking, are generally frowned upon, yet accepted in modern society, so why can't cutting be considered to be an outlet for stress? Smoking leads to millions of deaths for year, and most cutters tend to be very calculating, so many can go for years without having an accident that puts them in the ER.
Serious answers only, please. It was just a thought I was having.

I'm not a cutter and I've never personally known one. I'm taking a course over summer semester and I started thinking, that's all

Congratulations on quitting smoking, delicious. My father just quit after 40 years!

Holy Man: Being overweight is majority of the time voluntary. I can pick up a knife, a cigarette, or a burger everyday. Each one has consequences. After three months of doing none I won't have open cuts, or my lungs will clear, or I'll be thinner. Each one is a vice, so why put a value judgement on it?

A smoker's health or an obese person's physical health can decline quickly as the years go by. A cutter can cut their whole lives and never experience more than scarring and minor infections. They're not compounded over time, they're just unsitely and the cutter will aquire more the more they cut.
I think it's safe to say all of the things I have mentioned will only cover up ny mental problems rather than solve them, as they're all coping methods.

Answer 1

I believe that cutting and overeating and even drug use all come from trying to find a coping mechanism to deal with your stress. I personally have battled drug addiction and hurting myself in hopes of letting the pain out. I have been counseled and in someways it worked. The world today gives us so much more stress that it is hard for a lot of people to deal. I myself like i said did things to my body and ingested things to ease the pain..I believe to an extent all these things addiction, self-mutilation, obesity and anorexia, bulimia. well you know what i mean all these diseases may start out as a life-style choice but they all end in death and your choice turns in to a disease that runs your life..I encourage you or anyone reading this to get help if you have any of these issues. I have been there and there is no light at the end of the tunnel..Don't let your life-style choice destroy your life...

Answer 2

Yes, smoking and being overweight is by far more dangerous than cutting oneself. I did cut for years and years and never once did I even cut so deep that I needed stitches nor did I ever experience an infection on any cuts or burns I made on my body. I now have hundreds of scars that will never fade, but ah such is life. It is regarded as an outlet for stress, an very unhealthy outlet for stress and a symptom of mental illness.

The problem here is that neither being fat, smoking or cutting are healthy coping mechanisms. It's just that cutting oneself is unsightly and dangerous to those who don't understand. Most people who cut themselves will not accidentally kill themselves! In my experience it's a ridiculous thing to worry about. I even tried to cut that deep once with a brand new razor and couldn't even get close. It hurt too damn much, so I overdosed instead. It wasn't the cutting that drove me to it. It was the depression, but many argue that cutting causes suicide. How many fat smokers out there commit suicide? A lot, but no one says, smoking causes suicide. It doesn't scare people the same way. The damage that a smoker or obese person does to themself is not as obvious as a bloody cut.

Besides, the stigma associated with cutting and the emotions that drove myself to it are the most dangerous part about it. The stigma, I'll have to face for the rest of my life because of the scars. Wearing a tshirt would be attention seeking behavior on my part, I'm not a teenager anymore and what kind of adult wants that shite? Even as a teenager, I knew better. I would be an outcast, like a leper if someone saw especially at work. The emotions though, not many people who are obese or smoke cigarettes are doing it because of depression, anxiety and shame.

Cutting is often a symptom of an underlying mental health issue, that doesn't mean that there always is a mental disorder. Many many people have symptoms of disorders without actually having a disorder. Smoking and for the most part over eating is not a sign of mental illness (yes, I know sometimes it is). Those people out there, and there are some, who cut themselves because they enjoy it like a smoker enjoys a cigarette, fine. It can happen that such a person just enjoys it or 'gets off' or does it because their friends do it (it has become a fad, like tattoos these days) for them it is a lifestyle choice.

It's unreasonable to lump all people who cut themselves into calling it a lifestyle choice, but it's equally unreasonable to say that everyone who cuts themselves is mentally ill and requires professional help. It's very individual. Compare it to getting your nipples pierced to amputating your fingers and calling them both acceptable and healthy body modification.

Much of what consitutes as 'mental disorder' or abnormal behavoir is based upon societal norms, but it's more complex than that. Right now cutting is slowly being recognized as an emo fad and for many teenagers out there, it is. Does that mean that cutting will stop being considered a symptom? No. It just means that the reasons behind cutting will have to be further looked at. That cutting alone will not be, nor should it ever be, considered a disorder (or clear indicator of a problem) itself.

Answer 3

if u do any of what u said just DONT CUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it sucks 2 try 2 stop im trying 2 stop & i cant i just did a few hours ago i would rather smoke then cut

cutting in away is like all the others well it its cause once u start its a hard raod 2 stop & when u C that u have a problem thats normaly the point

they need 2 do more publict things on cutting cause it is a BID problem if u think about it cause they are all sent 2 get help that is kept under raps but they might have more peple that cut in the us the that are overweight or under

just a thought that kind of went with urs

hope it helps in whatever ur doing

Answer 4

I think so, yes. And like any other vice, you must be careful not to get addicted.

I know a lot of people will jump on me for this, but I am an occassional cutter. I suffer from a few mental disorders, but medication turns me into a zombie, and so I choose not to medicate. 90% of the time, I can deal with it just fine.

10% of the time, I can't. And a little bit of cutting puts me back into reality, and keeps me from doing something worse.

It works for me, and I don't do it often. It's even saved my life. And the older I get, the better I get at dealing, and the less I do it.

Who is anyone else to judge?

Answer 5

Sure, it can be. But just like smoking, overeating, or watching Internet porn, many lifestyle choices which help people cope with stress are unhealthy as they may slowly destroy the user in one way or another (physically, emotionally, mentally... etc). And I'm sure you're right---- many cutters do not end up in the ER. And many smokers don't get lung cancer. But lots people do not find smoking, overeating, or watching Internet porn (or cutting) attractive. But then again, that's just a matter of personal opinion.

Answer 6

All of the above! It is a mental disease and a life style choice. We all make choices every single day. It is a coping mechanism and it is an attention ploy as a cry for help. It is a habit. It is obcessive compulsive behavior. If you or a friend does this get help. Go to a doctor. It is too difficult to handle by yourself.

Answer 7

I disagree with anyone who says cutters do it for attention. I had a very traumatic childhood, rarely saw my mother, and spent a lot of it being sent across to Ireland to live with my grandparents. (who I loved enormously) I also have dylsexia but it wasn't diagnosed until I was eleven by which time most teachers had decided I was lazy and a day dreamer and they gave up on me.
I began to self harm because it hurt to begin with, and I honestly believed i was a bad worthless person and that the subsequent pain was deserved. I don't consider myself to be 'calculating' incidentally, but yes, we do learn how to cut and where to cut to avoid accidents.
My family and friends never knew I was a self harmer, I hid it well. So I never understand people who say it's done for attention, I went to great lengths to ensure no-one around me ever knew.
You probably won't understand this, but as I grew older, into my teenage years, and because I wasn't as 'white' as the other children due to my Native American blood, I was often ostracised, and sometimes self harming and seeing the blood actually validated me, made me remember I was alive, because for the most part, growing up, I really didn't feel that I was living.
I think you really need to have lived the life of a self harmer before you can really truthfully understand. It's not a life choice, it's not attention seeking, and the stigma surrounding it is immense simply because other people make sweeping generalisations, or ill founded assumptions without ever looking beneath the cuts to understand the reasons.
I haven't self harmed for several years now, it is difficult to stop, you need reasons, you need belief, and you need good caring people around you, but it can be done

Answer 8

Cutting yourself is more of a violent act to manage stress when compared to other reasons you have mentioned and is the reason why it is not accepted in our society.

smoking - it's addictive and it's hard to quit and people understand that. Also tobacco industry create millions of jobs and smoking has been around for a long time. Also smoking does not seem as violent as cutting yourself with a sharp object.
Overweight - people can be born overweight (some people cannot change that even if they exercise 23/7) and others, as you said, deal stress by over eating but as I mentioned before, it does not seem so violent to deal with stress by over eating when compared to cutting yourself because first of all eating is a normal habit for any living creature and second, blood does not come out of your body when you eat.

The world we live in today, violence against oneself is viewed as very unusual and disturbing to others because people will not see the reasons to hurt yourself to deal with stress. It is "not normal" way to deal with stress. This world has the "normal" way of doing things and if it's not done in the "normal" way, it is not accepted. Now who says that you are normal? Hopefully, you know the answer to that.

Answer 9

People who "cut"
are exhibiting something stronger than merely stress overload,
or stress management.

There is a fierce and urgent intense self hatred, faulting one's
self for unnamed evils within the body, the mind or the soul.
There is a period of time where the mind and emotion is overtaken with this, and driven to both punish and relieve the
body of its unnamed evils. Through the act comes a sickly
element of hope that to punish / cut the body will remove the
intensity of the ills and evils haunting the mind and emotions.
In the moment of the emotional / psychological intensity of pain, although this may be hard to believe, physical pain may
be nearly non-existant. Only once the urgency to punish one's internal person through this gruesome act has passed, does the element of pain return to the body.

This cutting is a sick thing to do, yet it is merely indicative
of the inner condition of the heart and mind of the person.

Hope feels beyond their reach. Their future feels hopeless
and elusive and doomed to repeating the loathing self-punishment. And yet, the cutting brings no fulfillment
and no lasting relief. It can become a cycle of self-defeat.
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Through faith in God, and earnest work with a therapist
I have found long lasting hope and joy and peace within mind, body and soul. For those of you with this problem, you need to know there is HOPE, and there is life free of the need to cut.

Answer 10

A thoughtful question.

It was a lifestyle of choice 100 of years ago. Example1: It was part of a religious teaching, that people can earn salvation by making their physical body suffers (penance) i.e. beating (as was seen with the monk in the movie da vinci code). Hence anyone practicing it was not scrutinized at the time. Until Martin Luther read the bible and found out anyone can achieve salvation by asking for it, not by making the body suffers. Well he did not change everything overnight. IT took time, and now if you physically abuse your body, you'll be taken to psychiatric unit for parasuicide or suicidal attempt.

Example 2: in some tribes in africa, circumscision of girls is a practice. It may sound horrific to us but it has been their practice over 100 of years.

Conclusion, with knowledge, we are moving forward and refining our behaviour in accordance with what we know. It may not be easy to change behaviour, but with time and as younger generation springs up, with the knowledge around them they are more likely to change. 100 of years ago, doctors use to smoke cigar during their meetings, but now, knowing smoking associates with cancer, they are the leading figure in making public policy against smoking. Hence in this "modern society" some or most utilize this knowledge to frown upon people who smokes.

As for the future who knows what changes will happen. We may even move back to the era of self-mutilating.