Cutting- The "New Age Anorexia"

[olpluvr]

Mutilation, self-inflicted wounds, cutting, parasuicide. We hear about teenagers who cut parts of their body due to emotional distress, but there remains the true question: are these teenagers cutting to gain attention from family others, to fit in with other teenagers who are also doing it, or is it being done in secret to rid of emotional pain?

Comments

Response: ferret_angels

[olpluvr]

I believe there are 2 different types of "mutilators", if you will. As you have mentioned above, there are those who really do have a problem or fixation with self-harm and others who are doing it just because. The only reason I can come up with for the second type of person affiliated with self-injury is that he/she feels alone and has no other way to get attention.

But for those people, they may realize that it is a great way to get rid of stress- or at least forget it for the time being. For those who are addicted to it, there must be a trigger to become addicted in the first place so even if they are "crying wolf" it should be taken seriously so it doesn't become an action that they cannot help.

And I can assure you that all "know that mutilation is NOT a healthy answer, and should just not do it" but what about those who honestly cannot help tearing flesh from their bodies and/or picking up scissors and slicing their wrists? That guilt trip just makes them feel more indifferent and they keep asking "WHY, WHY CAN'T I STOP?!?!?!" It's hard to comprehend why someone can't stop these tendencies when it seems as easy as "just stop it" or "just don't do it", but I do not have the answer as to why an addict can't stop. When there's an addiction to anything, it becomes equivalent to asking someone without a degrading fixation to stop breathing. Of course there are ways to treat all addictions but it's hard work that can become discouraging.

To address your last concern about people cutting and how it can't be for beauty, that is also false. If you visit http://www.bmezine.com/ you will see many forms of controversial body art, such as piercings on the back in a visual of a corset, scarification, etc.

Re: Response: ferret_angels

[ferret_angels]

What I am trying to understand is the whole aspect of one slicing themselves to alleviate stress. Even though I definitely don't promote smoking/drug use/alcoholism in any way, I can understand why a person would use those as crutches when stressed out. All of those things have an addictive ingredient that hooks the user, and are proven to provide relaxation. I just cannot understand how physically harming oneself would help in any way. One could say it's "addictive" but there isn't any "ingredient".

I also agree that a "cutter" should be taken seriously and provided with proper help. In all honestly though, most cutters DON'T even want to kill themselves. Most suicidal people don't want people to know of their plans, and keep them completely hidden. The only tell-tale sign is deep depression. I think that if a cutter "commits suicide", it's usually accidental, them getting carried away with cutting and hitting a major artery.

I still don't believe that self-mutilation is beautiful. A lot of people who get "corsets" and put scars on their bodies as "beauty" do it for attention. I mean, a person with their ears stretched all out of wack with a huge circular "thing" is screaming, "LOOK AT ME". I don't even want to get into the whole corset issue...yuck!!