Can someone explain to me where the stigma around cutting comes from?
Obviously I am not promoting cutting. It’s not healthy. And if someone’s cutting themselves because they feel like they deserve to be mutilated, well… that’s a different ball game. But I’ve met people who cut as a coping mechanism for stress. Several of them have said the same thing: that it clears their mind, allows their thoughts to stop racing, allows a kind of quiet and stillness. That sounds awfully similar to what I get out of meditating. (And yes, I’d recommend meditation and would NOT recommend cutting.)
But all that said… I’m wondering… smoking is a pretty darn unhealthy coping mechanism, too. Why do we react to someone saying they cut to deal with stress as if they were the most hopeless of cases–as if they are doing something shameful–and as if that must mean they want to commit suicide–when we don’t react to smokers that way? Both involve self-harm. But if I say I smoke to deal with stress, very rarely does anyone suggest I’m subconsciously wanting to kill myself. It’s just acknowledged as a habit–an unhealthy habit, sure, but a habit to help me deal with stress.
Isn’t it possible that cutting, for some people, is similar?
I’ve never cut. So I am really asking. Is there a difference? Is cutting always a sign of self-loathing, or can it ever just be a(n unhealthy) way to deal with stress? Anyone who cuts (or used to cut), any psychologists, anyone want to answer this?
And where does all the stigma around cutting come from?
Filed under: addiction, mental health, mental illness | Tagged: cutting, habits, questions, smoking, stress
I started cutting when I was 14. I’ve also burned, hit, whipped, scolded and done all sorts of things to myself and I can absolutely 100% without a shadow of any doubt say that it never, not once, ever, on any occasion that I did it have anything to do with: self loathing, self hate, the desire to die, punishment or any of the other things I have thrown at me by media, society and ignorant people who just don’t understand self harm.
Self harm/Cutting/SI, however you want to refer to it is a mechanism to deal with stress. That’s why I started, because the pain I was feeling internally I couldn’t cope with and I needed a way to deal with this pain; it became cutting, which offered me relief, and made me feel better.
The problem with cutting though is it becomes an addiction – a shallow cut which was once enough to relieve the pain needs to become deeper and deeper and deeper every time you do it in order to find that same relief.
This is where people who SI end up killing themselves; they don’t “want” to, but as the addiction grows the injuries they inflict become worse and worse and sometimes – accidentally – are fatal.
I have known several people who self harm, and none have done it out of any desire of self loathing, it has always been a coping mechanism.
As for cigarettes – the very reason I started smoking to begin with – was as a way to cope and overcome with SI. I stopped cutting and started self-inflicting with cigarettes. Simple as that – I exchanged cutting with a more socially acceptable (to a degree) form of SI.
I’ve no idea where the stigma around cutting comes from. I have no idea where the stigma around any mental illness comes from. It does however drive me insane, and in some way the media is responsible for the way they portray those with mental illness. It ill-informs and miseducates society so that they do not understand any of the issues surrounding these illnesses. It is something which needs to change!
I’ve written extensively on self harm on my own blog, as well as stigma surrounding mental illness, as it is a subject close to my heart.
Here is a good video of an “ex-cutter:’
http://raynesworld.blogspot.com/2007/10/confessions-of-ex-cutter.html
I was going to post the same link…way to go Gianna!
As a psychologist: Cutting is not necessarily a sign of self-loathing. The fixation of attention as well as the shock to the body do create a physiological, biochemical sense of relief that becomes increasingly behaviorally reinforced with each episode. The ritual of cutting, I believe, is primal and ancient, an entree into a soothing, numbing state of dissociation. Think of all the bloodletting in ancient rituals of scarification, circumcision, early medicine. As for the stigma: that comes from ignorance and fear. Marsh Linehan, a brilliant psychologist, refers to cutting as “para-suicidal behaviors.” While the intent may not be suicide, helpers must take it very seriously in case of accidental death, such as cutting a major artery. That’s all. I haven’t seen the video yet. Will later.
I think the stigma comes from the fact that non-cutters don’t understand what cutters get from cutting. I’m not addicted to recreational drugs, but I do see the allure in escaping through getting drunk or high. If I’d never experienced the urge to cut, I’d look at the act as freakish.
As a peer support worker and former self harmer, from Scotland, I found it very encouraging to read the posts above. I thought they were very thorough and open-minded and I’m looking foward to watching the video of ex-cutter as, I’m sure it will be equally encouraging.
Thanks