Secrets of SelfMutilation

By Ariane Albert

There will always be a time where you will feel lost; you don't know what to do. All you want to do is run away, to do this you cut yourself to feel self-relief and to get away from all these problems you have. "I never looked at it as anything bad at first

just my way of getting my mind off something I felt really awful about" ( Cutting 4). This is how three million teens think globally. The only way for them to cope with their hard feelings is to self-harm. They don't know how to express their feelings with words, so to get rid of these words they start to harm themselves. Its like slapping a Band-Aid when what you really need are stitches (Cutting and Self-Harm 1). Each teen has a story of why they do such a thing to themselves. No matter what, these kids need help, so that they can escape from all their depressions. Many teens suffer from self-mutilation because of deep depression, lack of attention and past traumas.

You don't have to be perfect; there will always be a time where you will feel lost and imperfect. This can be a very depressing moment, but no matter what; cutting is not the solution. As a result a lot of teens have experienced this before, they didn't know what to do and to them cutting is the perfect solution. The teens who self-mutilate think this is their only way out and it turns into an addiction. The main reason why teens end up cutting is because of deep depressions. The victims might have a really bad fight with someone dear to them and they get rid of their depressions by cutting (Self-Harm and cutting). In this case, depressions start off small, but can grow as the time passes. To them this seems smart, but what they don't really know, is that cutting turns into a serious addiction. These depressions can also get worse as the time passes. Any teen that starts get any depressions might not see this as a threat, which will make them want to hide it, but later on it may get worse. At the same time, there are many teens who keep their depressions secret; they are scared of what people think. This can make them feel anger, hurt, shame, frustration, or alienation; this leads to self-mutilation. Meanwhile, all the feelings that are building up in the teen's mind will drive them crazy. He/she will feel so bad that they want self-relief; to get this self-relief, they self-mutilate (Cutting). For them, self-mutilations can give them self-relief. All of their worries are gone and they keep on harming themselves. Teens who start to self-mutilate, do not know what they are doing to themselves. In other words, they are so depressed, that they think that harming themselves will make all their worries disappear.

There will always be a child who is seeking for attention; these kids will do anything to be noticed by others. Many teens who seek for attention form a group that cut themselves to get this attention. Its their way to showing the middle finger to the world(Cutting through pain). Psychology Today in May mentioned that self-mutilation is a huge and growing problem. No one knows the number of cutters, but sources have brought up that teens are now cutting in groups. Thus, teens are cutting in groups to get attention from others. Dr. Favazza says that teens take cutting as a joke and act as if this were only a game; kids gather together and start to show off their cuts, they do this to get attention, show that they are unique and annoy their parents. Medical Post interviewed a 14-year-old Toronto girl Oh yeah, I have a friend who cuts, our school is known for cutting, she says with bravado, referring to her private girls school, whereas (another private school) is known for eating disorders. Her tone implies that any one cool enough to be alarmed by this should get a life (Cutting through pain). As a result, this shows that teens enjoy cutting themselves for they will gain more attention. In addition, there will always be teens who want to be part of the Cutting group; these teens are called pseudo-cutters. In summary, a large amount of teens start to cut because they feel that they lack attention and need more. Their solution to gaining more attention is to self-mutilate.

Having experienced a trauma isnt a rarity. Some traumas might have occurred when the victim was a small child, it could also have occurred later in their life time. The trauma might have scared the victim so much, that he/she is now scarred for life. These traumas stay in their mind forever. To get rid of theses traumas, they cut themselves. A child might have been abused, when he/she was young. Now the child is grown up, but still haves a hard time coping with the idea that he/she has been abused. (Self-harm and cutting) Cutting will help the child/ now adult feel in control. This feeling gives them power, it makes them think that no one can take control of them and they will never be abused again. They may be dealing with feelings that seem too difficult to bear or bad situations they think cant change. ( Cutting ). These bad situations/ traumas will always be in the victims mind and they will always know that it happened and that it could happen again. To escape from all these feelings

and thoughts, they try to have self-relief. Big or minor traumas dont make a difference; they are both traumas and they may lead to consequences, such as cutting.

Every now and then you feel as if cutting were the best thing you have ever did, but deep down, you know its the wrong choice. It all starts to get very addictive and you feel as if you could never stop again. Cutting is a major issue in our world, more and more people are starting to cut for various reasons. Cutters look all happy on the outside, but in reality, they arent. They are either depressed of something, experience a trauma or are seeking attention. The victims, who cut, keep this secret not wanting anyone to know and just for a while they feel happy. Every time they cut they have this feeling as if all of their problems disappear. There will always be different reasons to why someone cuts themselves; they either experienced a trauma, have depressions or they are seeking for attention. For these people cutting will be their only way out. Cutting is a way some people try to cope with the pain of strong emotions, intense pressure, or upsetting relationship problems. ( Cutting) Cutting is their only way to express all the feelings that they have in themselves.

Works Cited page:

Lyness, D'Arcy. "Cutting." Teens Health. Nemours, Web. 9 June 2012. Milne, Celia. "Cutting through the pain." Medical Post. 21 Sep. 2004: 25. eLibrary. Web. 26 Apr. 2013. Rochman, Bonnie . "For Teens who Cut, going Online can Sometimes Help." Time Health and Family . CNN, 23 Feb. 2011. Web. 26 Apr. 2013. Smith, Melinda, and Jeanne Segal. "Cutting and Self-Harm." Help Guide. Jan. 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2013.