Cutting - A Disorder Or A Fashion Statement

Cutting has been around since the 1950’s, and even before that it was present. Basically ‘cutting’ is commonly found between teenage girls, but it doesn’t mean that teenage boys are not affected by it or that they don’t do it. Cutting usually starts in the adolescence because it is when a person is most vulnerable to emotions, and it is a time for change in the body and mind.

What is cutting? Cutting is a way of self injuring on purpose, by making scratches or cuts on your body with any kind of sharp object, by pressing the ‘object’ hard on your skin enough to make it slice and bleed. There are other ways to self injury like burning your skin with a cigarette, lighter or matches; people who cut or burn themselves usually hide their scars under clothing. Around winter nobody ever notices that a person cuts, but when summer arrives two things can happen: either the person wears long sleeved shirts - it doesn’t matter if the weather is hot -, or they do put on T-shirts and just try to hide the cuts with their own body.

They learn where to cut, how to cut, and they avoid athletics. They shower or dress in such a way that no one will notice. They're careful about revealing themselves - they look to see who's around.

Sometimes it’s hard to understand why a person cuts, but it’s a way for them to cope with strong emotions, pressure, stress, or relationship problems. Sometimes people that cut, don’t know how to release pain in other ways than self injury.

Cutting is a very confused way of feeling in ’control’. People who cut may feel different things, some might feel like they don’t ’fit in’; others might do it because they lost someone loved and they don’t want to feel empty; it also seems to be a way to not feel rejected.

Cutting is sometimes associated with mental health problems like, depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, obsessive thinking, borderline personality disorder, or compulsive behaviors. Some people that cut abuse of alcohol or drugs. And in some other cases, people that cut do it because they we’re or are being abused either sexually, or physically.

Others people say and think that until they cut, they aren’t alive. Some feel so numb, and so out of touch that the slicing somehow validates them.

Maybe because this seems a bit forbidden girls and boys do it because they believe it is a new fad. But it’s not, people that do do this for attention are just dumb, I do believe it is a problem and it should not be used to create attention, that is just stupid and immature.

Girls and boys that self-injure are trying to deal with serious problems. Many work extremely hard to overcome the habit. So they find it hard to believe that some people cut because they think it’s a way to seem rebellious or tough.

Even though cutting can provide a temporary relief from a horrible feeling, even people that cut will tell you that it isn’t a good way to relief pain. The troubles that triggered the cutting are still there, they never left; they are just masked over.

Some people who cut don’t intent to hurt themselves permanently. It is really easy to misjudge the depth of a cut, sometimes they're so deep they might need stitches or even hospitalization. Some cuts can get infected if they are done with an non sterile or dirty instrument - like pins, razors, or scissors.

Most people who cut aren’t attempting suicide, for some it’s just a way to ask for help without words. But it doesn’t mean that all of cutters aren’t going to attempt suicide. Cutting can become a compulsive behavior; that means that the more a person does it, the more the person feels the need to do it. The brain starts to connect the false sense of relief, the cutting is what makes the body feel better, and the next time the person feels bad the body will crave this feeling.

The feeling that it gives you is of being “high” , that is how some cutters call it, when a person cuts themselves the body releases these things called ‘endorphins’. These endorphins relief physical pain in the human body.

When it does become a compulsive behavior it seems almost impossible to stop, it becomes like an addiction that the body craves for. And most of the time the urge to cut is too hard to resist. So a habit that is supposed to make you feel in ‘control’, actually controls you.

The reason that we don’t hear much about this ‘disorder’ is because it is of great shame. When people go to the doctor they never bring it up, and it goes unnoticed. And I bet that if a kid tells a doctor about what they have done without explanation, the doctor is going to assume that it was done to produce attention, and tell the parents. But that is wrong, most of the people that do cut with a reason do feel bad about what they have done afterwards.

If a parent finds out that there son/daughter is cutting, first inform yourself about what is going on. Then talk to them, and teach the that what there doing is wrong. Many parents just turn to denial and say that it is just a phase. It's important to realize that cutting is a symptom of a more serious underlying problem. You can try and curb it by taking away sharp objects, but a cutter will turn from one thing to another. If you leave matches laying around they will burn themselves.

Parents also need to know that cutting is a problem and it will not go away easily.

Help them, it’s hard to see people you care about hurt themselves.