[ed. note, 11/25/01: it's now been 5 months exactly since I wrote this entry, and the cutting diaryring is up to 525 members. The Gay Diary Diaryring (one of many, I'm sure) has 161 members. Still think we're such a rare, freakish phenomenon? There are similar stigma about "coming out"- the only difference is that gay is forever. Which is cool :) But cutting doesn't have to be. Read on...]
So, spurred (and annoyed) by the most recent entry in my guestbook (from edward, now deleted b/c annoyance factor), I'm writing an entry on cutting. Ignorant people irritate me.
Ok, so I just crashed and lost a paragraph. Gah. Anyway.
SO. First thing to understand is that cutters are NOT sick, twisted, Manson-worshipping freaks. They could be the girl next door, your teacher, your priest or your father. You may or may not know. They are not necessarily suicidal, or even depressive. They don't all do it "for show", or effect or as a "cry for help" as some people believe. It's not always for shock effect or emotional manipulation of others.
I know cutting is hard to understand if you've never done it. I know it may seem gross and disgusting, weak or exhibitionist. I know most non-cutters think we (they?) only do it for attention, because cutters are "sad, pathetic, socially mal-adjusted people" who don't know any other way to get noticed. And I know most people think "Where's the appeal in opening up your skin and dabbling in your own blood? It hurts. Inflicting pain on yourself is inhuman and abnormal."
Abnormal it is, my friend, in that non-cutters are the vocal majority; that doesn't mean it's a small minority. But think of it this way- many tribes, Indian, African, what have you, have a "trial by pain" ascension into adulthood which usually involves some breaking of skin or spilling of blood. "Blood brothers" involves inflicting a wound and mixing your blood with someone else's. Even that goddess of gods and mortals, Angelina Jolie, walks around with a vial of BBT's blood around her neck (granted, she's a little psycho about stuff like that, the thing with Jonny Lee Miller's blood on her wedding coat and stuff, ech, but you get my point- self-inflicted wounds AREN'T RARE.)
Try to see it like this: know anything about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? OCD is defined as "one of the anxiety disorders, a potentially disabling condition that can persist throughout a person's life. The individual who suffers from OCD becomes trapped in a pattern of repetitive thoughts and behaviors that are senseless and distressing but extremely difficult to overcome." OCDs are often linked with (and I think, are an umbrella name for) other diseases, spanning everything from Tourette's Syndrome to trichotillomania (the repeated urge to pull out scalp hair, eyelashes, eyebrows or other body hair) and body dysmorphic disorder (excessive preoccupation with imaginary or exaggerated defects in appearance, and under which can be listed the causes for bullemia and anorexia nervosa). So, in English, an OCD is an action you feel compelled to do, often to relieve feelings of fear, nervousness, wrongness and malaise.
[So, since my computer's being a total twat today, I'm rewriting yet another paragraph...]
Remember "As Good As It Gets"? Um, Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, I think. Remember how he always had to have his cutlery a certain way, how he tried to arrange everything? The idea is you're subconsciously imposing order on the outside world to compensate (counteract?) the turmoil of your inside world. Make sense? You know how they often say that anorexics and bullemics are just control freaks, or perfectionists? This is just a facet of their OCD, making it seem that they often are perfectionists, needing a "perfect" body to be happy, but it's just as often a need to have some element of control in your life. Governing what only YOU have control over and doing anything you want with that control to prove you still have it. Think along those lines.
Now for the hard part. The current trend in cutter issues is to believe that cutting is a type of OCD. You're imposing your own conditions on the only thing you really can- your own body. Instead of bursting out with the anger, sadness, fear or what have you, you inflict that volcano-like eruption on yourself, so you're the only one who suffers from the ramifications. So you can be nice and pleasant and friendly on the surface, and even feel nice and pleasant and friendly, knowing that your best friend or boyfriend won't suffer from the frustration you feel because you already have suffered.
On the chemical level... if you're chemically (or even not chemically) depressed, there are a few ways to give yourself a chemically-induced high.
1) Anti-depressants (Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, or milder stuff like St. John's Wort)
2) Adrenalyn rush (from runner's high, thrill-sports or rides, or other similar things.)
3) chocolate (the phenylethalamine, seratonin and norepinephrines act just like mild anti-depressants.)
4) various "upper" drugs. ALCOHOL IS A DOWNER. REMEMBER THAT.
5) orgasm
6) creating enough damage in your body to start a release of endorphins which are meant to kill the pain and also, incidentally, calm you down.
It doesn't happen straight away. It takes some practise to build up your body's reactions to a flesh-wound, to know what to do to make you feel better, and it doesn't work for everyone. Here's the interesting part- most people start cutting before they know other people do it too. So perhaps there's something in the "collective unconscious" that says "Tear into your own flesh and you'll feel better." It's a compulsion because the moment you feel bad, you have the urge to find a knife, or razor, or what have you. To make yourself feel better. It's an addiction that alienates you from other people, that you feel guilty about cuz you're "abnormal."
Know what? There are over 600 members in the Diaryland SI ring. That's quite a lot, eh? And those are just the people who've SEEN the ring, who admit that they self-injure, and who want to be linked at all (as opposed to not having their diaries in the member directory, and wanting to have a totally private diary.) Suddenly it's not such a remote, freakish trend, is it? And they're not all depressive, gothy types- check out Pinkducky, Taylorspixie or Beatlebaby. See? Not all masochistic Mansonites. Although many cutters have abusive pasts, as much as 90% in some medical opinions, abuse isn't the only reason to start cutting.
I divide cutters into 2 groups: "real" and "pseudo." Real cutters have the above behaviour. They do it for chemical reasons only. Their cuts are deep, half a millimeter or more. They do not use safety pins or staples. Their cuts are never on display, never mentioned, and you probably won't even know a real cutter is a cutter at all.
But here, I would like to modify what I have previously said (mostly out of anger at a friend's behaviour.) I apologize to people who have thought I have slighted their troubles, and hope to better explain myself now:
Pseudo-cutters, on the other hand, perpetuate the stereotype, the I-Can't-Get-Attention-Any-Other-Way type. They cut shallowly, barely scratching the surface, and rely on the taboo idea of cutting itself and the tiny amount of blood that oozes out to elicit sympathy, pity and attention from their family and friends. They make a big deal out of nothing. They will always display or point out their cuts to get sympathy, or make reference to their "tools."
Pseudo-cutting is just as dangerous as "real" cutting, but for different reasons. Pseudo-cutters really are "crying out for attention," which points to either a severe lack thereof, or a narcissistic personality of some type. Any cutter should be investigated to treat the root of the problem of which cutting is a symptom; what I'm saying is that pseudo-cutting and "real" cutting have different roots, but because of their similar effects, these divides will be blurred, and "real" cutters will be loaded with scorn about the stereotypes (i.e. "Oh you're just doing it for effect."), while pseudo-cutters, more likely to display and exaggerate their cuts, will be taken as suicidal or seriously self-abusive.
Unfortunately, because of the stereotype that is perpetuated by pseudo-cutters (involuntarily, I'm sure; many wouldn't even recognize themselves as such), cutting is often seen as a teen-angst issue instead of a real psychological problem, which leads the public to believe all cutters are like that, and diverts attention from the more serious issues- "Hey look at me I cut too I'm cool, just one of the gang, I want to be like Angelina Jolie, feel bad for me feel bad for me!" I just ask people to critically look at themselves and identify themselves correctly- they will then know how to treat the issue within themselves.
I guess it's my bad luck that I'm a selective-claustrophobic: I can't wear long-sleeved clothes or I get really uncomfortable and edgy. Or maybe it was a facet of the... illness? Not the right word. Syndrome? Condition. I subconsciously create a "discomfort" so that my "battle wounds" have to be displayed, a calling out for help without it feeling so? My cuts were never all that deep by SI standards, anywhere from half a millimeter to two, but on the other hand, I know I did it for the chemical side. I kept my sleeves down when I cut, which was how most people could tell.
So... I bet you're all burning up inside with the question, "What's your story, Ker?"
I started cutting, out of boredom, in grade 6, when I was 12. Sounds strange, but there you have it. Boredom is actually another frequent cause of cutting. Self-destructive behaviour can often be traced back to boredom, both in humans and primates. It wasn't drawing-blood cutting, it was peeling all the layers of skin of my hands with a compass point. To the point where my hands were so raw I couldn't close them, or hold anything. I'm lucky, those scars went away, except for the one between my thumb and index, which was exacerbated by clarinet-playing.
A year or two later, I graduated to cutting with a knife or razor. It just seemed natural- it felt like my blood was on fire, and letting it out to cool was the only way to deal with my anger. As it happens, I was mildly depressive (a side-effect of Hashimoto's Syndrome) until about grade 7. But I was never suicidal, not seriously. Suicidal thoughts, but what pre-teen doesn't? By grade 11, my cuts were about 1 mm deep- not that deep by most SI standards, certainly never life-threatening, but deep enough to produce the chemical reaction I'd become addicted to, the only thing that calmed me down. My grandmother died the summer before my grade 11 year, and I remember carving "Death = Peace" into my arm a week before she died. I couldn't finish "Peace" because it hurt too much. I wasn't that close to her, but it was something I wrote everywhere that year. Most of my thoughts centered around death and the afterlife, but not in a morbid, or even gothy way; it was more a fascination, a desperate urge to achieve some kind of transcendence to a life higher than this one. No big deal, you're average teen shite. That summer, a tic-tac-toe board was carved into my right arm, too- after looking for a few minutes, I've just found the scar, totally invisible to the casual eye. So did a 2 millimeter-deep gash on my left arm, the oldest one still clearly visible. That one disturbed me a lot, because it bled so much.
[Hm. Now that I look for it... I can see the "Death = P" on my left arm. Bothered. I thought that scar had disappeared. =/ Haven't seen it in years...]
Anyway, so my boyfriend in grade 12 forced me to quit by saying that if I ever did it again, he'd try too, to see what all the fuss was about. I flipped, terrified that he'd have an addictive personality and get hooked, so I quit cold-turkey. It was like quitting smoking or sweets- my arm itched sometimes, like there was pressure inside to be let out. I think I might have cut once during our relationship, always on my left arm. We had a fight once, about some chick in his grade whom he thought was really hot, and I wasn't mature enough to differentiate between "hot" and "interested." Of course, some of the other stuff I heard during that time... but nevermind. Anyway, bottom line, it was the week before my semiformal and I didn't want any cuts, so I smashed my fist into the wall in the hopes of producing the same chemical effect. Nearly broke it. And know what? Didn't work much. But at least I could sob my heart out in pain as well as misery. I went to the semi with huge green and purple last 2 knuckles. Funny, really, how people will believe anything you tell them, when it comes to SI. Because they want to. Because self-mutilation is so horrific that many people would rather believe you shut your hand in the door, or continually have accidents involving sharp pointy objects, or rose bushes, or cats, or fishing hooks, than believe another human could take a blade to their own flesh. Strange, that, but Pratchett had it right- humans only see what they want to, or are expecting to.
So, in my OAC (grade 13) year, I was cutting maybe once a month, not too deeply, on one arm. The Earth Day Concert happened, and I saw my last 2 exes (who, I'm sure, will know about this entry before sundown) talking together, when both of them were refusing to talk to me. I lost it, fished some exacto blades out of my bag, went to the bathroom and sat in a stall, cutting deeper into my arm than I ever had. Still not too deep, not more than 2 mm. My sweatshirt arm was soaked with blood; luckily it was black and no one could tell. I was a wreck that night (do you remember it, Mark? In the level 5 room, me sobbing my eyes out with Antie and Resham hugging me? Remember that? I remember blood running up my arm as I reached up to hug Resham.) Those are the 2 most obvious scars I have, not big, but the deepest, all the same.
Then came the Grad Review Incident, which I don't feel like discussing in great detail. Suffice it to say that a couple of morons from my grade thought, amongst other things, that it would be funny to point out my cutting on-stage, to the whole highschool. My first reaction was to slit my arm open and flick my blood all over them, for a laugh, but it became evident pretty quickly that my whole grade, and a lot of the rest of the school who knew us, were outraged about everything they said. Personally, I couldn't have cared less, I was irritated that they'd pointed it out in front of Erik (ex), but I'd been more afraid of what they'd say to my friends. I was surprised at how aware the whole grade was of my "problem"; granted, wearing rolled-up dress-shirt sleeves is sometimes a give-away, but usually I had a good story, and I often kept them rolled down as much as I could if there were fresh cuts. I was nearly shocked at how vehemently most of the people in my grade stood up for me though, and to tell the truth, I think it's the best thing that could have happened to our grade- it brought us together like nothing else, and totally ruined the reps of both the dumbasses. So it was worth it, at the initial cost of some egos.
After that summer, I stopped cutting so much because I no longer felt the need. I also became aware that other people, random people in a lecture hall or an elevator, would stare at my arm. It wasn't as if my scars were massive or hugely ugly, but they were frequent, a suspicious frequency. My boyfriend of frosh discouraged me from cutting, and I only felt the need to once or twice during our 9-month relationship. I've cut maybe 5 times since then (two years later.) It's not that I'm all born-again-Christian kind of thing, but right now, I don't need to. I know that if that need arises, I can, but it's taking more and more for me to feel the urge. Perhaps I grew out of it? I do tend to find my arm itching and start salivating when I see a really sharp knife, and often have to fight to stop myself "trying it out", which I know sounds gross but it's a compulsion, there's no reason to it... but when I do feel the need to "try it out", A) I never do, and B) it isn't because I'm depressed or anything, it's just that I want to see how efficient the knife is. A sharper knife will cut deeper, with less pain.
Now I'm in an extremely happy relationship, and I don't feel the need to cut at all. I've told my boyfriend the only reason I could see myself starting again is if we were to break up, and that's true. Or perhaps have a really BAD fight. Otherwise, I don't have to deal with the kind of emotional pain I've always used cutting to cure.
But look at me. 
Do I look unhappy? Do I look abnormal or freakish? Do I look suicidal? No. Cuz I'm not. I'm the girl-next-door. No different from anyone else, except for once having had, and possibly still having, this slight compulsion. It's not life-threatening, it's not harmful to others. I'm no different.
This is a ring for the diaries of people who self-injure, who hurt their bodies to heal their minds. We are not sick or scary. We are coping in the best way we know how.
Main advice: don't start it if you don't feel the need, it's a hard habit to break and even surface scars stay with you forever. But if you feel you HAVE to... use a clean knife. Have disinfectants and bandages around. Tetanus doesn't provide the same high a blade will.
If you feel the need to talk about this, anyone's free to email me. But don't bother telling me I'm sick and I should take it down, because I'm not going to.
Last updated 14/02/02
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