I can relate, too. My reasons were very similar to yours. I did it to make myself calm down because I was "freaking out," feeling anxious and like I couldn't control my emotions.

I also did it because I didn't have any kind of support system in place at that particular time. Some of my friends had told me they were sick of my problems and in my mind, cutting was the only way I could find to cope with my problems that would work for me and would not require me to lean on other people for support. Since I felt I had nobody to lean on, it made sense to me. What you said about "showing them" really rings a familiar bell with me because I thought that by cutting myself I was showing all the people who had hurt me that I didn't need them anyway. It was really wierd that I thought that though, because I was so ashamed of the cutting that I didn't show it to those people- or anyone for that matter. In fact, two different people started getting suspicious and asked me about it and I lied flat out and said I hadn't because I was so embarrassed. So I don't know why I thought I was "showing them" anything! Not very logical, but then who is logical when they're cutting?

I also think it was a trauma reenactment for me, because I was abused and neglected as a child. After I stopped the actual cutting, I thought back over things and realized that I had hurt myself many times before- just not as severe. Like I used to pinch myself when I was mad at my parents and they wouldn't let me express that anger. And I bit myself (and still do that sometimes unfortunately). And if I got bruises I couldn't resist pushing them to make them hurt, and various other things. I don't want to get into details beyond that. It's not important.

One other thing that I wasn't conscious of until after I quit cutting was that it was an expression of self-hate. I didn't figure that out until one day I was writing a journal entry to help myself talk things out and feel again, instead of being so dead, and a lot of self-hate feelings came out that I didn't realize I held so strongly.

Anyway, those were my reasons. I think we all have a unique combinations, but in a lot of ways all of our reasons are similar. You are not alone!

SweetCrusader