You are so right about it being a physical pain, something you can see and feel and clean up and take care of. Mental anguish is so invisible and intangible. Anyone can relate to a physical injury but mental pain is so hard to describe and even when it isn't, you never know if anyone understands fully.

I know I started cutting back in my early teens because I wanted to cry so badly but the tears wouldn't come. The blood from cutting was like symbolic tears to me. Then I just kind of a had an addiction to that stinging sensation you feel for the next couple of days, that pain that reroutes your thinking from all the emotional suffering to a physical part of your body.

I guess the word I'm putting to it is distraction.