I have been on the net since almost before AOL started, so you might say I have seen/heard of and read of everything, but recently I am seeing more and more forums devoted to totally bizarre things I can't fathom, I mean tatoos were bad enough... Maybe Dr Grohol can type some kind of professional opinion as a mental health practitioner.
Without going into details, I am seeing forums like personal web sites, blogs, postings, photos, entire forums just like this one with dozens or hundreds of users, and that sort of thing describing the author's fettish/want for etc., torture, pain, serious permanent self surgery such as becoming a eunich or worse, piercing, mutilation, amputation, slavery, being severely spanked, being humiliated, being treated like a dog, and seriously disturbing things involving body waste, injections and so on.
I find this stuff and I just can't believe it, and over and over I can't help but ask myself what is wrong with these people????
To me I see some serious psychological problems that I am certain go to early childhood, especially the spanking to the point where there is actual skin damage!
I thought I saw everything and I'm real open minded but this kind of thing is absolutely something that cries out; HELP ME!!!!!
I can't possibly think of anything other than that- some severe childhood trauma the person may not even remember, and a cry for help coming out in adulthood manifesting itself with these kinds of self-defeating damaging activities.
I can sort of understand "cutting" as it applies to people who might be HERE, depressed etc, but that is not what I'm seeing, I'm seeing more of a boastfull "Hey, look what I did, isn't that cool!!"
I don't get it, anyone want to offer some insite from a professional perspective?

[somebodyelse]

I don't have a clue about the causes of all those things. I only know about cutting, which (in my own case) developed out of severe depression, dissociation, and generalized anxiety disorder. It's a coping mechanism, and one that I recognize as unhealthy. My pdoc and t explained that one resorts to self-injury when one's usual coping mechanisms have been exhausted.

I can't imagine why anyone would be boastful about it.

Hmm, yeah I read about cutting in that kind of situation, but this other facet is really something I don't get at all.

[Zenobia]

I used to be into bondage and spanking. That was before therapy so in my case it was definately a cry for help. I would put myself into situations simular to what happened to me as a child. At the time I didn't remember what had happened to me so I think it may have been a subconcious attempt to make myself aware of my past.

On the other hand my self injury is for a different purpose. It stems from the need to reduce the emotional pain that I endure. It is a type of distraction I suppose. I am trying to set the feeling of SI next to the feelings I had during bondage to compare what I got from each of them. Bondage would take me to a very dark place that was heavy, like being wrapped in a heavy wool blanket. It was warm and it was safe because I somehow knew I would survive. I know that sounds bizarre but it took me to the survivor in me. SI however is lighter. It brings me from that dark place and releases me from the pain of that place.

Since therapy and exploring what happened to me when I was young I have lost the desire to participate in alternative sexual acts. It is my hope that as I get better I can fully come away from that dark place and be free of SI as well.
Carrie

<font color=green>Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.--Emily Dickenson

Zenobia, I think you sort of helped me grasp some of it, at least as far as where you mention " I think it may have been a subconcious attempt to make myself aware of my past."

I guess I feel if there was an abusive childhood I would wonder why anyone would want to "relive" it, sort of like the way they say children who were molested, in turn molest children, I guess I can't quite see how that is connected or why that would be the case. Ditto for someone who was sexually abused turning to prostitution later, it just doesn't make any logical sense to me, to essentially "relive" the terrible abuse. Seems to me one would want to be the furthest away from that. Obviously it's all a lot more complicated than it seems on the surface.

[Rapunzel]

Maybe because it is what they know - it is familiar. Or maybe reliving it helps them to understand themselves. All of this probably on a subconscious level.

Or think of classical conditioning - those activities and the pain may have become associated with love, approval, etc.

<font color=green>"Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible" Carl Jung</font color=green>

[soscared]

HI.
All I know is that when I used to work in a 24hr Crisis Home for Sexual Abuse Survivors, was that many of the clients came from horrible backgrounds, including Ritual Abuse, and many of them would have MUlti Personality Disorder and do things they actually believed they had to.
In other words their Alters would take over.
For some it was all that they felt good enough for they did not believe that they had anyother positive qualities in life. A lot of them just turned to what was most familiar to them, and stated it was a way to take back some control (IE They were the ones who decided when and where this stuff would happen, not having to wait for the unexpected)
Some of the clients unfortunatially went bak to their oler ways, but most of them with lots of support and guiedence were able to cange how they lived their lives and were able o stop , also with intense therapy the DID clients were able to become their own self again and not have anymore alters.

Look at me I'm one to talk, I self harm sometimes, but never to the extent that the people I've ever seen and also heard of as you mentioned.

The only reason I don't work there anymore is tat another bigger agency took over as we were a small orginazition, and I was layed off.
Hope this helps you to understand a little.
I deffinatly believe that it is subconscious and a big cry for help.