[Lexicon78]

I was asked a question by my t and have to come up with an answer. How is cutting giving up? All I can come up with is that it interferes with treatment and prevents me from using more healthier ways of coping. I'm really at a loss. My problem is I'm so pro-cutting that I don't see the ways that it is giving up.

I'd really appreciate any thoughts on this.

[dalila]

I think cutting is like giving up because we know it is not accepted in society, it is a way to not feel, to release fear and pain without dealing with it. For myself I resorted to cutting when I was no longer willing to deal with the emotional turmoil in my life and soul. Confronting the ghosts of my past and dealing with my present is at times more than I am able to cope with and so I chose to quit and find a release in a way that I know sets me apart from the rest of my world. I do not find myself able to function better or relate better after I cut -- in fact for me at least I find it makes most things worse. Not only do I have the same issues - still unresolved but now I have open wounds and guilt. The only benefit I have seen from it is that my dh is more willing to have me see a therapist cos he feels that anyone who willing cuts herself 'is sick in the head.' Personally I am not overtly thrilled with my scars small though they are.

~D~

[Lexicon78]

Thank you very much for the reply dalila. Sometimes it's hard for me to see the negative in my cutting. Well, actually, most of the time I don't see the harm in it. I always see it as a good thing. Most of the things in my life set me apart from society. Everything seems to be an alternative to what is acceptable. I don't comform to society, as it has brought me much pain. For example, where I live if you're not a Christian, you are very unaccepted. I'm pagan. Homosexuality is dangerous here, but I still search out women. If somebody says what I'm doing is wrong by their standards, I do exactly what they consider wrong. I guess I'm making life harder for myself, but I just don't agree with most of society.

Sometimes it would be nice to feel guilt or shame about cutting, but I don't. Maybe that would make me quit. I feel intense pride, instead. Ok, I think I've gone too deep with this, maybe I'll have repercussions (neg) but I'll deal with them.

[dalila]

I can understand where you are coming from when I first started si it was in small ways and helped so much a young child who could not handle her world. I think the attitude you describe here is one you are going to have to work on in therapy. I don't want to come across as condemning or critical but that level of oppositionalism has a high cost. I hope you can find a way to deal with your issues and feel comfortable.

~D~

[Rapunzel]

I don't feel guilt and shame about cutting either. I might feel bad that it bothers my husband, but I don't actually feel bad about doing it, and I don't feel that feeling bad about it would be a good thing. I worry about how people might react to my scars, but I need them. I need the proof that I can look at that shows that my feelings are genuinely real and intense. Cutting may be counterproductive, and it may mean that we didn't give some other, more healthy coping method a chance, but sometimes it's better than what might have happened otherwise. It's a compromise.

<font color=orange>There is an easy answer to your problem that is neat, plausible, and wrong.

</font color=orange>

[Zenobia]

This is an interesting thread. It seems to get to the meat of the problem. It took me a long time to change my opinion of SI. For me it was a relatively safe method of dealing with stuff that I just couldn't deal with. I felt trapped in a situation and I couldn't come up with a way to get out of it so I injured myself to feel better. It made life bearable and made it possible for me to hold up to everybody's expectations. Thing is by letting off the steam with SI, things never got so bad that I felt I had to change what was going on in my life. Change usually doesn't happen until life becomes so intollerable one just can't do it anymore. Kinda like a drunk hitting rock bottome or an employee finally being pushed so far that she quits in the middle of her shift. SI made it possible to carry on the statis quo, it prevented my hitting rock bottom.

So how is it quitting. Quite frankly I don't believe it is quitting. It isn't giving up. I believe it is doggedly carrying on, refusing to quit, a situation that isn't any good for me. I am not talking about the SI but rather the life situation that the SI relieves.

I will conceed that it is a refusal to face the pain it would take to make the change and get out of an old life situation and move on to a new better place.
Carrie

<font color=green>But the implicit and usually unconscious bargain we make with ourselves is that, yes, we want to be healed, we want to be made whole, we're willing to go some distance, but we're not willing to question the fundamental assumptions upon which our way of life has been built, both personally and societally.--Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft