why do some people think cutting is cool

why do some people think it is cool and fasionable to cut. to some it evens seems a right of passage. I have seen websites dedicated to this subject glorifing it to an art form perfectly normal to do. i think that takes away from the seriousness of the problem.

When those of us with this problem are hurting and commit such an act , it is certainly not because it is cool or to get attention, I think many of us who cut do our best to hide it. the first time i cut was 19 years ago, Long before anyone talked about it or thought it was cool. i was 7 years old, too young for anyone to tell me about it or show me what to do.

When i began using that as an outlet for pain i didn.t even care why i did i just felt release. it is not until some time after the blood started to flow that i would realize just what i had done . It was only a few years ago i began to understand why i did it and why/ how to find better alternatives.

everytime i hear or see anyone bragging about cutting i want to smack them into reality. That it is not cool that it is dangerous and addtictive .

I friend of mine said "The only way to be truely unique these days is to be normal" I think that is sad but true.

Linda

Until recently I worked with children as a campus/playground supervisor. I see all the different cliques and their different choices of clothing and music and hair. It seems for some of these groups it has become a fad. I don't get it... I never ut myself with knives or anything, but I am a self mutilator. I rip at my scalp and my lips with my fingernails until they bleed. I don't want to do it... I've worked on it and lessened it but I still do it. There is nothing cool about it. Weird thing is, it seems this one clique (not sure what its called but the boys wear these weird skinny pants and their underwear shows and they wear black shirts and weird hair... but they aren't goth so I'm not sure what they are) show off their cuts and scars like badges of honor. Since when is a mental disorder a way of fitting in? I don't get it either.

that would be 'emo', by dear.

I also started "cutting" 22 years ago when I was 13. I had never heard of it before my first time. I just rememeber carving the words hate/love into my ankle. That was the first time and the last time I actually felt like I was in control of this new found source of punishment and relief. It has become an incredible source of embarrassment and weakness for me.

Who I am Hates Who Ive Been!!!

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HALLIEBETH87 said:
that would be 'emo', by dear.

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Yeah, I've heard of that one... wasn't around when I was in school. BTW - love your quote at the bottom. Tourniquet is one of my fav Evenescence songs!

thanks....i love it.

This new 'cutting fad' scares the absolute hell out of me.
I have 2 sisters, aged 14 and 15, and both of them are into the whole 'emo' thing.
I find myself constantly trying to check them out for cuts, and i find myself questioning any 'aaccidental' scratches.
They both worry me sick.
I've been cutting for almost 10 years, and I never did it cos I thought it was cool.
Do they even consider the consequences? The scars that they'll have for the rest of their lives?
I was visiting my mother recently, and my sister's friends mother was also visiting. The topice of the internet came up. My mother said she concerned about sister's friend because she was quoting Eminem's song "sometimes I cut myself to see how much it bleeds" on msn. Mother's response?? "it's just a phase!!!! I wanted to slap the woman.

cutting isn't a mental disorder. it is a symptom that occurs in a mental disorder, to be sure, but there are symptoms that occur in mental disorders that aren't (when they occur in isolation of other symtptoms) regarded as problematic at all (hypomania, for example).

lots of cultures have 'rites of passage' into adulthood. adolescense (a protracted period between childhood and adulthood) is a very recent invention indeed. in other societies people might go on their first hunt at 11 or 12 or whatever - and if they participate effectively then they are regarded as a man from that point. baring ones 'battle wounds' to eligible (or soon to be eligable) girls / women (and getting their sympathy / awe / respect) would have been an important thing to do.

rites of passage into adulthood are typically rather gory... my supervisor was talking about this tribe the other day (trigger warning) where the boys were circumscised with a stone when they were 13 (or however old). their living through that was their passage into adulthood. after that happened... when the wounds were healing... it was a ritual of the culture that the girls would sneak into the boys room and try to stimulate them to erection (thus bursting their new scars). the 'manly men' were the ones with the most scars.

the 'favour' is returned with marriage, however, where the cultural ritual is for the guy to have brutal sex with his virgin wife (as brutal as possible). the more blood that was found the next day... the more 'manly' he was (and of course the more 'chaste' his wife had been).

An interesting take on the origins of violence (and an interesting take on the EQUALITY BETWEEN THE SEXES that was impliclit in the reciprocal brutalisation). My supervisor thinks that those kinds of rituals act as 'fitness traps', basically, where there is an initial advantage to individuals who adopt the custom (feet binding / female circumscision were costly signals of quality when only adopted by a few) but when everybody adopts them for their fitness value the whole culture bears the cost and no individual benefits significantly since everyone is doing it.

I'd imagine that in adolescents resilience to pain is something that is looked upon with awe / admiration. Our long evolutionary history... WOuld predict that that would be so. In some cultures (warrior cultures, for example) a person would be signilling their high quality / the liklihood that they would achieve high status later.

Our culture runs a little differently now (well, some aspects of it do at any rate). But old habits die hard...

But anyway... One idea is that people might start cutting because it is something that is admired in their peer group... And they might come to realise (unconsciously) that endorphins are released with the pain. So... They may come to use cutting to regulate their negative and / or painful emotional state.

I think the pathological aspect comes with the reasons why people do it. If people think they do it because it is respected in their peer group then that doesn't seem particularly maladaptive to me. Of course one might worry about their peer-group on independent grounds, but I don't see anything intrinsically pathological about tattooing or getting ones tongue split or burning 'smileys' into ones arm or cutting....

When the person is having intensely negative / painful emotions and it using it to help regulate those states. Well.. We would like to help them not feel so badly anymore to be sure.

I wonder if part of the reason that teen cutting as a fad bothers those of us who have struggled with it as part of coping and emotional regulation has to do with getting respect for ability to endure pain. To us, the emotional pain is the real pain. When we see someone just doing the cutting because (as far as we know) it is admired in their peer group, and people look at them with respect for their pain tolerance, it tends to invalidate the emotional pain that we live with and are trying to deal with. To us, it feels like they are making light of it by brushing over that part.

Hey. I think... That that sounds right to me. Don't know how it will sound to others. I guess that just because the surface form / morphology is the same (cutting) that doesn't entail that the etiology (cause) is the same, however. It might well be that people who cut for different reasons don't have much more of a comprehension of why we struggle with self harm than the majority of people in the world who don't cut at all...

cutting i beleive..can also be connected to addictive personalities and addictions in themselves. Please see my post...."getting off the addiction train"...it may be helpful to some...

i get where all of you are coming from, i'll just say though that im what many people lable as "goth". i SI for a few years now, and im 15. the stigma, SUCKS. for many, the way one dresses / what they listen to, has NOTHING to do with whether or not they SI, but it is really sad and (for me, agreeing with what Rupunzel said) frustrating. also, people take one look at me and asume i do it for the same reasons, to "fit in" or be "cool".

it really really really sucks..

people who think iti is cool don`t do it for the same reason as people who are hurt and want sort of physical release...

but i think that they don`t quite know what they are doing to themselves..it`s a BAD habbit! cool...well..wahtever...
i can undestand where it`s coming from and i think there may be a reason maybe even a subconcious 1 for them to think it`s cool...not a normal 1......

bloody stupid people who say it is cool! yeah how many of those idiots do it themself!!! none! ha see! ignorant petty fools! and the people they influence go thru the rest of their life with marks that mane ppl assume instability all over them!!!!!
i never did it cuz it was cool, i started before i knew about it if u get wha i mean. i never did it cuz it was cool i did it cuz i hated me.
AND THOSE WHO THINK ITS COOL MAKE ME FEEL LIKE I AM AN ATTENTION ***** AND I HAVE NO REASON TO BE HERE.
i have enough trouble letting myself believe that i am noteing a timewaster anyway, i dont need that.
self