Within the last week I’ve seen two movies (Secretary and Thirteen) that feature girls with the “cutting” obssessive-compulsive behavior (self-mutilation).
What a horrible, horrible (day I say again, “horrible”) affliction. I’ve been reading up on it and it’s so foreign, incomprehensible, and strange. At least bulemia or anorexia or agoraphobia all have a place where I can understand where the afflicted is coming from…this, no, no point of reference. There be no maps of those territiories.
I also heard that Garbage chanteuse Shirley Manson was a sufferer as well - simply beyond me.
Ex-girlfriend and reportatrix EC Barnett and I discussed it and I was counting her double X chromosomes to fill me in and explain the female psychology behind this (for it arises far more often in women than men) and she was likewise stymied.
:: shrugs ::
In the parlance of Internet Relay Chat:
/me Addendum: I realize I used the word “horrid” to describe the sickness. When I say horrid I mean it’s something that’s shocking and terrible and foreign. By all means if, for some reason, you are afflicted with this sickness, and you are searching on the web for help and for some cosmic reason came to this site, please, please get help.
Note, Self-Abuse is not the Catholic euphemism
S.A.F.E (Self-Abuse Finally Ends) http://www.selfinjury.com/ Alternative Information Line 1-800-DONT-CUT Provides information on dealing with self-abuse and self-mutilation and treatment options.
March 12th, 2004 at 7:42 pm
Cutting is the only way for some people who suffer deep depression to know they are alive. Cutting is not about wanting to die, it’s about seeing if they are still alive.
Depression is horrible state where you are without feelings. You are not angry, not happy, not sad, not joyous………..
As humans, we are designed to have feelings. Depression is an unnatural state that initially is not painful, but like the chinese water torture, becomes inscruciatingly painful.
A starving man eats anything, even food he hates, and it tastes wonderful.
A person starved of feelings, when cutting themselves will feel pain, and it will feel wonderful.
That help?
March 12th, 2004 at 10:46 pm
Nine Inch Nails’ hurt is about cutting. Its lyrics illustrate The Rook’s analysis:
I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that’s real
March 12th, 2004 at 11:04 pm
Bridie, I tendend to focus on the part of the song which focused on the needle’s injection - which always made me associate the song with intraveneous drug use, not self-mutilation.
That said…I understand the notion of seeking pain as a sensory validation of ones existence.
Yet Rook’s characterization fails to address a certain antecedent state that we saw in the movies I mentioned: “What is the correlation between stress and the mutilation a cut?”
In both Secretary and Thirteen when the girls faced a particularly challenging situation they sought their, eh, tools.
At the moment of such an argument I think that one can’t help but be/feel any more alive.
Rook’s description describes Smiths-listening kids in sweaters listlessly seeking some sort of thrill…the movies i describe demonstrate people vibrantly, loudly, screamingly alive — who cut.
I’m also curious as to what the relationship between the healing process is …
March 13th, 2004 at 4:57 am
Since I haven’t seen those movies, I can’t speak towards them. However, having worked with many cutters through the years in my field, I still stand by my earlier statement.
Oh, and yes, many cutters tend to be loud and noisy as well, just another means of trying to create feelings.
Also, stress is the number on cause of depression.
March 14th, 2004 at 4:32 pm
I think the stronger correlation is isolation and cutting. I haven’t seen Secretary, so I can only speak from what I saw in Thirteen.
I can’t remember the girl’s name, but her cutting progressed the more isolated she became. She was a stranger to her mother, who was back with the boyfriend who had caused the family turmoil. The girl had lost her best friend. She couldn’t get any attention from her father, who had his own new family. There comes a point when you feet so unloved and so ugly that you want to make yourself even uglier. Part of you does it for that reason, part of you does it in the hopes that someone will notice and want to know what’s wrong.
And yes, like other people who suffer from depression, cutters might be popular and feel alive. But deep down, they feel terribly alone.
So, the bottom line: isolation and self-loathing are other terms in the cutting equation.
For Steven, on the meaning of Hurt: It was actually in an NPR piece I heard said that NIN wrote the song about cutting. But it does have those other associations. When Johnny Cash sang it, he interpreted it as drug use.
March 16th, 2004 at 1:25 pm
I dated a girl in H.S. who cut like it was going out of style. She wasn unapolagetic about the whole thing. The whole affari is creepy to me but not incomprehensible.
March 16th, 2004 at 3:18 pm
I don?t think it’s always deep or profound. I think it can be just a basic attention-getting device or call for help for someone who’s feeling isolated/alone. (Btw, Steven… thought I’d say hi. Found your blog through jdedman.com. You and I went to college together. There were folks in our major, and in MISA, who cut. I’ve been the lucky one to take them to the emergency room when they’d bloodied themselves up and needed treatment. Hope you’re well. Take care.)
March 16th, 2004 at 8:52 pm
Well there you have it then, cutting is a technique to re-assert identity and to get attention.
Now that that question is resolved, we shall now attend to the question of nature versus nurture.
May 3rd, 2004 at 11:58 pm
Fuck you all, cutting is not about depression or to re-assert your identity. Cutting is about feeling pain. When you cut yourself it hurts, you can feel it thus things you can’t let out that depress you are real. Those things come alive. I hate people who act like they know what it is. Just admit that no one knows, everyone cuts for their own reasons. Some people for no reason at all. God I hate people like you.!!
May 4th, 2004 at 6:38 am
Kristin,
My ‘blog has a strict no posting under the influence of Linkin Park policy. Please refrain from doing so in future.
I must sadly say that I cannot follow the flow of logic you provide in your third (I think it’s missing a period somewhere) and fifth sentences.
If you would care to elucidate that perhaps your erudition could cascade better upon us.
You then suggest that no one knows, well, I agree at some fundamental level we all have to take a phenomenological leap of faith wherein we admit that we all exprience things and can discuss things. Conception of the world as a Solipsistic regress is hardly any fun. Endeavouring to understand one another and each others’ motivations is the hallmark of a progressive society.
August 16th, 2004 at 5:12 pm
Sometimes Cutting is the only way to let out the pain. For a short time you feel something instead of the hurt and torment in your everyday life.