Why do people cut themselves

Question

I know that they aren't just crazy. I know that they're mentally sick and everything, but why do they do it? I just don't exactly understand. Does it make them feel better to hurt themselves? Help me understand this.

Answer 1

they do it because they think it's the one best things that would make them better.

Answer 2

Actually, crazy and 'mentally sick' mean the same thing, just one is a more 'polite' term to use (being sick is more sympathetic to people than crazy.)

Most of the responses have covered the majority of reasons why people cut themselves. But you might also think of cutting yourself as a set of stages too.

1) exploratory: people who cut themselves once or twice, either out of boredom or frustration or experimentation. Most people don't progress beyond this stage.

2) confirmation: the cutting at this stage fulfills a psychological impulse within the person. Whether it be because they are now in control of a pain (as opposed to being out of control), because they can express themselves in a way thats public yet still private and secret (people who cut themselves often have a hard time expressing themselves in other ways) or because their frustration and rage gets turned against themselves, so that the cutting becomes a means of self-flaggelation or self-punishment, the cutting not becomes a helpful psychological tool in their ability to cope with their life.

3) addiction/identity: at this stage, the cutter has become the 'cutter'. The physical and/or psychological pain they are enduring (constant, repeated, untreated) has not been remedied by their attempts at cutting, but because they ahve been doing it for so long, even the futile cutting process becomes a part of the tangled mess of their identity. Just as they were helpless when they started cutting themselves, the helplessness of their cutting becomes entangled within their problem, so that they can't stop cutting because they couldn't stop the pain that led to the cutting in the first place. Cutting therefore becomes yet another symptom of the underlying psychological impairment that was initially untreated, and rarely exists all by itself. Cutting sometimes can lead to suicide attempts (if you can cut your leg, you can cut your wrist) but the cutting, like the suicide, always points to a deeper underlying cause.

That, in a nutshell, is why I believe people cut themselves.

Answer 3

The physical pain helps them release their emotions, creating physical pain gives them something else to focus on to.

Other people cut because they feel 'numb'. They want to feel something else.

Others get so angry, they turn to cutting themselves to release their anger.

Answer 4

This will explain it well:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

^ That's a case, now you ask why?

I say:

#1) They have serious insecurity or non-self-happiness problems.

#2) It takes away the above problems from their mind.

#3) They might feel that it can help them somehow.

#4) Some might think that they will attract attention with that because people will feel sorry for them.

The solution for them is to get the attention they need, or to feel happier, or to get psychological assistance. Unfortunately, they don't seek the last one and if they focus on "their new solution" then the 1st two don't come either. It is a complex problem and its root is that the person does not recognize (like we do) that it is a problem indeed. Let's forget about it and be happy that we are not affected by this :)

Answer 5

I think its because they are going through something EXTREMELY tough in their life and they don't know any other way to cope. Also sometimes they feel that if they give themselves physical pain it will take away the emotional pain they feel.

Answer 6

Take it from someone whose experianced it.

Now, i've cut myself only once. But i regret it. Considering since i have a scar on my finger, and i had to be rushed to the emergancy room, told my mom a totally different story, and told the doctors a different one as well.

It was bad.

But i did it because i was mad.

People usually do it to feel alive. Thats the best way i can describe it.

Then there are those people [not all of them, just a small amount] that do it for attention. A friend of mine would cut and act like she SLIPPED UP on accident. Then she'd take an ear ring, act like she was cutting her wrist in class, and made these weird faces.

So, for those people that are embarresed by it, and won't tell anyone about it, and i mean ANYONE, then they're doing it to feel alive. Its not a mental disorder. It usually is done by teens, and teens have so much stress, mixed in with the hormones.

And for the others that Cut and Tell, they're doing it for attention. Don't pay attention to them.

Answer 7

There are many different theories and reasons people may cut themselves. some cutters are in so much emotional pain that cutting themselves makes them focus on the pysical pain, rather than mental, which is deemed easier to deal with.

Others may do it as a cry for help; they cannot bring themselves to verbalize their feelings so cutting is a form of communication.

And self-injurious behviors, such as cutting releases endorphines in the brain and causes a high.

Answer 8

they feel like no one knows them...

and truly they do not know their selves,

or what they have become.

Answer 9

i hear that cutting yourself releases endorphins. its a natural high and is supposedly exhilarating. they can release their emotional pain, through physical pain. it becomes a habit, and sooner or latter, they have scars everywhere. one of my old friends would carve words bashing hershelf on her thigh so her parents couldn't see. she would say her cats cut her calves and arms. its just an 'adventure' used to try to relieve pain by causing new pain. i would never do it and i dont understand why people decide to do it, but i know that people think that it's their one way out of pain.  

Answer 10

I don't understand exactly because I don't cut myself. I did it once just to see what it was like and it didn't help at all. The reason I did it was because I was extremely frustrated with my home life and just tried it to see what would happen. Some people do it because they want to bring the pain they feel inside to the outside so they harm themselves. They might also do it as a cry for attention, even though they might hide it. They might also have got themselves trapped in a habit that they simply can't brake.

Answer 11

It distracts from our big problems. I used it as means to end my life most recently.

Answer 12

if you hate some one,and cant confront them

you turn the hate tward your self

you have to atack some thing or some one so you atack your self