I can't imagine being so unhappy that I'd want to physically harm myself. That said, I do have a pretty sheltered life. I still think there are better ways to suffer than to increase the suffering with physical mutilation. Also, I know that many people are actually depressed, but I feel that some do it for the attention.

I think that if someone is in enough emotional pain to cut themselves, then I am sad for their situation. I would not look down on someone that needed help. We all find life difficult at times, and have difficulty coping.

I think it's really sad, but if it helps the person then i guess its not too bad

For many cutters, self-mutilation seems like the only appropriate response to the state of how they're feeling about the world, family, friends and about themselves. Many cutters are extremely intelligent, sensitive, and creative people who have a hyper-sensitivity to the world around them. They may feel Vulnerable walking through this extremely screwed up world while most people see them happily oblivious to all that's wrong with everything.

I love cutters and I have many friends who are cutters and lot of times people like my friends don't know what to do with there probleams, they want to disappear, they want to leave and escape. But they only hurt there selves more. Many cutters often try sufficating themselves or drowning or any other type of suicide before cutting. but cutting is easier because they will still live, and if they feel real bad all you have to do is cut a little deeper. its sick but true, and the pain almost feels good. it feels like your finally doing something right by punishing your self. THATS MY OPINION AND I WILL FIND THAT MANY PEOPLE DONT KNOW WAT I KNOW ABOUT"CUTTERS" BECAUSE MANY PEOPLE HAVE NEVER CUT THEMSELVES.

Although I feel very sorry for anyone that is very ssd and sensitive to outside influences, I have never been able to understand self mutilation. It is a syndrome that would to me make things worse although i have read that people feel relief when they cut themselves.

Cutting, or self-injury does not discriminate against age, gender, income or family background. Cutters often have family issues and are typically adolescent females, but they can be much older or male. Cutters can have eating disorders and about half of all cutters have been physically or sexually abused. They are sometimes depressed and feel unable to voice their concerns. Frequently self-injurers come from middle and upper class homes. I think that is interesting. As for helping SI (Self Injury) and treatments. Here is what I believe to be good information about that aspect, IF and WHEN the cutter is ready to stop or wants to try to stop: One of the reasons people self-injure is to deflect unknown, frightening pain into understandable, sort-of-controllable pseudo or fake pain. Calling this phenomenon fake pain is in not intended to suggest that it doesn't hurt. It CAN hurt like hell. And some are numb to the pain. When memories or thoughts or beliefs or events are excessively painful, instead of facing them directly and feeling genuine pain, the cutter sometimes deflects distress into pain that seems understandable and controllable, like that of cutting. The real feelings associated with the event you're avoiding get overridden by those of the situation you create to distract yourself, in this case, cutting. It still hurts, but it's a controllable and familiar, and the real pain you're avoiding seems scary and ready to take over your world. So it's a painful coping skill obviously. Even though not a healthy one. It's easy to revert to fake pain. Trying to find the source of your distress can be scary as hell, because you often don't know what you're going to unleash. Fake pain, although very painful and traumatic, is something that you understand and can control and can handle. And control is a big issue with cutters. It's familiar, not mysterious and scary like the real pain behind it. You might feel that if you ever exposed yourself to the real pain you'd lose control. Like you'll start to cry and won't ever be able to stop or something. Or if you get angry, you'll go into a mad rage and kill people. Instead, you unconsciously deflect the distress away from the memories or feelings that generated it and into cutting. Self injury is very seductive, but YOU control it. You know the boundaries, even when you feel out of control. It makes sense and it makes the distress go away, at least for a while. It's a clever mechanism - it takes what seems unbearable and transforms it into something you can control. The only problem is, that when you deflect pain, you never face up directly to what it is that has caused this great pain or upset in your life. So long as you channel distress into fake pain, you never deal with the REAL PAIN, and it never lessens in intensity. It keeps coming back and you have to keep cutting. If you want to stop the behavior, you have to deal with the "unbearable" if you ever want to make it lose its power over you. Every time you can meet the real CAUSES head on, and feel it and put up the discomfort, it loses a little of its ability to wipe you out, and eventually it becomes just a memory! The process is like building tolerance to a drug. Hard drug users take a little bit more of their drug every day as tolerance builds, until eventually they're routinely taking amounts of drug that would kill an ordinary person. The poisonous events in your past work in a similar way. Exposure (with the help of a trained therapist!) over time will build your tolerance to these events and enable you to put them to rest. The key is learning to tolerate distress!! I wish you the best of luck! I know it is very difficult for anyone experiencing it and I have experience with several people who have been cutters or burned themselves. Self injury behavior. And many choose and do get well! :)

My opinion of cutters? I like most feel it is awful that people can be in so much pain that the only release is to 'cut it out' as it were. Being a former cutter myself, I know what it's like. I know what it is like to be so desperate for a release that you would tear your own arms, legs, whatever open just to let it go. I know it's hard for people who have never cut to understand. It just pains me to know there are so many people in so much pain

A cutter, generally speaking, uses physical pain for release of emotional pain, because they have not found the emotional strength and maturity to deal with feelings. Indeed, some emotional pain can be unbearable for anyone. Even the so-called "mature" and "strong". There are others that do so, however, in order to get the attention of those around them to the fact that they are hurting internally. Kind of an outward show of interior pain. Either way it is sad. Some would say that the best policy is to avoid patronizing them. However, I have found that, although the method is immature, and even a sign of weak mindedness, beneath it lies a legitimate need. As such, the best response, as is the case with all suffering, is compassion. Help them to express, vocally, the real need, and they are often well on their way to healing the real pain, and growing in personal strength and maturity.

i think they're just a bit lost and naive. i feel so sorry for them but can understand. i've been at a place in my life where i thought it was the right thing to do and that it would make me feel better. it did at the time but now i can see how wrong it is. and i have constant reminders of this on my arms stomach and legs. "cutters" just need to look outside the square and see that there are other ways to get around things or deal with things... easier said than done i know.

Well first of all i don't think we should be judge or study like we are some sort of freaks or something. We should be helped and people should understand that we are people just like everybody else and we shouldn't be treated differently so please if you know someone who cuts treat him just like you wold whit someone that doesn't thanks. he or she will appreciated.

Everyone has a bad habit, and everyone has an addiction. Drug addicts, Myspace addicts, Answerbag addicts, fast food eaters, smokers, and cutters. its all the same. i dont cut because it ... hurts. but thats the same reason others do it. im not a saint. who am i to judge. see ya

People shouldnt judge people for what they do. People do it for a reason, not for the fun of it, so I really dont think they should be judged for trying to find a way to cope.

They are people that are full of anger, pain, guilt and sadness and have no other way to express it.

yes i am the best to answer this, i have been cutting myself sence i was 12..i am now 14..(dont call me immature because i am not)..most cutters now-a-days think is cool or the in thng or they just want attention, these people are the ones who tell everyone how thye cut themselves and they dont try to hide it..true cutters are people who do not know how to deal with their strong emotions..these emotions can be sad or angry..they dont like to talk it out, and if they do talk it out, it doesnt make them feel any better..crying does not do much so, they feel the need to cut the pain away..it is very hard to stop..i have not cut myself in about 5 months and i think about it everyday and i have become very bitter and mean, because i do not know how to express myself correctly, even though i have tried to express myself, nothing seems to help..i am not alone..it may seem very strange to some, but you really need to be in the situation to understand it completely..://

Happy to see that people are more accepting here! I use to...and yes I think I did it to self punish. However I think that everyone has their own reasons.

From what I know of it, Cutting is a form of self harm and a desir to divert away from issues at hand. It is also a sign of an attempt to gain control of a situation or even 'life' itself. I don't like labelling people by their actions - there are 'people who cut' or 'people who choose the option of cutting'. Labelling someone as a 'cutter' means that's the thing that identifies them the most and what happens when they stop? Do they then become a reformed 'cutter'? The same way, I don't like labels such as 'alcoholic'. I use the terms 'cutter' and 'alcoholic' but in my subconscious I don't like doing it. What if we started referring to everyone we knew by what we considered their most difficult to manage or overcome habit - 'Fat', 'Swearer', 'Tramp'. There are people who face these issues but they cannot overcome them if they're not given any hope that they can - which is why I don't like the labels. Anyway.... I think someone who 'cuts' on an ongoing basis and it gets to the point where they make excuses for the scars or they cover their arms to hide the evidence, they do need help. 'Cutting' is a sign that a person isn't dealing with what they are experiencing - it'd be referred to in a professional setting as 'maladaptive behaviour' (as well as other terms). I honestly think though that some 'cutting' starts from curiosity - we're all curious about our own bodies and will poke and prod ourselves (especially as children) and sometimes we like to inflict pain just to see what our threshold is or to see what pain feels like and see if we really would let go at the right hand. 'Cutting' is just like 'Burning' - people who burn themselves with cigarettes / lighters. Above all and going back to what I'd said earlier, when I've come across young people who cope via cutting, I attempt to deter them, then talk to them and hopefully help them find better strategies to cope other than by turning in and choosing self inflicted physical pain.

they are pathetic self-pity, D-bags, who need to have their eyes opened up to the real world.

I believe that people do this because it is one of the only ways that they are able to "feel" and that this is one way that they relieve their emotional pain. I do think some people who do this are some of the most intelligent.

From what I have learned as a psychology student, cutting has a similar effect as a drug to an addict or food to a binge-eater. It's a form of self-harm that relieves anxiety from uncomfortable feelings or emotions. Cutters cut to self-soothe because they don't know how to self-soothe in a healthy way, and riding the emotion out is not an option because the emotion is just too overwhelming. I sympathize with cutters. It's definitely not their fault, and it's not something that they started doing for attention. Most cutters hide their handiwork.

I am a cutter currently recieving help. I only wish people would not look in disgust, most of us are trying to receive help. Some do well and others do not.

I have been a cutter for years luckily it has been a few months since I have cut. Many people think that people who cut are trying to kill themselves but this is usually not true. It does release endorphins in your brain when you cut because of the pain, which does make you feel good, or relief from the pain you are already feeling.

From A Cutter's point of view:::: A Truth To Me It's what I do when all alone. When I want to cut to see blood and bone. When I feel it is right and just, to rip tear pound and punch. To shred myself for every wrong. For not being enough smart or strong. For not being the right daughter mother or wife I see in me a darkness no light. Still I try refrain from such because he asks and asks with love I don't want to pass on my disease of self torture and pain. My children I want of this to be freed. It's not their punishment they should not not bare. It's mine alone for myself to share. And here I write instead of bleed because then they won't suffer even more on me. I know I'm useless I'll never measure up. I'm selfish and wrong for not making the choice that's tuff. To punish me as I deserve ends up hurting them with more than words. So here i sit and write things down. inside I still cut where it can't be found. Though no longer seen by any one clear. I close my eyes they begin to tear alone, angry what I hate I fear. Heather Kemper 12/29/04 An inside view from the heart of a cutter to those out there that may not understand.,

Physical pain drowns out mental pain. That's one way of dealing with it.

Oh :( i hope you dont cut... please dont do that... i came close to cutting myself many times... but i just couldnt do it... i wanted to so badly but everytime i tried the image of my mum,bros and sisters kept popping up in my head... i love them so much...

Is that not a Clockwork Orange term for money? "Can ye spare some cutter me brothers?"

I applaud anyone out there dealing with cutting, who is brave enough to talk about it. Self-injury is not a 'choice' but rather a coping mechanism used by people who (the majority of the time) have suffered physical or sexual abuse. This is a disorder based in shame and self-loathing, and as such, it takes a very strong individual to share their experience. It's not easy, but a 'cutter' does have the capicity to get well when in a supportive non-judgemental environment.