Ok, I guess I should probably address this one. It's a question I've gotten from a lot of people and something people don't seem to understand, so I guess this is a good learning opportunity. Plus, there's the fact that in the US, 1 in every 200 girls between the ages of thirteen and nineteen cut themselves regularly. It's a problem, and we need to talk about it.
So, why do I cut? I honestly had to think on this one for a little while. My boyfriend once asked me why it doesn't make me even MORE body conscious, and I think that is an important point. It doesn't make me conscious. I mean, I don't generally let people see and try to hide them, but that's for people's sake, not for my sake, because they are rather disturbing looking and give most people the willies. I think maybe the reason I'm not self conscious about it is because it's a little bit of my way of marking myself. Like the scarlet A, but self imposed. It's a mark showing that I'm a freak and that's what I feel I deserve.
Secondly, it is defiantly a form of self punishment. Not the pain, the pain doesn't bother me at all, but the presence of the marks and the fact that I am disfiguring my body. I am and have always been very hard on myself, and it's a way that I put myself through a sort of shaming display.
Thirdly, I always do it after a sudden and unexpected rush of negative emotion. I have only recently allowed myself to feel emotion (I've previously blocked that part of my brain and dealt with things with my eating disorder) and the emotions I feel can be very intense and hard to manage. It is easier to feel and focus on physical pain than it is to sit with the discomfort of emotional pain. It calms me down.
It's all sick, I know, but there you have it.
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