by Samantha Pratt-Tyler

Created on: August 16, 2008   Last Updated: August 21, 2008

Why someone would cut themselves is something most people don't want to talk about or to even know about.

Cutting of one's self is a cry from the inside of a tormented person. Those people that I know who are cutters are those who have suffered sexual abuse as a young person or teen, it is a way for them to feel alive again.

For someone unfamiliar with people who cut themselves, that may sound like a weird or vague reason, but most cutters have numbed themselves to life, to the pressures, to the trauma they have gone through and cutting gives them pain, so the pain makes them know they are alive and that they are feeling something.

Shutting down, and numbing out are common coping mechanisms a lot of people who have been through some type of abuse or trauma and through this coping mechanise they will use so they don't have to deal with the abuse or trauma. But it leaves you feeling dead inside, thus some will resort to cutting to feel again. Since it is a coping mechanism for them at this point in their life is the only way they know how to cope with their life.

Most cutters I know are shy, keep things bottled up inside and are afraid to share what is going on in their minds. For then they would have to vocalize the reality of what is their pain and the root of their problem which they are running away from.
They then cut so they can release the pain they feel on the inside. It is their pain that they carry on the their insides that causes them to cut so they can feel the pain on the outside in the physical realm. It still masks the mental and emotional pain they want to hide.

Many cutters when they try to stop cutting, will get tatoos, it causes the pain they need to feel but in what society feels as a more acceptable way to deal with what they are experiencing, but when the pain gets too bad inside, they will eventually go back to the only coping mechanism they know and that is cutting.

People who cut themselves are deeply ingrained in a vicious cycle, for they feel guilty for cutting, and shut down more, which causes more cutting to feel again. They are crying out for help the only way they know how, and once you can understand that then you can help them seek the help they need to deal more effectively with the issues they are having which is causing their need to cut.

Low self-esteem can also be a reason for people to cut themselves. It is a way to control something in their life when things seem to be out of control around them and inside them. So dealing with self-esteem issues are important also. Like people who do not eat because they feel then in control of their body and life, even when they are so thin and dying, they find it hard to eat, emotional pain is deeply ingrained in both, and their way to control their life is to cut or with hold food.

It is important not to condemn these people, but accept that this is their way to deal with life, and yet, reach out to them with genuine concern and love for who they are and what they have gone through. For most cutters have self-esteem issues and they will know if you are not being genuine and loving and will shut down on you and on themselves as well.

Not all cutters are young people or teens, older adults cut also for the same reasons the youngers do. Pain inside undealt with will manifest itself through the outward use of cutting
for them, or in some other way that is just as risky or dangerous.

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