analog

*Statement I made was perceived as angry by others, and I've withdrawn it myself. Please do not take my tone in this post to be anger- it is frustration at first and mostly informative for the purpose of fostering better understanding towards those people we're discussing.*

With all due respect, that is a gross statement.

People who cut themselves do so for a variety of reasons, but cutting in general is not something they flaunt. It is a very personal, well-guarded portion of their lives. No one who is a real, honest cutter wants people to know they do it.

The only ones that do cut "just for the attention" are the ones that KNOW they will be found out, and usually the cuts are far from severe. This case is a "cry for help"- but everyone else is just trying to find a way to cope. When you feel depressed, the cutting makes you actually FEEL something... it's no wonder the most frequent description of depression is a feeling of numbness. Cutting allows them to actually FEEL something... and the adrenaline that kicks in makes them feel a little better, because of the inherent nature of adrenaline, which makes them feel like if they did it whenever they were sad, it would make them feel happy.

People like the guy who carved "my daddy..." on his arm are doing it because they feel as though they've been bad, and DESERVE it. He wrote that he "liked it" on his arm, which definitely means he feels as though it's his fault it happened. Can you imagine a teenage boy honestly feeling that his childhood rape was HIS FAULT? That's how some of these people deal with it. They feel as though it was their fault, and need to be punished, or that they're dirty, and shouldn't be alive. Very many rape victims are this way, not just childhood ones- how many times do you hear about a woman being raped but she didn't report it? Many times it's because they think they did somethign to provoke it, and therefore they shouldn't be upset it happened. That will cause major psychological damage..

I was never abused, raped or beaten as a child, but I had some nasty depression in my teen years. I'm glad that all I have to show for those years of pain are some leftover writings and poems, and no scars. The few scars that are visible are easily explained away as other things. Before posting this on TFP, exactly ONE person in my life knew even a LITTLE of it, and that was my now-ex girlfriend of 3 years, and that was only because I almost got caught doing it again (serious money problems) and decided to tell her.

Please be careful when you judge actions taken by these people. They are sad, or angry, and do not know they can be helped- many think help is impossible, and even if they could get help, that would mean telling your parents or loved ones or friends that you cut yourself, which is not an easy thought to bear.

Take care, everyone.