"Cutting" or Deliberate Self-Harm

* The following post may contain content which may be an emotional trigger for some people.  I will be writing very candidly about the topic of cutting and self injury.

"I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real"

Trent Reznor's words to the song entitled, "Hurt" was ultimately about his own heroin addiction yet the universal message it sends is about any act of self destruction or injury.  When I was in my teens and early twenties, this song would have spoken to me because I was a cutter.  I didn't know what the fancy names for it were such as (SI) for Self-Injury, self-harm (SH) or deliberate self-harm, (DSH).  All I knew was that it was something I did to (and I know this doesn't seem to make any sense) stop the emotional pain.

What exactly is deliberate self-harm? 

Usually it means cutting oneself with sharp implements including razors, pins, knives, scissors, glass, or anything which might do the job.  It can also include burning oneself, picking at wounds so that they don't heal.  I am sure there is a lot more one could include here but you get the picture. 

How many people do this? 

According to stats I found on a web site devoted to helping those who self injure:

"It is estimated that..."1.9 million Americans do these things, and do them repeatedly, some for years at a time, according to one conservative estimate.  Another source says 750 of every 100,000 people in the U.S. self-injure."  And in one study of undergraduate students in the United States, 9.8% of those students surveyed, said that they had self injured by cutting or burning themselves at least once. 

Who engages in self injury?

Individuals who self-inure are not usually suicidal.  The psychological portrait of the person who engages in self harm is most commonly a person who has been abused in some way as a child.  Sexual abuse survivors are quite common among the population who inflict self injury to themselves. 

The literature is fairly consistent that it is usually females who are between the ages of 13 and 30 who engage in either cutting or self-injury but it is a syndrome which also affects men, older people, and everyone in between.  Even the famous are not immune to self-injury. 

People such as Angelina Jolie, Fiona Apple, Johnny Depp, Courtney Love, and Christina Ricci have all admitted to the press that they have engaged in self injurious behaviors.  I remember when Princess Diana startled the world with her confession that she would engage in cutting herself.  My point is not to glamorize this.  It is to show that the willful act to self injure crosses all boundaries.  Even the rich and famous have issues which can lead them to engaging in self harm. 

I feel that cutting and self injury is growing in our society.  It has become ingrained even in our popular culture.  You see it in movies.  The films "Girl Interrupted" and "Secretary" come to mind.  I hear about it more and more and especially here on-line.  I have seen many questions coming in to this forum about cutting and it was a wake up call to me that this was a topic I did wish to write about despite the fact that this is emotionally difficult for me to do.  It was a part of my life that I would just as soon forget.  But if my story and experiences can help someone else, to tell you that you are not alone, then it is all worth it.