Leading a Life of Cutting
"What I've learned from my experiences is that it's hard to tell the truth, to stand in the face of controversy and bear witness," says Laura Prescott (95+). She was once a drug addict and psychiatric patient and is now an advocate for healthy living and coping with mental distress. She also stresses the need for the public's increased understanding of mental illness. One particularly mysterious illness Prescott speaks of is self-mutilation, a person's willingness or desire to cut, scratch, burn, or even break their own bones. Although many of the people who struggle with this illness are often misunderstood, they all seem to offer through their experiences a truth, a means of bringing some clarity to the mystery behind their actions. In listening to them, perhaps we can bear witness and have a better understanding of their struggles. In examining five different people that intentionally harm themselves, there were a few differences, but there were also many similarities.
Each person had a different reason for starting down the road of self-mutilation. Loralei Bottsworth moved from South Africa to the United States and had a very hard time adjusting to her new school environment. She says, "Overall, I felt like I had just been thrown to the sharks" (Bottsworth 62+). Kids picked on her and called her names so much that she resorted to self-mutilation. An anonymous internet source, on the other hand, had a completely different reason for cutting herself: "[She] is a child of divorce, and a particularly nasty one at that" ("My Story of Divorce"). Moving to a new area and divorce are events that could happen to anyone, but self-mutilation seems to be their only escape, and this is what makes them unique.
How they hurt themselves and what they use to accomplish their task is also something that makes each patient different. There are many ways to inflict self-harm that are common among self-mutilators, but all of the people who were researched cut themselves or scratched themselves on their arms. Many of them start by grabbing the first thing they can get their hands on to hurt themselves. Christine Roberts says, "One night, I was at home in my bedroom and feeling anxious abut going back to school. I grabbed a pair of scissors, sat down on my bed, and scratched my wrists with them" (104+). Others will start with something relatively small and work their way up to objects that cause very serious cuts. "I made a ritual out of taking the sewing needle and pricking my arm a few times. After about two months, I needed to do more to tranquilize myself … so I went to my dad's desk to get an X-Acto knife," states Loralei Bottsworth (62+). An X-Acto knife can do a lot more harm than a pin. It is this process, starting small and working up to more serious methods of injuring, that reveals what self-mutilators are doing to themselves. Eventually one cut goes deeper than expected and leads to hospitalization for medical care – both physical and mental.
The emotional effects of cutting were a commonality found among the patients. They all did it to relieve their frustrations. According to Bottsworth, "It was like all my frustrations seeped out of me with the blood" (62+). Since she didn't feel like she could talk to anyone about how the kids were treating her in school after they had moved to the United States, she cut her arms. Her blood and her emotions were seen as one. With the blood flow, it was like she was releasing all of her pent-up emotions that had built up inside her, and the only way to get these emotions out was to cut open her skin. Then everything would be all right until another stressful moment arose, as was the case with the author of an anonymous internet source: "I began cutting any time I felt too much pressure – it would suddenly be released" (Anonymous, "My Story of Divorce). Cutting would temporarily relieve the stress, and for a few days she would be fine until something else came up that would give her a desire to cut. Many of them try to lead a normal life, but their pasts keep haunting them into cutting: "No matter how hard I tried to pretend that everything was okay, it definitely wasn't" (Roberts 104+). She was sexually abused by a family member from the ages of seven to twelve. Her first cut was made at the age of thirteen without allowing anyone to know, and she was cutting on a regular basis by the time she was in ninth grade.
In fact, the need to keep their self-mutilation a secret was also something that many of them had in common. They did not want anyone to know what they were doing. Bottsworth stated, "Talking to my parents didn't feel like an option because I didn't want to add to their burdens" (62+). She felt like her parents had their own problems to deal with, and by telling them, she would give them more things to worry about. Cutting open her skin with an X-Acto knife seemed like a better option to her than talking to someone about how she felt. Covering the cuts up with bandages must make what they have done to themselves invisible to other people. "I put butterfly bandages on the cuts and tried to hide what I'd done," recalls Christine Roberts (104+). The bandages can only hide the cuts for so long, however. Many of the people who cut their arms will cover them up with long sleeves. Bottsworth recalls a lie she once told her mother: "My mom only remarked once about wearing sleeves in July. I told her the air conditioning made me cold" (62+). She would rather deal with her problems in secret by cutting herself than by talking to a parent or another person she trusts. Self-mutilation could be considered socially unacceptable, and by covering it up, she could deal with her problems privately instead of bringing others into her own pain-ridden world.
A way that many self-mutilators will keep it private but make it socially acceptable will be to get piercings. According to an anonymous internet source, "I have several ear piercings which I actually enjoyed getting, while others seem to regard piercing as something to be endured for the sake of beauty" (Self Mutilation in Psychiatry). Piercing is a way for them to still feel the same feelings that come with slitting their arms or poking their wrists, but they don't have to hide it.
There are many different ways to handle problems encountered in life, and some ways are better than others. Self-mutilation is one way that some people choose to deal with their troubles. Each person that does it is unique because they all have different reasons and methods for cutting; however, they also have many similarities such as doing it relieve built-up emotions from their traumatic pasts and keeping their self-mutilation a secret from friends and family. Many people who cut have a long road to recovery, but the sooner they accept help the sooner they can recover from this illness and leave their lives of cutting in the past. Then by listening to their recoveries we, as readers, can reserve our judgments and empathize with the people struggling with this mysterious illness.
Works Cited
Anonymous. My Story of Divorce, Perfection and Pain. . . . etc. . . . (article on the web)
Anonymous. Self Mutilation in Psychiatry: One Patient’s View. . . . etc. . . . (article on the web)
Bottsworth, Loralei. “Making the Cut.” Teen Magazine . . . etc. . . . (magazine article – PALS)
Prescott, Laura. “Veterans of Abuse and Daughters of the Dark: The Politics of Naming and Risk of Transformation in Building Partnerships for Change.” Perspectives in Psychiatric Care . . . etc. . . (journal article – PALS)
Roberts, Christine. “I Couldn’t Stop Hurting Myself.” Good Housekeeping . . . etc. . . . (magazine article – PALS)