Bluey said:
It may make the both of you feel better for the short term. But really is it the sort of thing you would like to continue with?
And what if someone you loved was doing it? I doubt that you would be saying it dose help so its OK to them.
OK I ask the both of you two (Qui & liposuctionlol) If I was cutting and was asking for help. What would your advice be to help me to stop? I would say since you both are better placed to answer this then my self your advice would be better
No, it's not something that should be ongoing. It's a short term solution for a person at weak point in their life.
It's true, cutting is admitting you're weak. It's against human nature to admit you're weak, which is part of why cutting is so taboo. But isn't it also admitting you're weak to say you have dyslexia, or that you're unhappy, or even that you're just lonely? I'm not afraid to admit any of that, it's all true for me. Loads of stuff like that, it's all a weakness. Depression. Anxiety. They all have names, but what about when you don't have a name for it? What about when you go through all the things in your life to find something to blame and all that's left is just you, you're weak and in pain and so terribly depressed all the time and all that's there to blame it on is yourself. That's the situation that a lot of people find themselves in when they start to hurt themselves. In whatever way, they're weak, and there's nothing else to blame. So they take it out on themselves.
So, for that phase of one's life, self injury is a temporary fix. It can go either way from there; you can get stronger, or you can get weaker. You can stop hurting yourself, or you can kill yourself. Or I suppose you could just keep doing it, if you're incapable of learning or moving forward with your life. Which happens. It's alright.
And about having someone you love hurt themselves, my best friend from preschool through about freshman year in high school cut herself. Badly. She was hospitalized a few times I believe. She almost died. Her left arm is striped like a zebra from her shoulder to her wrist. I'm probably underexagerating this, actually, because it was just awful. I saw her cut herself. I saw it happen, and it hurt me as much to see that as it hurt her to do it. But I didn't stop her. I gave her a couple of Band-Aids and a tissue, gave her a hug, and just sat with her for a while. Maybe I did the wrong thing. Maybe there's a million better things I could have done. But that's what I did, and she thanked me for it later, for understanding. That's what I think it takes, understanding. Freaking out makes it worse. That adds guilt, and guilt is bad. I think that all you can do to help is try to understand, and make sure they know you care about how they feel.
If a person is hurting themself and wants to stop, they can do it. If someone doesn't want to stop and is forced to, they'll keep hurting themself, even if it isn't physically. With that said, if you hurt yourself and want to stop, you can find something healthier to do instead, i.e. walking to the store to binge on just food. If you cut, take all your razor blades and throw them away. Or stash them in a hard to get to location so you can have the comfort of knowing they're there if you need them but aren't in a convenient location, like the magnet strip on my bedpost where I used to stick them. Don't be harsh with yourself about it, harshness leads to feelings of weakness or patheticness if you can't just stop, and feeling weak, pathetic, bad, whatever is what makes a lot of people hurt themselves in the first place.
Be nice about it, don't punish yourself or anyone else for feeling bad, that just sparks more bad feelings.
I'm not sure what else to say, except that people who hurt themselves are often just punishing themselves for some weakness they see in themselves, and the two cruelest thing you can do to a person who feels weak is to kick them for being weak, and to force them to clean up and act like they're happy. You might think that you're right for doing that, for forcing someone to stop or for ridiculing them for acting "stupid" or "weak", but it doesn't help. That all just makes it worse for them. So maybe the physical injury stops, but the problem is there, and it's likely just gotten worse due to your "intervention". So just be nice, ok? Everyone's weak. It happens. It just manifests itself in different ways.
So whatever, that's my two cents on the issue. Or, maybe like two dollars. Whatever. Take it as you will, but that's my oppinion only so I don't expect anyone to agree with it all or maybe any of it.
