As someone who cut and burned himself for many years, from adolescence until I was in my early thirties, I wince when folks forget that self-mutilation isn’t solely a female phenomenon — though the vast majority of “cutters” are indeed women. Ellen Bass offers this powerful poem on the subject; I nodded in recognition at the description of the why as well as the how of self-injury. When I would hurt myself, I was often filled with intense bursts of pride — and indeed, that pride mystified my loved ones.
MIKE
I was sitting behind her in homeroom
when she swung around
and slid her plaid skirt up, exposing
the thin fresh letters of her boyfriend’s name.
It was winter, but her legs were bare,
her skin pallid, hairless
the blue veins wandering.
I shrank from the angular scratches,
a little blood still seeping. Of course
I recognize her everywhere now –
all the women who cannot rest
until they take a penknife or a razor
to their own flesh. And then
it’s over, pain releasing pain
relief spreading through the lavish
synapses of the brain, rippling
over the body like pleasure.
But nothing of her urgent markings
occurred to me as need.
Face-to-face with the spiky strokes –
such simple, straight lines and sharp points,
and not a curve among them — I was illiterate
mystified by her pride,
how she carved into her flesh
as though her body were a tree
and would bear through the years
the primitive scars of desire.
Just the thing I needed to read during breakfast…
No, really, it hits a nerve. When I was a teen, I went thru a phase where I thought that the mystical entity I answered to would need me to spill some of my blood for it. I did not get around to doing so, for several reasons, and I see now that said entity would have been better served by my finding a way to escape or rebel against the abuse my parents were dealing out.
I still don’t claim to understand why some young people hurt themselves deliberately. But I wonder if in some cases it is because (aside from some macho complex?) they think they will feel better if it is their own hand, for once, inflicting the pain?
This is weird, because I just found out today that someone very close to me is cutting themselves. I think it is because, like Angiportus proposed, it makes her feel in control by hurting herself rather than getting hurt by others. And I also know a girl who used to do it who felt a sense of pride afterward.
Can anyone give me any advice on how I can help her stop this?
Chris, there’s relatively little you can do on your own to help someone who is self-injuring stop, but there are ways to be supportive. Check out the clearing house at http://www.selfinjury.com/
Thank you very much, Hugo.