Cutting can be a functional behavior. If the choice is “cut, or jump in front of a truck,” then cutting is the better choice in that scenario, particularly if you are able to regulate it such that you aren’t risking infection, serious blood loss, etc.
Sometimes choices are only between bad and worse. But whenever possible, I’d rather eliminate the root causes of the stress that was making jumping in front of a truck seem like a reasonable option.
Sure, and good for you for thinking straight. Unfortunately, both drug addiction and cutting are behaviors that can start in people who don’t have any better coping skills. The guy who did this study is trying to claim that money is a coping skill. Or perhaps, that choosing delayed gratification is a coping skill - but we didn’t need this study to tell us that - and on what planet $20 two weeks from now solves all the things that lead people into addiction? Darned if I know!
Absolutely, me as well. I just want to highlight that there’s a common perception that cutting is self-destructive, and this perception is often quite wrong. It contributes to how cutters are treated by family, therapists, and medical professionals, and can actually cause a lot of harm. The UK has, to my knowledge, done a fairly good job of educating medical professionals about how to view cutting in a more accurate, less panicked fashion, and even published treatment guidelines for A&E departments who receive cutting injuries. I try to disseminate an alternate perspective when I teach mental health grad students in the US but it’s emptying the ocean with a teaspoon.
So in that case, a small self-inflicted cut carries risks far beyond infection OR drinking, OR abuse of various drugs.
You’re confusing correlation and causation.
1 Like
No, I’m not confusing correlation OR causation. This isn’t a research project. I’m talking about consequences.
I think you need to take your own advice and not group everyone in together. “people who purposely cut themselves are at a high risk of even worse things,” yes they are. But people who purposely drink alcohol are at far higher risk of alcoholism than people who don’t. You manage to find the bridge between that fact and the fact that you can drink alcohol without being an alcoholic.
Is anyone remembering that people engage in self-harm (and harm by others, willingly received) as a sexual activity? Some people honestly love feeling intense pain in certain contexts. Not everyone who willingly participates in their own superficial injury is depressed or mentally ill at all. Sure this is a very different thing than a person with BPD who conceptualizes the blood flowing out of them as their negative emotions, but so is it a very different thing for a person to have a drink with their friends than have a drink by themselves first thing in the morning because otherwise they can’t face the day.
People with BPD also create huge problems for themselves by talking out their emotions with other people.(in a very maladaptive way, driving away friends and relationships, losing jobs, etc.) - none of us would suggest that talking out our emotions with other people is a bad thing just because people with mental illnesses and bad strategies for doing so are at very high risk for suicide.
1 Like
Thanks for saying this far more clearly than I have been. A huge part of the danger of self-injury actually comes from the reactions that people who self-injure receive from others (including and perhaps especially medical professionals). Extremely few people die from small cuts on their arms or torsos, but people who inflict these things on themselves are somehow twice as likely as the general public to die of all manner of diseases (not just suicide).
[quote=“anon50609448, post:48, topic:10082”]
Is anyone remembering that people engage in self-harm (and harm by others, willingly received) as a sexual activity?[/quote]
I know that. But there are lots of things people engage in, as sexual activity, that are ill-advised or even downright evil. Saying something’s part of sexual expression does not make it somehow automatically either more acceptable or less unreasonable behavior (regardless of what the Catholic Church might say about God’s purpose for altarboys, right?)
Or maybe everybody wants to think their own kink is acceptable, no matter how extreme, and people who honestly love intense pain are deeply mentally aberrant. It’s a bad idea to rationalize masochism, or worse yet sadism. There’s a better life away from all that; a person can pack up their bags and blow town, get away from the people and places that are part of self-harming behavior. Kite a flyer. Follow a different dream, go somewhere with less population and more trees.
There is no reason to suspect that people who enjoy BDSM sexually have any kind of mental health or emotional health issues. Not too long ago a major study showed that in fact they tend to be happier, more assertive and less aggressive than people who do not participate in BDSM (no reason to suspect any causality there, it’s easy to see the connection between being happier and more assertive and engaging in things they like rather than repressing them).
I’m sure there are people who do that who are worse for it and who are doing it maladaptively, but I’d be surprised if there weren’t people out there who would be much happier and better off if they let themselves try it.
Earlier I said that I understand that cutting and other physical self-harm is extremely unpleasant for people who don’t understand the urge to do it. I want to correct that, I know it is, but I honestly don’t understand it. Pain is just a thing you can be experiencing. From a purely selfish perspective I’d much rather be in the worst physical pain I’ve ever experienced (given my own limited experience) than, say, experience the emotions I would experience if something were to happen to my child.
I also know that pain can be downright pleasant - I enjoy the dull ache of muscle pain the day after intense exercise. People intentionally experience sadness and other “negative” experiences as well. People eat the hottest peppers they can find to feel the burn. Just because the evident purpose of an experience was to warn us not to do something doesn’t mean that is what we have to take from that experience now; and it doesn’t mean that we have to be defective to want to experience it.
1 Like
Link? We’re about out of time!
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
