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Cutting Oneself

JAC
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Posted 04/22/08 - 06:08 PM: Subject: Cutting Oneself	#1
I am currently bleeding from my hand and wrist as a result of cutting myself. I'm sitting here with a nice bottle of Merlot, listening to Supertramp's album "Crime of the Century", and blood seemed like it would fit with the picture. Does anyone else participate in cutting oneself? This is probably the third time I've done it. I'm not suicidal or anything, I just enjoy pain. And, to be honest with you, I LOVE the sight of blood coming from my own body. Does this make me weird? Haha. Anyone have anything to say about it? I think it's just another form of expression, but what do the rest of you think of cutting yourself? Have any of you ever done it? And, if so, why?
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche "I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece can not be moved." - Soren Kierkegaard

mikmak
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Posted 04/22/08 - 06:41 PM:	#2
I've never intentionally cut myself, but I'll admit that if I do cop an injury, watching the blood come out is something that I have to see I'm a bit of a sook when it comes to minor pain, but severe pain I can handle (of my 3 motorcycle accidents, I was only wearing a t-shirt and shorts on 2 occassions). Does it make you weird? Well it is opposite to normal if you consider the majority of the rest of the world to be normal. Has the frequency increased since your first cut?
Life isn't black or white. It's a freakin rainbow.

JAC
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Posted 04/22/08 - 07:02 PM:	#3
mikmak wrote: I've never intentionally cut myself, but I'll admit that if I do cop an injury, watching the blood come out is something that I have to see I'm a bit of a sook when it comes to minor pain, but severe pain I can handle (of my 3 motorcycle accidents, I was only wearing a t-shirt and shorts on 2 occassions). Does it make you weird? Well it is opposite to normal if you consider the majority of the rest of the world to be normal. Has the frequency increased since your first cut? I don't think so. Tuesday nights are nice for me because I'm home alone and so the opportunity arises to listen to music really loud, drink wine, and cut myself. All three times I've cut myself have been on a tuesday. I just cut myself again, actually. Now the brighter red blood is there, as well as the dried up dark red blood from my cut earlier tonight.
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche "I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece can not be moved." - Soren Kierkegaard

kris
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Posted 04/23/08 - 08:00 AM:	#4
JAC wrote: Does this make me weird? I would say so. Anyone have anything to say about it? I think it's just another form of expression, but what do the rest of you think of cutting yourself? What exactly are you expressing this way and to whom?
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JAC
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Posted 04/23/08 - 06:38 PM:	#5
kris wrote: I would say so. What exactly are you expressing this way and to whom? I'm expressing an accomplishment to myself. Something about the fear of doing it, the courage it takes to overcome that fear, the pain and yet the pleasure, the idea of death which goes with blood and yet the life that blood represents. All these conflicting ideas culminate into one vivid celebration of human existence through the act of self-injury.
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche "I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece can not be moved." - Soren Kierkegaard

CypressMoon
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Posted 04/23/08 - 07:15 PM:	#6
Start skateboarding. You will be bleeding from all of the vertices in your body within a few days.
"We stand before the world, not in it." - Rilke "MAD, adj. Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual." - Ambrose Bierce (The Devil's Dictionary) If you have a small child, gently pull the mask over them first, and pull at the ends to tighten the straps.

JAC
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Posted 04/23/08 - 09:35 PM:	#7
CypressMoon wrote: Start skateboarding. You will be bleeding from all of the vertices in your body within a few days. Lol. Skateboarding is not my thing.
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche "I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece can not be moved." - Soren Kierkegaard

jaoman
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Posted 04/23/08 - 11:06 PM:	#8
How do you feel about somebody else cutting you? I'd recommend you track down some of the kink community near where you live. There are people into blood sports - technical term, incidentally - and they can show you how to do it properly so you don't risk infection or doing something truly dangerous. Edited by jaoman on 04/23/08 - 11:13 PM
"With no relation to class or social background, whether it suits them or not, people yearn for a dream. Sustained by a dream, hurt by a dream, revived by a dream, killed by a dream. And even after being abandoned by a dream, it continues to smolder from the bottom of one's heart... probably until the verge of death. A man should envision such a lifetime once. A life spent as a martyr to the god named "dream." - Kentaro Miura

kris
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Posted 04/25/08 - 02:47 AM:	#9
JAC wrote: I'm expressing an accomplishment to myself. Something about the fear of doing it, the courage it takes to overcome that fear, the pain and yet the pleasure, the idea of death which goes with blood and yet the life that blood represents. All these conflicting ideas culminate into one vivid celebration of human existence through the act of self-injury. I don't see any good reason why anyone would want to overcome the fear of cutting himself. Besides your act of cutting yourself does not seem to wipe out that fear. I say this because that fear comes back to you again and again. I suggest you seek some therapy for whatever is bothering you. Perhaps some sort of regression therapy might help.
kris http://kris10846902.tripod.com/

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Posted 04/25/08 - 03:46 AM:	#10
I would say it is strange in the sense that I would not consider doing it. And only you can decide if it stems from a normal, healthy desire or if it is related to a deeper issue that might require counselling or other forms of help. As long as you remain open to the possibility that you are fooling yourself with your justification and thus force yourself to complete honesty with yourself, any decision to cut or not to cut is probably a healthy one. I can somewhat relate to your reasoning but do wonder whether it's just a pretext for doing something you like and needing to provide a justification for an external world. Therefore questioning whether it's your real reason or just one that you think "we" find acceptable so that we do not condemn the behaviour (even though you probably would care less). I agree with jaoman that it would be good to make sure you do not put yourself at unnecessary risk; unless of course that's the whole purpose.
- How are you doing? - I'm doing good. - No, Superman is doing Good, you're doing well. You need to brush up on your grammar.

JAC
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Posted 04/26/08 - 10:04 AM:	#11
kris wrote: I don't see any good reason why anyone would want to overcome the fear of cutting himself. Well the desire is already there to do it. The fear is a repression of that desire, and courage is what it takes to overcome the fear. Therefore, by cutting myself I express both fear and courage, I express both desire and apprehension - the contradicting factors of human consciousness are celebrated fully through expression. In other words, I made art. Of course, cutting oneself is not the only way to achieve such expression. It depends on the individual. Besides your act of cutting yourself does not seem to wipe out that fear. I say this because that fear comes back to you again and again. Whoever said the goal was to remove fear? Courage is not necessarily a removal of fear, but it is always an acknowledgment of fear's existence. Hence why any expression that takes courage to do is as much an expression of fear as of courage. Both factors are expressed. Whereas, without the expression, only fear is acknowledged. I suggest you seek some therapy for whatever is bothering you. Perhaps some sort of regression therapy might help. Bothering me? You mean I should learn the wonderful practice of abstention? Ha! Screw that. jaoman wrote: How do you feel about somebody else cutting you? See, that would probably scare me, haha; and, besides, I have no desire to participate in such a thing. I'd recommend you track down some of the kink community near where you live. There are people into blood sports - technical term, incidentally - and they can show you how to do it properly so you don't risk infection or doing something truly dangerous. Not a bad idea. I really don't want to hurt myself seriously - or at all, actually. Usually I don't even feel it. It's just the sight of blood that brings this odd sense of accomplishment to me. Benkei wrote: I can somewhat relate to your reasoning but do wonder whether it's just a pretext for doing something you like and needing to provide a justification for an external world. Ah, yes, the question of the chicken or the egg. Are my actions determined by what I see as justified, or are my justifications created after I have already acted as an attempt at self-assurance. Great question! Unfortunately, I do not know the answer fully. I can say that I never had any desire to do such a thing until the thoughts I have explicated here concerning aesthetics came to me. So I am inclined to say that I have had this justification already, and then I acted afterwards. But, you have to understand, the way my aesthetic philosophy works is that any expression is justified because all expressions overcome nihilism by acknowledging the value of the self and of all existence. Every expression is, automatically, an expression of contradicting factors. It takes strength to express something, but only weak people would desire expression or feel a need to express. So expression acknowledges both the strength and weakness of the self, thereby celebrating it fully as something of value, thereby overcoming nihilism. Edited by JAC on 04/26/08 - 10:09 AM
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche "I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece can not be moved." - Soren Kierkegaard

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Posted 04/27/08 - 04:11 AM:	#12
JAC wrote: Bothering me? Well, you did ask: Does it make you weird? You mean I should learn the wonderful practice of abstention? Ha! Screw that. I was not advocating "just say No!" I suggested regression therapy as a way to find out what makes you want to cut yourself. Of course, I know you have given your reasons for it, but they don't seem to get to the heart of the issue.
kris http://kris10846902.tripod.com/

air
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Posted 04/30/08 - 02:14 PM:	#13
I've been cutting myself for about 5 years. I've always used self-harm as a way to pacify myself. As a child I use to bite myself. I don't consider it normal if you mean widely/openly practiced. And the reasons I cut myself are different then why you cut yourself (evidently to sweeten the Merlot). I also like to give blood and get piercings because I just like the way it feels. But cutting for me has a negative conntation since I only do it when I'm distressed and angry.

Legion
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Posted 04/30/08 - 02:30 PM:	#14
JAC wrote: Does anyone else participate in cutting oneself? I can't say that I've ever done it intentionally.

JAC
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Posted 05/02/08 - 09:13 PM:	#15
air wrote: I've been cutting myself for about 5 years. I've always used self-harm as a way to pacify myself. Ah, this sounds interesting. Do tell me more. And the reasons I cut myself are different then why you cut yourself (evidently to sweeten the Merlot). Haha, evidently.
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche "I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece can not be moved." - Soren Kierkegaard

DoctorInWaiting
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Posted 05/03/08 - 04:43 AM:	#16
The human continuity of the skin was never meant to be broken. I think this ideology of cutting oneself is a tad abstract...and im a psychologist!

JAC
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Posted 05/04/08 - 07:15 PM:	#17
kris wrote: Of course, I know you have given your reasons for it, but they don't seem to get to the heart of the issue. Hmmm... How about I feel unloved? I feel not good enough. I know it's "stupid" to allow the value of yourself to lie in the hands of external entities (Sartre called this "living for others"), but can humans help but do this? I feel empty, but blood is a creation that comes out of me. It's an expression. And expressions require something to be inside. It's an affirmation of value. The value of pain. I often say that I hate myself. Yet, at the same time, I am one of the cockiest bastards you'll ever meet. I think I'm a genius and am going to change the world one day. But when no one else agrees with me I question that thought, and harming myself is a way to really affirm my pain as a human being. I am still a bit confused, to be honest, about cutting myself. But it's something I am going to do again in a few moments here.
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche "I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece can not be moved." - Soren Kierkegaard

JAC
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Posted 05/04/08 - 07:20 PM:	#18
DoctorInWaiting wrote: The human continuity of the skin was never meant to be broken. If only the skin had a vote in this decision! Haha. I think this ideology of cutting oneself is a tad abstract...and im a psychologist! Haha. Psychology is awesome. I don't know how "abstract" it is, but I do feel a need to cut myself again here. And so it is what I shall do.
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche "I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece can not be moved." - Soren Kierkegaard

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Posted 05/05/08 - 03:43 AM:	#19
I agree with those that say trying to overcome the fear of being cut is no achievement to boast about. The survival instinct is what causes that fear, and as such it is unnatural to be purposely causing self injury. PS: JAC are you spamming the forum with those quotes? I appreciated them the first time, once was enough.

air
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Posted 05/06/08 - 12:27 PM:	#20
JAC wrote: Ah, this sounds interesting. Do tell me more. Haha, evidently. Well, I mostly cut myself to deal with depression and stress. It's the only thing that "works." Regardless of how I'm feeling cutting numbs me. I sort of walk around like a zombie the rest of the day after I cut. I no longer feel sad, lonely or angry just numb and empty. I don't recommend it to you. I certainly would never encourage it to anyone but hypocritically I refuse to give it up. Sort of how smokers tell people not to smoke, and I guess I'm one of those too. However just realize that the more you resort to cutting to deal with your feelings the bigger a factor it will be in your life. Sorry just wondering what do you cut yourself with? And where? I prefer my arm but that's too noticable especially during summer so I cut on my thigh and just wear guy swim shorts to the pool. I like to use switchblades. I sort of have this whole ritual behind it.

DoctorInWaiting
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Posted 05/06/08 - 03:49 PM:	#21
JayDe01 wrote: I agree with those that say trying to overcome the fear of being cut is no achievement to boast about. The survival instinct is what causes that fear, and as such it is unnatural to be purposely causing self injury. PS: JAC are you spamming the forum with those quotes? I appreciated them the first time, once was enough. I agree JayDe, its an evolutionist perspective. JAC, the skin cannot vote, the human was designed in order to have a continuity of skin in order to keep all organs and blood inside the body. The skin is not an entity with a mind in order to have cognition and therefore thought, so there is no way in which there can be a vote by the skin. Have you ever questioned why do you have a painful reaction when cutting? It is negative feedback from your body telling you to stop. Although it can be argued by yourself that there is a thrill involved but how people see that one has still yet to see! I didnt try to sound like a comedown but yet if you do have a thrill, please tell me why and what it is like, I say its abstract as it is not a societal norm or a physiological normative behaviour of cutting oneself in order to feel good, but as I say im here to learn if you would like to tell me!

kris
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Posted 05/06/08 - 03:56 PM:	#22
JAC wrote: How about I feel unloved? I feel not good enough. I know it's "stupid" to allow the value of yourself to lie in the hands of external entities (Sartre called this "living for others"), but can humans help but do this? I feel empty, but blood is a creation that comes out of me. It's an expression. And expressions require something to be inside. It's an affirmation of value. The value of pain. Love is something that we give. It is not something that we receive or should expect to receive. I say this because we are only capable of feeling our own love. We can never feel someone else's love. (We can surmise someone else's love, but cannot really feel it.) Our ability to give is all we really have and is all we can really do by ourselves. As receivers, we becomes dependent on others. The way to give love is to share part of ourselves with others. When we give love, we feel good about ourselves. The way to overcome emptyness is also by giving and not by receiving. Giving is also the way to affirm our value. I see no need to affirm the value of pain. There is way too much of it already in the world. I often say that I hate myself. Yet, at the same time, I am one of the cockiest bastards you'll ever meet. I think I'm a genius and am going to change the world one day. But when no one else agrees with me I question that thought, and harming myself is a way to really affirm my pain as a human being. Wanting to change the world seems like goood idea. But the way way to prove that you can change the world is by first changing yourself. We can only change that which we can control.
kris http://kris10846902.tripod.com/

JAC
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Posted 05/06/08 - 03:59 PM:	#23
JayDe01 wrote: I agree with those that say trying to overcome the fear of being cut is no achievement to boast about. The survival instinct is what causes that fear, and as such it is unnatural to be purposely causing self injury. And why ought I pursue what is "natural"? PS: JAC are you spamming the forum with those quotes? I appreciated them the first time, once was enough. Eh? What quotes? You mean the ones in my signature? Those automatically go there. Anyone can have a signature. DoctorInWaiting wrote: JAC, the skin cannot vote, the human was designed in order to have a continuity of skin in order to keep all organs and blood inside the body. The skin is not an entity with a mind in order to have cognition and therefore thought, so there is no way in which there can be a vote by the skin. Obviously. Haha, I was being sarcastic. Sorry if you didn't catch that. Have you ever questioned why do you have a painful reaction when cutting? It is negative feedback from your body telling you to stop. Although it can be argued by yourself that there is a thrill involved but how people see that one has still yet to see! The pain is only a small one. But it is quickly overwhelmed by the joyous feeling I get when I see blood coming from my hand. I didnt try to sound like a comedown but yet if you do have a thrill, please tell me why and what it is like, I say its abstract as it is not a societal norm or a physiological normative behaviour of cutting oneself in order to feel good, but as I say im here to learn if you would like to tell me! Well, again, I feel like it is an accomplishment. It's something I wanted to try but, for the longest time, was too afraid to do. Still, each time I do it, I am afraid of the pain, but I overcome that fear.
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche "I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece can not be moved." - Soren Kierkegaard

JAC
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Posted 05/06/08 - 04:10 PM:	#24
air wrote: Well, I mostly cut myself to deal with depression and stress. It's the only thing that "works." Regardless of how I'm feeling cutting numbs me. I sort of walk around like a zombie the rest of the day after I cut. I no longer feel sad, lonely or angry just numb and empty. I don't recommend it to you. I certainly would never encourage it to anyone but hypocritically I refuse to give it up. Sort of how smokers tell people not to smoke, and I guess I'm one of those too. Ah, wanting to be empty makes no sense to me, haha. I already feel empty, and so cutting myself is a way of creating meaning and feeling. I never do anything to avoid feelings or emotions, everything I do is an attempt to strengthen them. It's the same reason why I drink - not to avoid pain or pleasure, but to get in better touch with them both. However just realize that the more you resort to cutting to deal with your feelings the bigger a factor it will be in your life. Sorry just wondering what do you cut yourself with? And where? I prefer my arm but that's too noticable especially during summer so I cut on my thigh and just wear guy swim shorts to the pool. I like to use switchblades. I sort of have this whole ritual behind it. Lol, you crazy bastard. I just use this knife in my kitchen. It's a pretty good sized knife. Gets the job done, at least, haha. kris wrote: Love is something that we give. It is not something that we receive or should expect to receive. But we can receive physical expressions of love, can we not? I see no need to affirm the value of pain. There is way too much of it already in the world. And you see no value in pain?
"A life with love will have many thorns, but a life without love will have no roses." - Friedrich Nietzsche "I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece can not be moved." - Soren Kierkegaard

kris
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Posted 05/07/08 - 03:22 PM:	#25
JAC wrote: But we can receive physical expressions of love, can we not? But wanting to receive makes us dependent on others. There is something to be said about taking the state of the world in stride. Besides if the world was already to your liking you would not feel the need to change it. And you see no value in pain? I see pain as a reality in the world. I cannot change whatever value pain has in the scheme of things. I just don't see any need to create it. Let me add - I won't miss pain if I don't ever experience it.
kris http://kris10846902.tripod.com/

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