Cutting And Other Self-harm

Perhaps our new member, @GoldenDove (if you wish) and others, can help us out here.

I have an acquaintance who is older than I and has been a believer for years. She cuts. Not just a little but a whole lot. She started after her husband's death, near the time she left the cult we all attended. Her counselor is not helping.

I don't understand cutting. Can someone enlighten me?
 
Well I first started cutting when I was only 11 years old, when I lost my beloved pet cat and my parents did nothing but fight, and I had no friends either. A lot of people say people cut because of others doing so, but I had no internet and had no idea that other people self-harmed.

I think there are various reasons why people self-harm and it varies from person to person.
When people experience great mental/emotional pain, they may feel the desire for equally bad physical pain, perhaps to distract them from the emotional pain. A person may blame themselves for a terrible event and think they deserve to be hurt. Or if someone they love was badly injured, sick, or died, they want to feel pain just as the loved one did.

It is easy to become addicted to cutting and enjoy the pain you inflict upon yourself.

I self-harmed for a few years, but after I became Christian I still did a few times but now I have stopped.
I think to stop cutting, a person must find other ways to take out their sadness. Biting seems to help. When I was trying to get over my habit, I bit my arm instead of cutting. Then I started biting pillows instead. It sounds a bit silly but it worked in my case.

How long ago did her husband die? I was sad about my cat dying for over 3 years so I imagine that someone's husband dying would be even worse.
 
Well I first started cutting when I was only 11 years old, when I lost my beloved pet cat and my parents did nothing but fight, and I had no friends either. A lot of people say people cut because of others doing so, but I had no internet and had no idea that other people self-harmed.

I think there are various reasons why people self-harm and it varies from person to person.
When people experience great mental/emotional pain, they may feel the desire for equally bad physical pain, perhaps to distract them from the emotional pain. A person may blame themselves for a terrible event and think they deserve to be hurt. Or if someone they love was badly injured, sick, or died, they want to feel pain just as the loved one did.

It is easy to become addicted to cutting and enjoy the pain you inflict upon yourself.

I self-harmed for a few years, but after I became Christian I still did a few times but now I have stopped.
I think to stop cutting, a person must find other ways to take out their sadness. Biting seems to help. When I was trying to get over my habit, I bit my arm instead of cutting. Then I started biting pillows instead. It sounds a bit silly but it worked in my case.

How long ago did her husband die? I was sad about my cat dying for over 3 years so I imagine that someone's husband dying would be even worse.
Trying to remember when he died....Thinking it through. I am fairly sure it was 1999 and about a year or two before she left the cult she was also in. (The rest of my immediate family was in it -- born and raised in it.) All the rest of us are real happy to be away from that church, but she told me recently that she misses it. She attends a couple churches, but her heart is not in them.

She cuts so badly that she bleeds and bleeds -- it streams. My heart just breaks for her, as she tries to hide it.

She has also put on extreme weight and now weighs about 450 lbs, although she is only around 5'3". Her children love her and even help support her. This is such a heart break. It is obvious that she doesn't want to live.
 
Oh -- also, she won't cook or clean her house. She buys frozen and other pre-made foods, and people come to clean for her.
 
Lev 19:28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.

Mar 5:2 And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
Mar 5:3 Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:
Mar 5:4 Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him.
Mar 5:5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.

Since our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit we should never do things to disfigure, or put graffiti or harm this temple.
In the Gospel of Mark we see a man possessed with an unclean spirit who was always "cutting" himself.
 
My younger brother wrote this when he was 21: (4/4/77) It was one of my favorites.

Dagger

I've got a little dagger
That I stick into my gut
It's not enough to hurt me
'Cause I'm not that big a nut


I keep my dagger hidden
In a place that no one sees.
Fetching it, I'm careful
That no one follows me


My trusty little dagger
Is a friend to me, indeed
For if I want to feel like hell
It surely fills the need


We've all got little gimmicks
That we use to feel like hell
Mine's a trusty dagger
And it serves me all to well


So if your feeling empty
And don't know what to do
Go find yourself a dagger
And run your tummy through


I've got my little dagger
That I stick into my gut.
It sure beats feeling nothing
So I'm not that big a nut.
 
No - he was not a cutter nor was he advocating this (in a time when this phenomena was not known of). He was speaking to how we all get into self destructive habits.
 
No - he was not a cutter nor was he advocating this (in a time when this phenomena was not known of). He was speaking to how we all get into self destructive habits.
Thank you, Silk.

Also, are you writing that cutting is a new phenomenon? That, if it's true, is interesting in itself....
 
I wouldn't say it's new but it has come out in the past 15 yrs. to the public's attention. My brother wrote the poem to shock people into seeing how we pick up self destructive habits and then justify them. He was trying to say we all do it tho not to this extreme.
 
Just as one might abuse alcohol to cope with depression, someone might literally abuse themselves with physical pain for the same reason.

Pray for her. Be there for her. Don't pretend you don't know and make it a priority to help her so that she stops. Research treatment for this. But really help her feel as if she isn't alone. What she needs at the moment is a sort of glimmer of hope.
 
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