Sometimes
self-injury affects a
person’s body
image
“I never looked at it as anything that bad at first just my way of getting my mind off something I felt
really awful about. I guess part of me must have
known it was a bad thing to do, though, because I
always hid it. Once a friend asked me if I was
cutting myself and I even lied and said ‘no.’ I was
embarrassed.”
Sometimes self-injury affects a person’s body
image. Jen says, “I actually liked how the cuts
looked. I felt kind of bad when they started to heal
and so I would ‘freshen them up’ by cutting again.
Now I can see how crazy that sounds, but at the
time, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me. I was
all about those cuts - like they were something
about me that only I knew. They were like my own
way of controlling things. I don’t cut myself
anymore, but now I have to deal with the scars.”
You can’t force someone who self-injures to stop. It
doesn’t help to get mad at a friend who cuts, reject
that person, lecture her or beg him to stop. Instead,
let your friend know that you care, that he or she
deserves to be healthy and happy and
that no one needs to bear their
troubles alone.
You can’t force someone who
self-injures to stop
Pressured to Cut?
Girls and guys who self-injure are often dealing with
some heavy troubles. Many work hard to overcome
difficult problems. They find it hard to believe that
some kids cut just because they think it’s a way to
seem tough and rebellious.
Tia tried cutting because a couple of the girls at her
school were doing it. “It seemed like if I didn’t do it,
they would think I was afraid or something. I did it
once. Then I thought about how lame it was to do
something like that to myself for no good reason.
Next time they asked I just said, ‘no, thanks - it’s not
for me.’ “
If you have a friend who suggests you try cutting,
say what you think. Why get pulled into something
you know isn’t good for you? There are plenty of
other ways to express who you are.
Lindsay had been cutting herself for three years
because of abuse she suffered as a child. She’s 16
now and hasn’t cut herself in more
than a year. “I feel proud of that,”
Lindsay says. “When I hear girls talk
about it like it’s the thing to do, it
really gets to me.”