There's Probably Trigger Warning Stuff in Here: Self- Injury

I have always been a little confused about self-injury. If you're seeing it on the internet (I'm looking at you, Tumblr), it tends to go a little something like this:

I'm Enoby I love MCR and Gerard Way, I look liek amy lee (if u don't kno who dat is den get da fuk out) im straight edge but like to smoke and drink. tattos and piercings r da shit omg i haev snaek bites and. I hate everything and love too much. I am ugly I'm a slytherin my friends r awesom no1 loves me. I cut every dai look at my scarz wow (:

gerard way <3 5ever.


Yep. That was probably offensive if you don't know what My Immortal is (Not the Evanescence song). Sorry, ah, not sorry. But if you have never thought about self harming or cutting, and this is what you see on the internet, it's easy to judge people. Similar to depression, you start to wonder if these people just want attention, or why they do it, and what it means to self-injure, or sometimes if that person really does self-harm or if they just found that image on Instagram or something. I could never tell if it was related to suicide or not. I felt like it wasn't, and after today's discussion, I feel way more informed.

It never occurred to me that self- injury could be a physical manifestation of someone's madness. That cutting (or whatever else) is a way to survive, a way to prove that they are alive and not dead. It's a way to let their anger out without hurting others. We discussed that men tend to punch walls,  but this way is not a socially acceptable way for a girl to express her anger. Cutting isn't even socially acceptable since girls are supposed to faint at the sight of blood.

Kind of like this.

- OMG I took my sister to the Cincinnati Zoo and the vampire bats literally had a bowl of blood in their pen it was so awesome but my sister didn't like it. She does get nauseous with blood and it's fun to tell her how they give IVs or draw blood or talk about the bat food -

Anyway, yeah, expressing anger. I think cutting (I'm just going to say this as it is easier to type than self- injury) is definitely related to depression. Depression is basically internalized anger. If you can't get that anger out, it stays inside (trust me, I know. Sorry no personal story here). If cutting makes someone feel complete, or like they have control over something, should we really try to "fix" them? Like the Dresden Dolls song. That last verse implies that there is something wrong with society if it causes people to behave this way. They're probably right. Should we fix cutting or fix society?