Stripped

" I have feelings of depression, hopelessness, and desire to die when I start cutting. I don't cut myself to try to die. The first time I cut myself I was trying to kill myself: that is how I discovered the "positive" effects of cutting." -Male, age 17. 3 years SIB,college sophomore.

"I feel really comforted by it, as though I am squeezing the hurt from me in the posioned blood. After, I am upset that I let myself lose control."-female, age 21, 6 years SIB, college senior.

" Personally, I think cutting is a way of releasing emotions for people like me who have a lot of trouble with crying and expressive emotional things like that(note: I connected to this, because I cut when I can't cry, and have often thought of the intertwining symbolism of the saltiness of tears and blood.) I personally find I'll cut if I'm feeling empty inside... cutting is a simple way of feeling real and checking if you can still feel."-Male, age 19.

"I do it to stop thinking. The blood, the cutting gives me something else to look at and concentrate on. If I stop then the feelings I'm trying to block out come back. If I do if for long enough then when I'm done that is what I think about."- female, age 18, 2 years SIB, college student.

"I usually have some strong emotion. There is a sense of doing something about what I am feeling. Making the feeling go away is as important as it being gone. Aftewards I feel tired, physically and emotionally, as though there is nothing left in me." -male, 30 years 15 years SIB, Master's in statistics


"I don't know why I cut, but it scares the hell out of me."- female, age 33, SIB since teens, PH.D


Pray.