Cutting at College

Cutting is a general term for a variety of self-injurious behaviors. If you have never been a cutter, it will be hard for you to understand why your son or daughter would want to intentionally harm himself or herself, but over 2 million people in the United States do just that. More than 70 percent of self-injurers are women, mostly between the ages of eleven and twenty-six, and they come from all races and social classes.  And according to my own observations, the numbers are on the rise among the college-age population. Here is the story of one young woman who is finding her way through this confusing coping mechanism:

I started cutting during the spring semester of my sophomore year. It would happen when I was facing a lot of emotional stimulus, and it was a way of channeling my consciousness into a physical space on my body. But it was never a suicide attempt. I'm sure it had to do with the way I hated my body and my disgust of my physical self, and part of it was both a cry for help and a desire to inflict intense pain and to show others that I could handle it.

I cut while I was alone in my room. I sat in a comfortable chair by my desk, dimmed the lights, and had tissues or a washcloth nearby. When I first started cutting, I used a switchblade or a butterfly knife. But by the summer, I had moved on to straight razor blades. The knives were fairly dull, and I had to apply a great deal of pressure before getting a clean cut, while the razor blades drew blood easily. I kept pretty neat about it; I used the tissues or washcloth to stop the blood while I was cutting, although you can do a lot of cutting without drawing a huge amount of blood.

When I cut, I assumed the role of a surgeon and imagined my body as a distant object that needed fixing. While I was cutting, I was always very rational and would think about anything from the work I had left to do that day to things I needed to do to improve myself. After I finished cutting and returned to the role of a patient, however, I sometimes felt disgust or fear at what I'd done. Some of this reaction was physical"I got very cold and sometimes couldn't stop my teeth from chattering. If I made only a couple of small cuts, I would feel energized and powerful afterward. But other times, when I would make a whole event of more drastic cutting, it was to help me release pain and then feel numb. I went back and forth between feeling a sense of pride and shame.

I never saw my cutting as dangerous or scary, and I ­ didn't always try to hide it. In a perverse kind of way, I actually broadcast it to the people in my life I was having emotional issues with. It became a way of talking through my problems. When people reacted with disgust and shock, it was the most satisfying for me. Looking back on it, I see that most of my friends and family realized that the cutting was just a sign that I wanted to talk about my life but didn't know how to start the conversation. I know it's natural for a parent to react with panic, but it's better to be calm, ask questions, and de­ cide what the next step should be. I'd rather not focus on the cutting but on what was behind it.

Throughout that spring when things were really bad for me, I cut about once a day. At other times, I cut more sporadically, ranging from one to three times a week. But then as my emotional life started to get better, I really didn't feel the need to cut. I was developing a good therapeutic relationship with my on-campus counselor. I got out of some troublesome romantic relationships, and I made a conscious effort to change some difficult friendships. I made myself reach out to friends and just be myself without worrying about how they would perceive and judge me. I also started working on managing stress better. That summer, I gave myself permission to do less without always worrying about what I could be doing to put on my transcript, although I admit that that decision sometimes made me feel more guilty and inadequate and on some days led to a downward emotional spiral.

I don't feel like I am completely through with cutting. I still keep razor blades in my room and have cut occasionally this semester. But I feel that I am developing other tools for expressing my insecurities, and the cutting is much less frequent. I see cutting as being on a continuum of body issues that began with an eating disorder that surfaced when I was thirteen, and I believe that disgust at my body and a feeling of alienation from my physical self will always be part of my experience, even when I have ceased cutting entirely. I do, however, see hope for the possibility of managing my relationship with my body better in the future, and I haven't given up on the possibility that one day my body and I will be able to peacefully cohabit.