• Go Ask Alice! A couple of questions and answers from Go Ask Alice:
  • Self-Injury
  • Self-mutilation
• Mental Health InfoSource:
  • Help Friend Who Cuts Self
  • Likes to Self Injure
  • Self Harm
• Cutting and self-mutilation: Why do I do it and how can I stop? – From the Alt.Sexual.Abuse.Recovery FAQ.
• Is it self-mutilation — even if some one else does it for you? – Discusses the relationship between body modification and self injury.
• Self-Inflicted Violence – William A. Henkin answers a question about self injury.
• Ask Dr. Drew — May 26, 2002 – Dr. Drew (of Loveline fame) answers a question on self injury.
• What does the Bible say about self-mutilation/suicide, if anything? – The Christian view on self injury.
• What is the incidence of self-harm amongst the prison population? – From Mind Publications’ Mental Health Statistics.

Jennifer sent me this brief description:

Cutting isn’t just, “Hey, I’m depressed and I’m going to cut myself,” it is more like: “I’m so stressed, so pained, so confused, what do I do? As you look around the room for an exit from life, you see the blade lying on the table, you slowly reach for the shiny object imaging that it could be the new opening. As you lay it on your skin, you go into a sort of trance. You apply pressure little by little as you carefully drag the sharp, painless object along your skin, and for a second you feel as if you are in a complete state of cleanliness as if you are completely sin free because it has all seeped out with your blood. When you finally stop, the pain, stress and confusion all come back, but yet you do it over and over just for the second that you feel clean, for the second that everything for once is no longer inside of you and for the time that no matter what is happening around you it doesn’t involve you.”