Self-Injury And Eating Disorders

If you cause physical harm to your body in order to deal with overwhelming feelings, know that you have nothing to be ashamed of. It’s likely that you’re keeping yourself alive and maintaining psychological integrity with the only tool you have right now.

Many people who intentionally cut themselves share features that are in common with the overwhelming majority of cutters. They tend to be far more likely to be female than male. Cutters also have a large likely hood to have an eating disorder, particularly bulimia, or anorexia. Often a person will cut for a period, then stop cutting, but become bulimic and so on.

Other common features:

1) Mounting anxiety, anger and agitation.
2) This would reach a point where I experienced being in an intolerable and uncontrollable situation, from which there was no escape (other than perhaps cutting).
3) I experienced an irresistible need to cut. I saw no alternatives.
4) Cutting done in alone and in private.
5) Rapid but temporary relief following the cutting.

A recommended resource:
Women Who Hurt Themselves — A Book of Hope and Understanding by Dusty Miller.