There can be many reasons behind self injury. I asked a few people to tell me why they feel the need to injure themselves. The responses can be seen below:

• I cut because I don't know what else to do. I find myself so desperate sometimes that I have to do something otherwise I think I'll go insane. I have so much pain inside me. I can't cry. I can't get angry, and I don't know why. I can cut, and that releases the pain in another way. Sometimes I wish I didn't do it. I know it is not a solution - at least not a permanent one - but it is the only way of coping that I know of, and I can't see an end to it.
• Why do I self-injure? I haven't figured that out exactly... mostly just to deal... it helps. I like watching the blood run, even though I haven't been doing that much lately. Sometimes to break numbness, but not very often...
• I find that cutting temporarily relieves the unbearable jumble of feelings inside of me... The blood brings me a sense of strength.
• I have a lot of anger inside me and its the only way I can let it out.
• I was mentally abused by my mother when I was a child. I didn't have any friends, and at school everyone beat me up, though rarely in a physical way, rather mentally. I have always had some sort of inferiority complex. I guess I was just a weak person... I wanted to feel it. Maybe that's why I did it... To feel something. Because I didn't feel anything at that time. No emotions, at least. Another, more probable, reason is that I wanted to get out with all of my anger, frustration, fear... All my bad feelings... Which I didn't FEEL. But they were there.

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