self-mutilization in animals

pages: 44-68

Researches that focus their careers around exploring the act of self-injury have discovered that animals, just like humans, experience extreme disruptions in parental care early in life. Phycologist Harry Harlow and his wife, Margaret, found that when a baby laboratory monkey is separated from it's mother during the first year of it's life, it becomes excessively fearful and engaged in self-mulitizating acts. Such acts were biting themselves, head banging, slapping themselves in the face, and even trying to chew off a limb. Like many self-harmers, the lab monkeys also engaged in repetitive behaviors to calm themselves when no one else was around to help them. They huddle in corners, rock back and forth, and even hug themselves.

Cracking the Secret Code

pages 27-44

Fifteen-year-old Lindsay remembers the exact date she started cutting for the first time. She had a horrible week, one like she had never experienced before. Although she had been depressed on and off again since she was only twelve, she had never resorted to anything as extreme as self-mutilization. In Lindsay's family appearance was everything. Her parents were so concerned with how they looked to others, not matter how Lindsay was actually feeling she had to "act happy." Most self-harmers do this, though. They don't want the people around them to figure out how horrible and alone they really are.

Cutters

"Cutters" defined as people who use their own skin to change their moods, to achieve a little-understood state of psychological awareness through intense pain, and to communicate a message. They use objects such as razor blades, knives, shards of glass, needles; pretty much anything sharp they can get their hands on. Sometimes these "cutters" take the blade to their skin once every couple months, once every week, every day, and sometimes even more frequently. Most are secretive about it, making sure no one, not even their family and closest friends, know anything about their battle with self-harm. In most cases this is because they're scared of being seen as crazy, psychotic, and most of all, attention seeking. Studies have shown that most cases of self-harm start in adolescence, and mostly occur in children with chronic illnesses and a history of abuse of any kind. People who know little or nothing about self-harm, or just dismiss it as something people do for attention talk about people cutting their wrists, but a lot of "cutters" make sure to make their marks remain unseen to people on a daily basis. Such places often include their ribs, thighs, back, and even abdomen.

Quilted Flesh

Pages: 19-27

Fran, a fifty-three year old mother from New York describes her cutting next. She says, "Cutting without drawing blood is like having salad and yogurt instead of steak and potatoes." Fran lives in one of New York's most exclusive neighborhoods, with snotty rich neighbors who look down upon such things as self-harm. She's been burning and cutting herself ever since she was 23, which would mean that she has been facing her on going struggle with self-destruction for over 30 years, but, there have been 9-month periods in between in which she has been able to stop. During these 9-month periods she went through her two successful pregnancies. Most self-injureres have all the desire to stop, but they've just become so addicted to harming themselves that they can't just get up and stop all together at once. Fran, on the other hand, has no desire whatsoever to overcome her self-harm. As she looks at the scars on her arms she sees them as "patchwork quilts." Things once got so out of hand that Fran ended up having to get a skin graft as a result of her burning her arm so badly. She's been in and out of the emergency room countless times, requiring stitches for her cuts in most cases. Once she cuts, Fran sometimes finds herself drawing pictures with the blood that has seeped out, including Stars of David, swastikas, and the numbers "666."

Blood Sisters

pages: 1-19

The book I am reading is called A Bright Red Scream by Marilee Strong. It contains many different stories involving many different people, as well as explanations by phycologists. Sixteen-year-old Melanie had been cutting and burning herself for the past three years. She wanted someone to notice how much she was hurting inside. When her father finally noticed what she was doing instead of trying to get help for his daughter he showed her "the more deadly way" to slash her wrists. According to Melanie this was just the kind of wicked humor he had. She can't bring herself to hate her father for what he has done, instead, she keeps telling herself that he is a "great guy deep down." As if this wasn't enough for the family, Melanie's sister Jennifer took up cutting a year ago. Melanie blames herself, but I would too. Anyone the girls have ever told about their self-harm have simply put it aside as attention seeking or disgusting.