Well, there’s self-mutilation and then there’s self-mutilation.

Many societies practice ritual self-mutilation that can include piercing, tattooing and removal of parts (our own favorite is circumcision). We could talk about that at length.

In growing numbers, however, young people are turning to self-mutilation as a coping strategy, a form of self-comforting behavior…

This includes any behavior designed to inflict pain, especially if it includes shedding of blood.

The biggest one is slashing the wrists…this is an impossibly bad way to commit suicide, and so I’ve included it under self-mutilation.

Other activities include cutting, stabbing, or burning oneself. Self-induced vomiting can be added as well…Traditional means (known in ancient, medieval and even early modern times) include self-flagellation, ascetic pursuits like fasting, the wearing of hairshirts, etc.) Oh, guys, this is a fascinating subject…

So what’s the incentive…

Well, there are a few…it’s a complicated system of behaviors

Self-loathing

Guilt--The desire to punish oneself for wrong-doing (even if the wrong-doing is somewhat nebulous)

The desire to change one’s physical experience…

Sometimes during depression, one might notice that they don’t feel right…they don’t feel pain, for example, or hunger. There is a dullness that settles over the mind and body. When this gets to be too frightening, some people inflict pain on themselves in order to shock their body into feeling something….even pain is better than nothing…

The Historical View

People have felt this misery since the beginning of time…it’s almost frightening how many of us suffer..

Here are some of my favorites…

The devotees of the certain ancient cults were voluntarily castrated as adults in order to serve the goddess. Certain members of Christian cults in what is now Russia allowed themselves to be hideously mutilated in order that they might concentrate on God without any outside interference from their senses. If Apuleius is to be believed, wandering troupes of whirling-Dervish-style Zoroastrian (read that, pre-Moslem Moslems) eunuchs practiced self-flagellation for the public’s entertainment and edification.

"After passing through several hamlets we reached a large country-house where, raising a yell at the gate, they rushed frantically in and danced again. They would throw their heads forward so that their l own hair fell down over their faces, then rotate them so rapidly that it wheeled around in a circle. Every now and then they would bite themselves savagely and as a climax cut their arms with the sharp knives they carried. One of them let himself go more ecstatically than the rest. Heaving deep sighs from the very bottom of his lungs, as if filled with the spirit of the Goddess, he pretended to go stark-mad. (A Strange notion, this, that divine immanency, instead of doing men good, enfeebles or disorders their senses; but if you read on you will see how Providence eventually intervened to punish these charlatans.) He began by making a bogus confession of guilt, crying out in prophetic tones that he had in some way offended against the holy laws of his religion. Then he called on his own hands to inflict the necessary punishment and snatching up one of the whips that these half-men always carried, the sort with several long lashes of woolen yarn strung with sheep’s knuckle-bones, gave himself a terrific flogging. The ground was slippery with the blood that oozed from the knife-cuts and the wound made by the flying bones, but he bore the pain with amazing fortitude. The sight made me uneasy…" The Golden Ass, p. 190..

A work of fiction? Yes, perhaps, but this sort of practice was picked up by Christians, with ties, one can guess to the culture of the Middle East, and imported into the Mediterranean world. Spain was especially troubled by roving bands of flagellates, who would roll into town and then beat themselves in the public eye.

The religious philosopher Origen from near Carthage, castrated himself, and began an enormously popular cult in which his followers, eager to be purified of their lusts, followed suit. The Pope, horrified by this, declared all acts of self mutilation to be heresy and ex-communicated Origen. It didn’t stop the activity, though, only removed the church’s approval.

The plagues of the 13^th century, however, brought a revival of self-flagellation. At one point, led by a fanatical priest and calling themselves the Disciples of Jesus Christ, a group of about 10,000 persons engaged in mass acts of self-flagellation for thirty-three days running. There was another movement about a hundred years later, by the Brotherhood of the Cross, in which devotees were first publically beaten by an authority, and then scourged themselves. The Jesuits carried self-flagellation on into more modern times. Catholic Encyclopedia has an excellent article both under Flagellants and Flagellation, if you want more information on the Catholic take on it.

Moslems of all types, and Sunni’s in particular, engage in self-flagellation. The Sunni’s ritually perform self-inflicted tortures, resulting in bloodshed. See Www.dis.uu.se/~pierref.travel/iran.trip for a description of events as late as 1996 in Iran with respect to these activities.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a’ Becket used to keep a young priest in his room at night so that when he awoke with anxiety, the boy could flog him until he felt better. The young priest, following Becket’s death, confessed this to the Pope in extreme terror that he had been committing a terrible sin.

St. Francis of Assisi frequently engaged in acts of self-torture, torture inflicted at his behest by his companions (who were frequently confused and horrified by his requests), and self-humiliation. One day, feeling guilty for having eaten chicken while he was ill, he stripped naked and ordered one of his friends to lead him to the market place with a halter around his neck (as was done to thieves), where he poured out his soul to the crowd of bewildered spectators, crying out that he was a miserable ass for having eaten the chicken. Many other saints also engaged in self-flagellation or other forms of self-torture.

The minister’s self-flagellation in Hawthorne’s A Scarlet Letter speaks volumes about Hawthorne. He was pretty kinked out sexually, whether or not self-flagellation from guilt was one of his kinks is not known.

After he was beaten and sexually molested in the desert, T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, embarked on a pattern of submitting to floggings at the hands of some select men. John Mack, an emimant psychologist, wrote a biography of Lawrence which largely featured Lawrence’s preoccupation with beating beaten. The book, Prince of Our Disorder, won a Pulitzer Prize. The title, "Prince of OUR Disorder" insinuates that in Mack’s opinion, at least, this emotional state is not uncommon.

These are just a few notable examples. There are hundreds others that are easily and readily found in history. One can only imagine that a great percentage of the population at some point in time engages in some acts of self-mutilation or self-torture.

Indeed, it makes too much sense. Self-loathing is every-present in our world. The number of people who actually resort to ritualized self-flagellation in response to it is fairly low, but many people, especially adolescents, engage in some form of lesser.

So, does the fact that it happens a lot mean that it’s normal…

Not at all…

In fact, it’s highly abnormal, if normalcy is defined as the best baseline for having a decent and healthy life.

In the old days, people had different ideas about psychology. Yes, people were occasionally considered to be crazy, and had to be restrained. That was at what one might call the top-end of things, with the bottom being people who cope well with their lives. Mostly, though, people who had a different way of dealing with life than the norm were not considered pathological (sick), but merely different. Some were given to visions of a religious nature (Joan of Arc, of course, is the most famous example), but were not considered "sick". A woman named Margery Kemp in medieval England (circa 1373) was well off the deep end by modern standards, but was very well received as a visionary. Look her up sometime…it’s a great story. Only in the last 150 years have we, as a society, decided that anything outside of a specific menu of behaviors is "sick" and requires "treatment" and/or "medication".

I don’t agree. I think modern labels have done more to damage individuals and the society than perhaps any other single thing in society. That, however, is another essay.

However, I do know that when I hear (and you’d be surprised how often I hear it) reports of self-mutilation among younger people (gouging, burning, slicing, slitting) or older ones (depraved starvation dieting, for instance), I know there’s something deeper going on.

The first thing to know is this…

When you do this, your body may be trying to release endorphins, those wonderful chemicals in your body that settle it down and give it a sense of well-being. They’re released, for example, after orgasm, and after vomiting. Of the three activities, orgasm, vomiting and self-mutilation, orgasm is the best choice. In other words, masturbate, if nothing else, when you have the urge to hurt yourself. You get the same chemical rush without doing something that really is self-abuse. If, on the other hand, you are averse to masturbation or have a difficult time guilt-wise or otherwise, we can talk more about that later.

If you look up self-mutilation on the net, you will find a huge volume of information on circumscision, both male and female, but next to nothing…okay, I found nothing, on the psychological cause and effect of self-mutiliation as practiced by a growing percentage of adolescents. It is a largely-ignored phenomena…Why? I’m not sure. It isn’t that you don’t talk about it, because I’ve amassed quite a few anecdotal histories from self-mutiliators…There is some information out there, but I’ll boil it down for you…

Here’s the practical side of it.

Before you do this again…realize this…

Self-mutiliation or self-torture can become, like smoking, a habit. Stress builds up and you do this thing to alleviate it.

But, as with cigarettes, if you will wait a bit, the urge will go away.

Nothing that’s worth doing has to be done this instant. You can wait fifteen minutes. Get on the phone…call a friend…masturbate…eat something…I.M. me, do anything, except hurt yourself. Fifteen minutes.

At the end of that fifteen minutes, review how you feel. Better or worse? More inclined to do it or not? Holding onto the feeling isn’t the goal. The goal is getting rid of it. Sometimes it’s tough, because as we come to identify ourselves with our disorders—I’m depressed…I’m anxious…I’m this or that…(see the identification factor?) it becomes frightening to give it up. This is the thing you are…and you sometimes want to be that so that you can have something ("Look, there really is something wrong with me…and I’ll be damned if I give it up…). Give it up.

If you still want to do it, wait another fifteen minutes…

Go through the same things, go for a walk, or better yet, run, eat, masturbate, call somebody, in short do anything that doesn’t make you feel guilty.

You can get through this episode…

And once you have once success, you’ll find it might be easier the next time…

The first time, you may find you have to go through ten bouts of fifteen minutes…

The next only eight…

The next two…

It does get better…

You might want to check out this website…http://www.geocities.com/sarahdarkblue/begin.html. See if this girl’s experiences ring true for you.