Self-injury often is referred to as cutting across the boundaries of race, gender, age, education, sexual preference, and socio-economic brackets. A self- injurer is typically female, although recent statistics put the number of males and females who cuts as roughly equal. Cutting typically begins during adolescence, peaks during the twenties, and declines or disappears in the thirties. Many cutters also have histories of substance abuse, eating disorders, and obsessive/compulsive disorders.  

Cutting is a coping strategy, a way to stay alive. Teenagers who inflict physical harm on themselves are often doing it in an attempt to reduce emotional stress; a way to keep from killing themselves. By cutting, they are releasing excruciating feelings and pressures that they don’t know how to deal with. This method also relieves their urge toward suicide. And, although some teenagers who self-injure do later attempt suicide, they almost
always use a method different from their preferred method of self-harm.

Depressed teens consistently view their troubles as hopeless. They may not be comforted by relationships with family and friends. They will frequently show poor concentration, extreme difficulty in unusual changes in thinking and behaving, and changes in their eating patterns. They have trouble sleeping through the night and often feel tired, dragged out. They may feel guilty or useless. They at times push away their love ones, specifically their parents, and depend more on interactions with peers.

They often lack the ability and skills to regulate their moods by other methods. Many have a history of being abused (physically, sexually, and emotionally), with a large proportion of the abuse starting in childhood. There also appears to be a significant relationship between self-injury and the lack of social-support systems.

Relief from overwhelming emotions is one of the reasons given most often for cutting. The vast internal spiritual pressure felt from overwhelming emotions can seem uncontrollable, frightening, and dangerous. People who cuts have often not learned to identify, express, or release their emotions. Most have never developed the ability to feel and express emotions as others do. They may not have been allowed to show or release their true emotions. Yet their feelings still exist, whether they show them or not. Cutting is highly linked to poor sense of self-worth, and over time, that depressed feeling can evolve into suicidal attempts. And sometimes self-harm may accidentally go farther than intended, and a life-threatening injury may result.
Cutting can be habit forming. It can become a compulsive behavior, meaning that the more a person does it, the more he or she feels the need to do it. The brain starts to connect the false sense of relief from bad feelings to the act of cutting, and it craves this relief the next time tension builds. When cutting becomes a compulsive behavior, it can seem impossible to stop. So cutting can seem almost like an addiction, where the urge to cut can seem too hard to resist. A behavior that starts as an attempt to feel more in control can end up controlling you.
While self-harm is not usually suicidal behavior, it should still be taken seriously. As with other kinds of addictive behaviors, you cannot simply tell someone to stop and expect her or him to comply. There are growing numbers of young people who do intentionally hurt themselves. Understanding the phenomenon is the first step in changing it. Understand that self-harming behavior is an attempt to maintain a certain amount of control, and that it is a way of self-soothing
 

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