They walk alone through the hallways, alone to classes, alone to the bus, and alone to even their homes. They feel alone inside, and it shows on the outside. The scars on their body scream out their pain. It is because they are self-mutilators that they are so misunderstood. They are separated from society, yet that same society ultimately decides that person's intentions of their self-mutilation behaviors. The society they interact with glimpse at the marks and assume: They must yearn for death. They must want to finalize their loneliness, and make it so they never have to feel again. This couldn't be further from the truth. Self-mutilators are misconceived as being suicidal when in reality most are looking for a way to feel again.

Self-harmers are not looking for a permanent solution to their temporary situation. They self-harm for a temporary fix. They don't want to end it all (Jaffe and Segal, par. 5). This is a common mistake that the people who try to help self-mutilators make. When people confront the self-mutilator about suicide, more than likely the self-mutilator will feel even more misunderstood and alone. "I was going to a therapist for cutting, and he told me 'I bet you think about suicide a lot, don't you?', and 1 told him 1 hadn't. It made me feel as if even a therapist couldn't understand me" (Wood). The therapist assumed Wood was suicidal. When people assume that a self-mutilator is suicidal, they are being ignorant and pushing that self-mutilator even further away from them. They have failed to realize the actual reason for the self-harm. "It hurts because it's kind of like they aren't even trying to understand that it is for relief, not a suicide attempt, it hurts and feels almost like they don't care" (Birner). Parents are also known to be extremely scared of their children when they discover the self-harm. Many are kicked out of their homes if the self-harm does not stop because the parents do not know how to handle the issue. (Peterson 2) In response to his self- harm, David Stuart said, "my family sent me to a psychological hospital to keep me 'alive and from myself' ... It made me really depressed that they don't understand that I don't want to kill myself, I just want relief." Often, when a self- mutilator is ignored andlor misunderstood for any vast amount of time without any psychological help, such as seeing a therapist, they can develop certain dangerous and serious mental disorders. Some of these include, but are not limited to, depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and social anxiety. Self-mutilation is not a disorder in itself, and does not always go hand in hand with any clinical mental illness. The mental illnesses, often clinical depression, are what cause most suicides, not self-mutilation. "People self-injure as an escape from everything just for a little bit. Even if that relief is for 5 minutes, they still have it. People don't do it because they are trying to commit suicide, it's completely different" (Griffin). Also, according to Martha Ainsworth, "Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain" ("Suicide", par. 5). Self-mutilators are using their self-harm as a way to cope with the emotional pain they experience on a day-to-day basis. This helps to keep them from committing suicide.

Emotional pain is something that we have all experienced, and dealt with in many different ways. Steven Levenkron states that "For the self-mutilator it is the experience of pain - for its calming effect on [their] more painful psychological state - that is being sought" (24). A self-mutilator is using their self-harm as a way to cope with the emotional stress they are handed in life (phais, par. 5). Self-mutilation" ... is precisely the mechanism of relief for those whose world is one of choices between one kind of pain or another." (Levenkron 32). Self-mutilators are replacing emotional hurt with physical hurt. One young lady named Casey Kane admitted, "[1 want] to mainly see that I can still feel things or affect something, or to take my mind off the emotional pain by changing it to physical pain; because then at least it's something you can see and can watch happen and heal, whereas emotional pain is never as easy to understand" (5).

Although this is an unhealthy way to deal with stress, it is their way of not "going over the edge" and committing the act of suicide. "I know personally it was to keep myself from committing suicide, it was the only thing keeping me alive" (Birner). In some ways, one could say that the self-harm actually keeps some individuals from committing suicide, or thinking suicidal thoughts. "It helps release the pain and stress that if not let out would overflow and end up in [someone] committing suicide" (Ford). There are many reasons why self-mutilators choose to harm themselves. An individual may self- harm because of severe feelings of loneliness, to feel physical pain instead of emotional pain, to make sure they can still "feel" on the outside because they feel so "numb" on the inside, or to express/let out the severe emotions that they do not know how to deal with (Staff). Self-mutilation can also be a way for a person to gain a "good feeling" that lets them gain relief.

Under the surface, there is a lot more going to work when a self-mutilator harms themselves than what most people see. Even self-mutilators may not know why it feels so good to self- harm, and why they obtain such relief from the act. Levenkron notes that "When the body is injured, hormones called endorphins are released to fight anxiety, agitation, and depression" (105). Plainly put, endorphins are chemicals released in the hypothalamus of the brain as natural pain killers. ("Endorphin", par.5). This is one of the main reasons self-mutilators will continue to injure themselves. They crave for the "good feeling" they get after an injury when regular methods of coping do not offer this feeling for them. "I do it on a regular basis, and even in school. The rush that it gives helps me a lot. I know it's bad, but I just don't care" (Howard). The rush becomes addictive, and temporarily overshadows the emotional pain that a self-mutilator is feeling at that moment. This small high quickly dissipates, which is why the self-injurer will repeatedly injure their body. "Once you start it's hard to stop, but it really does help relieve stress and frustration and forget about your problems, but only at the time [of the high]" (Miller). Often, the injuries become more severe, or a person will self-harm more often because small injuries will not continue to give them the same amount of relief. (Jaffe and Segal, par. 3) This is often why society assumes self-mutilators' desires to commit suicide, because of an ample amount of self-harm on the body.

Millions of Americans each day hurt themselves on purpose. They don't do it to commit suicide, even though some might assume so. They might do it to cope with deep emotional distress, to replace emotional pain with physical pain, or to get high off the endorphins they are releasing into their body with every self-injury. Self-mutilation is not the cause of most suicides, a clinically diagnosed mental illness usually is. Whatever the reasons, suicide is almost never the goal of a self-mutilator. Self-mutilators are misconceived as being suicidal when in reality most are looking for temporary fix. Self-mutilation is that temporary fix, keeping a self-injurer away from the permanent solution called suicide.

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