This is an informative article/paper I had to write for English class. I did it on self mutalation.

Society's Haunted

Self mutilation occurs in 700 to 750 of every 100,000 people. Self mutilation is a term describing a complex set of behaviors resulting in the damage of one’s own tissue. The type of behavior that occurs is cutting or burning of the skin, scratching, pulling out hair, bone breaking, amputation, and eye gouging. Self mutalation usually occurs in single Caucasian women in their teens and early 20s.

There are three categories of self mutilation: major, stereotypical, and superficial.

Major self mutilation is associated with psychological disorders. With this, people damage a great amount of body tissue and usually injure themselves in a way that can only occur once. They are usually in a hallucinogenic state that allows them to do things such as eye gouging, facial skinning, and amputating limbs without feeling pain. Some people cannot explain their actions, such as the case of a 16 year old girl. After gouging out one eye, she said it just “fell out,” then gouged the other with the same story. Those that can explain usually refer to sexual themes such as transexualism, control of hyper sexuality, and homosexuality. Those people usually amputate their genitals. Other explanations refer to religion. In Matthew, 6:22-23, it says “What I say to you is: anyone who looks lustfully at a woman has already committed adultery with her in his thoughts. If your right eye is your trouble, gouge it out and throw it away! Better to lose part of your body than to have it cast into Gehenna.” Eye gouging is found only in Christian areas.

Stereotypic self mutilation occurs in people with mental retardation. This is the repetitive or rhythmic actions such as orifice digging, head banging, hitting, throat or eye gouging, hair pulling, or self biting. In a 1985 study of 10,000 mentally retarded people, 13.6% suffered from this illness. Those who have it are unaware of and find no significance in their actions. Other mental illnesses this may occur in are schizophrenia, autism, and Tourette’s Syndrome.

The most common form of self mutilation, superficial, occurs in 1.7% of the population. This type is found psychologically valuable to those who perform it. There are three subcategories to this form: compulsive, episodic, and repetitive.

A compulsive self mutilator will usually pull at hair or pick at the skin.

An episodic person will cut or burn the skin deliberately. The shock is used to escape distressing emotions that may be from depression or personality disorder.

Repetitive self mutilators define themselves through their actions. They perform their actions on a regular basis, sometimes almost ceremoniously. Their actions are to calm themselves or regain a sense of stability. This can also include eating disorders.

The cause of superficial self mutilation is from past emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. In a study of six self mutilating women, all had suffered from abuse in the past and had eating disorders. They felt they needed the relief given through cutting or burning, and one woman admitted to being addicted. In 1989, there was a greater study of 290 women. All of these women were considered normal, that is, not suffering from mental retardation, schizophrenia, or other disorders. The typical person was a single 28 year old Caucasian who had began during adolescence. Of the women, 72% cut, 35% burned, 30% self hit, 22% interfered with wound healing, 22% caused severe skin scratching, 10% pulled their hair, and 8% broke bones. Fifty percent of the women were also anorexic, bulimic, or both.

I wanted to add more to this, but we were only allowed two pages, double spaced. It wasn't really fair, and she told me what things I should've added, but I was just about on my third page, and she would've taken off points for going over. Regardless, I still got a 94% on this paper.