Cutting: The Silent School Crisis

In today's public schools, it is referred to as the silent crisis. Silent both for the privacy of the act and for the lack of awareness of the general public regarding the behavior. A crisis because a social issue that affects an estimated one in twenty-five students is increasingly undermining the educational success of children.

The issue is that of self-harm, the intentional act of causing injury to oneself. There are students who intentionally hold a cigarette lighter to their skin until they mar it permanently. Others purposefully pull out their hair or gouge their skin with keys. Some even beat themselves with their own fists or blunt objects.

However, far and away, the most frequent self-injurious behavior in young people today is the act of cutting. Using a sharp item such as a knife or razor, "cutters" slice open their arms, wrists or legs. The cuts may be deep or shallow. They are often numerous and may be done in the form of a pattern. All draw blood and most leave permanent scars.

According to experts, students who injure themselves do so for a variety of reasons. It appears that some individuals simply want to experience pain. This may be because they feel guilty about some action or because they need an escape from feelings of being dissociated from their peers.

In other instances, these individuals state that they don't experience pain at all because their feelings of dissociation have removed reality from them. These individuals do not feel the pain because during the act of cutting or harm, they appear to be temporarily removed from reality.

In either case, experts indicate that the human body is programmed to release endorphins in response to injuries. As these endorphins are released, "cutters" report that they feel their emotional pain dissipate. This causes them to actually feel better emotionally, instead of worse physically, as a result of the
injuries they have inflicted upon themselves.