why does cutting make me feel better but then bad afterwards?

When we get hurt our body releases signals to help us cope with that pain. I have found it common that when someone cuts, they are finding a release for something they can't physically place. It's almost like giving yourself a reason for something your feeling on the inside. For others, I think the pain is a nice break from not feeling anything. There's a variety of reasons why cutting can make us feel better. But it's dangerous, and it can turn bad very fast, whether it be because we cut too deep, or too much, or an infection can happen. There's a number of things that can go wrong. And the immediate release you feel isn't going to last forever. It's like when you drink, and you feel great, but then you have to deal with a hangover the next morning. You eventually come down from that rush of cutting, and for a lot of people, the rush isn't enough after a while, and it leaves you wanting more. It can become a vicious cycle. There are so many methods to help you ween off the cutting. The rubber band around the wrist method isn't my favorite, but I've known it to work for many people (where you wear a rubber band around your wrist and snap it when you feel the urge to cut). And most importantly, reach out when you get those urges. Find someone to talk to instead of cutting. You don't have to talk about what you're going through right off the bat, but having a conversation can help take your mind away from that urge. And there's no "hangover" when you talk to someone. You're not going to feel bad about it afterwords.

The feelings don't last forever. When you cut, endorphins and happy chemicals get released into your body, making you feel better. However, the feeling soon passes and the suppressed feelings resurface. The reasons for your cutting return, as cutting doesn't take away the reason and pain, it simply suppresses it for a little while. Shame and guilt might also be a cause- shame/guilt for many reasons. They include: knowing it's bad but not being able to stop, breaking a promise of not cutting, having to lie and hide them etc. There are many reasons, and there might be more than one.

Because you know that cutting is not going to fix things in the long run and subconsciously you want to fix things quicker than you can

Because it's not a good thing to do to yourself. It's a form of hatred towards yourself which will not make you feel good for a long time. Love yourself and your body.

Self-harm distracts me from the pain of dealing with what is really bothering me. But of course I feel ashamed afterwards because I created more problems for myself, not fewer. It's embarrassing for other people to notice my marks. I also feel ashamed of not being strong enough to deal with my real problems head on. It's a vicious circle. Pain, self-harm, double pain and shame.

Cutting release endorphins in your brain which are like happy, stimulating drugs you would get from a mulitude of good things. The horrible cycle of cutting is that it will always make you feel good because of this effect, but then you might feel shame afterwards so you keep going back to it because of that. Find what your triggers are and try to give yourself ten minutes, and remind yourself of the feeling afterwards and hopefully that will help.

Sometimes, it's because it gives you a temporary relief from some other pain you're experiencing in your life. The problem is that, ultimately, the effect of cutting will wear off, the original pain will still be there, and you'll now also have to deal with the emotional fallout of self-abuse.

when you cut, you trying to get rid of ache for a short amount of time. but then you look at the places you have cut yourself, after you're feeling better, you realize you've made a poor decision

Self harm releases chemicals in your brain that make you feel release or feel calmer. However, this doesn't last long, and the act of harming yourself may make you feel guilty, as you might feel you have let people down. As well as this, the physical pain will make you feel worse, and you may also be afraid of yourself. Self harm isn't healthy and it is much better to try to find support, and other ways to cope, and there are ways to overcome it.

because it is not a permenant solution it only occupys you for a short while and only makes the reasons why you are cutting worse. this is why it is aslo dangerous

Although an unhealthy method, self-harm is used as a coping mechanism. Due to the unhealthiness of it, it can often make you feel shameful afterward. To combat these feelings, using healthy alternatives (such as distracting yourself, the Butterfly Project, and so on) can bring a similar sensation and relief, without the guilt nor harm.

From personal experience, self harm only makes me feel "better" at the exact moment when I'm doing it-because I don't think of the outcome. But afterwards when you see the cuts on your body you might start to regret what you did and start panicking. (I'm only speaking from personal experience and it may be different for other people)

So I actually have experience with this that, as I got much older, took an interest in self-reflecting to find understanding in my actions. At the time I used to cut, it was never to do away with myself. I was under an enormous amount of emotional pain/abuse as well as others. It felt as if I didn’t get it out somehow I would go mad. My father was the one who caused the majority of my feelings and I loved my mother too much in involve her. I had siblings and friends…but felt to ashamed to go to anyone. Looking back, I remember causing the pain I did felt really good initially. But why? Because it the pain out-screamed my emotional pain. For that second, for that moment, the immense amount of pain I had on the inside was drowned out. It turned out, it wasn’t the pain from the self-harm I was after, it was the longing to drown out the initial pain I carried. I also discovered I took a sort of….pleasure? from the sight of the wound. But I have to explain why. When a person breaks their arm, they SEE it’s broken. Others can acknowledge it’s broken. Tests can be ran to verify the break and reason for pain. Unfortunately, emotional pain is nothing like that is it? There’s no x-rays that can be held up to show the large holes. There’s no visible proof for others to acknowledge the pain, causing them to check in on you, showing concern and passion, asking how your holding up is there? And just as vital….you can typically watch for yourself, a physical thing going through the healing process and register when you are “all better”. Such as the doctor telling you that the cast can come off in 4-6 weeks, you are given a timeframe to be all better. No one can do that with emotional pain however. A doctor can take off the cast and announce “That’s it! All better!” Unfortunately, that’s impossible to be told with emotional pain. So I think I caused the physical pain, in a very immature and desperate means to switch an emotional pain into a physical one. Seeing the wound, made me feel better because emotional pain is not visible. Being able to “see” made me feel like I had some control. Watching over it each day, tending to it, witnessing it heal, fed the illusion that I was also healing emotionally. And once the wound was healed, I would both the physical and emotional wound as done. Sadly, I was young, scared, desperate to not drown in all that was going on. If things had happened today, I probably would have been removed from the home I grew up in. One thing for sure, is I would have taken advantage of the many resources that the internet offers today for people to reach out and be heard anonymously. If I could go back in time, and kneel beside my former tortured of a soul teenage self, I would stop her hand as she reached out to cause harm and lead her to a resource where she could TALK to someone. I had no one. I just needed ONE I could talk to, to be honest with, without fear of judgement or repercussions. I wound up stopping because despite my persistence, I discovered that even though a wound was healed…it still hurt….like hell to. That the transition from emotional to physical does not work and all I was doing was making a bad situation worse. It’s at this point that I got myself to stop. I started to find other ways to cope. End result after that was books. A lot of books that took me away, mentally, on adventures. I figured as I wasn’t able to escape and break away physically, I could try to maintain sanity by allowing myself mental retreats in books that offered a breath of fresh air that included unknown foreign lands and many character friends. On the side, I actually started to write. Being in control of characters helped me cope as well. I was able to almost, re-write my pain into characters that were stronger, braver, and escaped things. This became a much healthier outlet to the situation.

This is a very good question and I'm happy to hear that your curious about this. Cutting initially makes you feel better as it is acts as a temporary relief for whatever was making you feel like you needed relief in the first place. However, the effect is only temporary and will not address whatever it is that you needed relief from in the first place. Cutting may only help you cope with strong emotions in the short term and then the bad feelings come back afterwards.

For me I feel that is is the release that feels good and the bad comes from the guilt we feel when society tells us not to. Just a thought.

Self-harming can be a quick release of pain. It is something which can seem to help in the short term but long term it can make you feel worse. We are here for you at 7 cups. Hugs

It probably does this because you have harmed yourself. It may bring a high shortly after because you punished yourself for doing bad.

Because it's as all other bad and unhealthy coping mechanisms it has a brief temporary good effect on you. Then you feel guilty about it and you regret doing it. Cause you're hurting yourself and others even if they may not be aware of your self harm

It releases a temporary feel good chemical, but then, once that goes away, you have pain and sometimes guilt

It releases endorphins which makes you feel better but then mentally you feel worse because your brain realizes what you just did.

Physical pain makes your brain release the same chemicals as emotional pain, and then a rush of feel-good chemicals to combat the physical pain. After the physical pain is over, the good chemicals go away. Cutting is only a temporary solution to an emotional problem. Emotional problems are better addressed with a long-term commitment to self-love, healing, and forgiveness.

In my experience, it is because I need/want to feel something other than numb. So you could be doing it for that reason, and the negative after is knowing you had to harm yourself just to feel something else.

Self-harm is very complex and people's reasons for doing it vary greatly. This is my simple view. Someone's drive to self-harm may be that they want a physical representation of how they are internally feeling or that they want to distract from the emotional pain with physical pain or even as a way to escape that overwhelming feeling of nothing that can come with depression or other mental health conditions. Cutting makes you feel better in those first instances because you've found a quick fix to whatever was overwhelming you. Its a distraction, something to focus on, a different kind of pain to what you may already be experiencing. It can be satisfying; something, ANYTHING, that you can control when it feels like the rest of your life is spiralling. But ultimately, cutting makes you feel bad in the long run because we as humans a self preservation instinct; it goes against our nature to hurt ourselves. Once you are out of the overwhelming spiral that leads you to cut, you start to analyse and assess. Deep deep down we know that there are better and different ways to deal with overwhelming emotions or even lack of emotions so we start to berate ourselves for not "coping" in a way that society sees as "appropriate". People who self harm may also sub consciously feel like people around them are judging them if the scars or marks are visible. These negative feelings inevitably contribute to that spiral of wanting to cut again and you end up in the same loop. If you are feeling that self harm is the only option, please have a read of the self-harm pages on the 7 cups site.

In my experience cutting was a way to distract myself from the emotional pain with physical pain, I often felt bad afterward because I felt I could have found other ways to deal with my problems rather than cutting.

Cutting, or self-harm, can bring about a feeling of release from stress. Cutting can make one feel as though they have some control over their feelings. Self-harm behaviors can become addictive because the feeling of relief afterwards can become rewarding, thus, increasing the likelihood that that behavior will continue. Self-harm is not an appropriate or healthy way to deal with overwhelming feelings.

Cutting or any kind of self-harm can release adrenaline and other hormones in your system which may temporarily make you feel better about any internal emotions you are feeling and making it a physical pain and sensation. It is a harmful coping method, and you could be feeling bad afterwards for a few reasons. After a while you could be feeling bad because the initial adrenaline has gone, and you are left with the same emotions but now with more physical pain and it becomes a cycle. You could also be feeling guilt or shame because of cutting and feel like people may judge you for self-harming. It is important to realise that there are so many people to support you here, and using healthier coping methods such as mindfulness and finding ways of distracting yourself when you feel the urge to cut, can be so important to help you feel better in the long run without the feeling bad afterwards.

because its a method of coping with suicidal thoughts. it hurts afterwards, which is why you should try something else other than self harm

Cutting makes you feel better in the moment because it is taking away that emotional and mental pain and replacing it with physical pain but after it hurts because now you are dealing with physical, emotional, and mental so it all adds up on you.

When you don't know how to handle your emotions, cutting may give you a sense of relief, in an attempt to cope with your feelings. After the act however, you realise that you didn't really want to hurt yourself, and may feel like you've let yourself down. By cutting, you haven't addressed the root of your problems, so you soon go back to feeling the same way, and the cycle repeats. If you are thinking of suicide or have thoughts of hurting yourself call the suicide prevention lifeline (USA) 1-800-273-TALK or 1-800-SUICIDE 1-800-799-4TTY (TTY/TTD) Try reaching out to an adult you trust or a professional counsellor, and talk to them about how you are feeling. Here are some referral resources for you: Safe Haven Self-injury support forum and community for self-injurers and their friends/family. gabrielle.self-injury.net

When you cut yourself, you are (usually) trying to relieve some other form of emotional pain and/or a bad memory that plagues your mind. And yes, the acute physical sensation of pain caused by the cutting does, VERY briefly, distract you from that emotional pain. Ironically, it is only a bandaid approach and will never allow the deeper emotional wounds to heal if you never address those. To make things worse, your deepest conscience registers what you have done and then you have added guilt or shame afterward because that part of you, the inner friend that is YOU, knows that hurting yourself is not healthy or fair to you. Cutting also often adds anxiety because you then have to hide the cut marks and this behavior from others around you. Therapy works long-term. Cutting does not. Once you find a better coping strategy, you can free yourself from this cyclical self-harm. We are here for you!