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

Sometimes you just want to feel something to know you still can. But you cant continue to hurt yourself. The pain you feel afterwords is because I think you already know this. Life has so many other emotions and feelings to offer. Adrenaline from a drop on a roller-coaster, the rush of being in a paintball competition, the excitement of a good movie, mystery of a good book, the list of experiences you can have is endless. You may want to try and evoke feeling through a hobby that you can not only enjoy, but obsess over.

Self harm releases endorphins which make you feel good, temporarily. Like with any hormone, it doesn't last forever so the affects wear off eventually. Self harm for some people can also make them dissociate and afterwards, they feel bad because they are able to process what has happened which often makes people feel guilty and incredibly low.

It makes you feel better because it is emotional relief, but you probably feel bad afterward because you know it isn't an effective way to relieve your emotions.

Cutting causes a releases of endorphins from our brain, making us feel as though we have achieved a sort of temporary high, and we feel good. After the brain stops releasing endorphins , we no longer feel good and “crash” back to how we felt before, or even feel worse because we no longer have the “high”. That’s why cutting is addictive and very hard to over come, because to keep feeling good you need to keep releasing endorphins, even though it is bad for us . A good way to stop cutting is to find other habits that will give you the same type of endorphin rush such as eating chocolate or exercising.

The act of self-harm makes you brain release dopamine at first, as a natural response to pain. When this is over, you might feel bad because you are afraid of everything that comes with it. Like being afraid of someone seeing it, being afraid of disappointment, ... I hope this might help you in understanding your problems better. Sometimes explaining things makes it easier to visualize them. You can find ways to better cope with self-harm behaviours. It seems unbearable at first, but at it's core, Cutting is just an unhealthy copimg mechanism you can overcome. You are not alone with this♡

People often find that self harm provides a temporary cathartic experience, followed by feelings of shame and regret. While cutting, dopamine and endorphins flood the system, creating a temporary "high," much like when a binge eater overindulges on chocolate. Problem is, that high doesn't last and when the endorphins have depleted, you're left with physical pain and the emotional pain that tempted you to cut is still there. Humans love that feeling when dopamine and endorphins rush into the system, it's what makes drugs so very addictive. It's also why people drive too fast, shoplift, gamble, have risky sex. None of those things give lasting happiness, and that's why we feel bad afterward. A high is only temporary, no matter the source, and the issue with cutting is that it can cause infections, or even accidental death, and it won't do anything for the emotional trauma that made you want to cut in the first place.

I think cutting begins as a release. It feels like you're finding a place to put all of that anger, anxiety, or sadness. But then you're faced with this physical reminder of that pain--a reminder that you weren't able to defeat your demons. You look at this scar and see everything that got you there. It isn't a release, so much as a trigger for another cycle of self-hate and internal conflict. If you can start to notice patterns in the impetus for your cutting behavior, it can make it easier to find other outlets for that pain.

I've experienced that in the past. Cutting makes you feel better because you feel as if you were letting it all out. It's your way of coping, so it's your way of release. Even though it is not healthy at all, it is a coping method and maybe you can improve on it (leave it) by finding yourself a new way of coping. Does this make sense at all? But, anyway, you feel bad afterwards because you feel guilty. So, what I can recommend you to do is to think about how you felt afterwards whenever you want to cut yourself.

Because when you cut, you are basically distracting yourself from the emotional/mental pain with physical pain. Your brain is putting effort into thinking about how to cause physical pain and then needing to react appropriately. The problem is that when it is over, when your brain no longer needs to focus on doing those two tasks, it switches back to not only reacting to the new physical pain, but also it needs to handle the emotional/mental pain too. This is hard for your brain, and this is mainly what causes you to feel 'bad' after you self harm in any way, whether it be cutting or any other method.

Because of guilt. When your in the moment, everything feels fine. Especially when you are having fun or too drunk to care about what’s next. But then there’s the consequences. Sometimes, it’s the consequences that kill. Like in a car crash, it’s not always the impact that kills the passengers. They usually end up dying in hospital. Guilt also works like that. At first everything is fine, but then it starts to knock you from the inside. Everything has consequences. And there is nothing you can do about it even if you try to avoid it. Like eating a chocolate. It’s okay at first right? So you grab another one. And another. And another. You finish the box so you get another box. Soon, the consequences become more obvious. You’re getting fat. There’s even a quote about it, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates, at first you’re enjoying it, but then you realize that you’re getting fat’ That was from a tv show somewhere but there are also other quotes.