That cutting is stupid

Ok, I would like to say that I look forward to this debate. Just to clear it, I’m assuming that this debate is just focusing on Cutting- self harm. If not, please correct me?

Please note that in some parts of my argument, I will be playing devil’s advocate.

I will begin with my argument:
1. Cutting is seen as self harm/ mutilation – this has to be triggered by some factor.

As you may have heard recently, there was an outbreak of incidences relating youth members mutilating themselves. Some people have questioned this and have said that these incidences are triggered due to lack of attention – in an attempt to attract more attention.

Despite this, many health statistical reports and psychological crown reports for health have shown a list of fact of more than possible. If anything, attention seeking is actually a small factor of contribution towards self-harm/ cutting

This is a list of possible factors contributing towards cutting (self harm):

• Pressure effects from being of a different sexual orientation/ preference
• Low class/ economic/ social status
• Low levels of self- esteem
• Being very critical of one-self
• Trauma from bullying
• Experiencing psychological/physical/verbal trauma
• Bad family relationships/ domestic abuse.
• Mental illnesses- depression/ ocd/ anxiety
• Impulsiveness to self-harm
• Bad anger/ mentality coping methods

I got the information from this source. I did not paste the image because I wanted to expand slightly on the list. http://data2.whicdn.com...

To my opponent, can you see now why cutting/self harm is not actually stupid or “retarded”? I will expand on this now:
2. Cutting/ self harm is a coping method.

It has been psychological shown that the main reason why people of any age, race or creed, cut themselves, Is because it is used to be a coping method for dealing with pressures from many factors of influence (see list above).

You may be thinking why these victims cut themselves with the purpose of trying to cope/ relieve themselves from problems when they could just try to find other methods of coping with these problems; well consider this:

If you were someone who was suffering from mental illnesses or was having to deal with trauma of a certain experience, in order to find a coping method, that person would be in an irrational state of thinking so we can see that it would it would hard for that person to adopt a more appropriate coping method. Kind of like clutching at a straw.

Summary

I have shown that cutting in the eyes of many, cutting may seem odd and stupid to do; but in real fact and reality cutting one’s self is a mental relieving method from one’s problems. As I have said before, self harm is used to cope with pressure/ problems such as abuse, mental illnesses, psychological trauma and others. In someone’s else’s eyes, they may see someone self harming as a silly thing to do, but in reality these people are just trying to find a way to cope with problems, their mind is not working rationally, so many people opt for the cutting method.

I will expand on my argument in the next round.

Rebuttals:

“It may trick people in beleiving it helps”

You may say that cutting is basically a placebo and is useless, but it has shown cutting has helped cope with problems, the only things wrong cutting is that person is mutilating themselves and that cutting may induce withdrawal symptoms afterwards- causing a varying range of grief and regret. In retrospect, cutting does help people cope with problems.

“But in reality it hasn't they have deluded to themselves into thinking it helps”

Once again, these people are facing psychological problems and are in an irrational state of thinking. These people are only cutting themselves, because there are problems in their lives which are affecting them greatly. Therefore, these people can’t be judged or called “stupid” etc due to the fact that they are not morally responsible for their actions and also because their actions of cutting are actually influenced by external factors.

“ it must be for attention.”

“unless you consider it's for attention but cutters almost never admit that it's for attention.”

Most of the time, cutting is not for attention. It has shown that there have only been a few groups or reported/ notable spikes in cutting trends compared the percentage of factors psychological and mental factors of influence which make up the large majority of factors. People in general usually think that cutting is only for attention, but this idea has only been introduced due to the effects of the media spreading these idea (examples include “cut4Beiber”).

Now can you see why cutting is not actually stupid (stupid is actually quite subjective)?

I hope that I have been able to persuade you why this is so. You really have to think from the perspective of someone in the situation of having to cut.

Sources:

http://www.nhs.uk...

http://www.elementsbehavioralhealth.com...

https://uk.answers.yahoo.com...

http://www.pandys.org...

http://www.thesite.org...

https://uk.answers.yahoo.com...

Thank you and vote con!