I was a cutter for a while when I was at my worst in middle school. I also would pull out my own hair, scratch myself until I bled, and squeeze every blemish down to the tiniest speck. I still do the last one occasionally, when I'm very stressed or upset.

I think it helped when nothing else could help. It always made me feel better. It seems really scary to someone who has never done it, but I never did it thinking about suicide or anything like that. When I did it I wanted to hurt physically so the emotional pain could be released.

Of course,I did often think about suicide, and I did also attempt suicide once... so maybe my opinions on it are invalid.