Originally posted by Miranda_Rae
It doesn't make your problems better. It makes you think that your problems are smaller or it numbs the feels you have about the problems. It turns the emotional pain into physical pain, something people can feel, touch, see and control. It can also serve as a self punishment. Say if someone goofs up on a paper or makes someone mad they can punish themselves for it. Or say that a person's life is just crazy and caotic, hurting themselves is something they can control, no one else. Did that help? Nope, you weren't criticizing.
Ok. I totally understand the self punishment thing. It's the numbing the emotional pain thing that I don't understand. I also haven't ever understood how doing drugs can make your problems "seem" better, or how it's "numbing" other than some drugs put your brain in a fog.

How does hurting oneself make the emotional pain any less, any different, any anything? For me, it would make it worse. "Oh, look. Now not only do I have this crappy problem, but I'm bleeding and my arm/leg/whatever hurts too." Not, "Well, now that makes me feel less crappy about whatever I did wrong."

Like I said, I just don't get it.