Things You're Not Supposed to Talk About

you might remember this from a long time ago: politics and religion are passe, sex and death are much better topics for inappropriate discussion in mixed crowds. it's in the same spirit that we present our topic for today: Self-Mutilation.
anyone who's tried it is probably familiar with a fascinating phenomenon: cutting yourself isn't nearly as bad as making yourself cut yourself. i believe that this is actually the critical issue involved. if you're sitting there with a razor, and you tell you arm to slide the razor through some of your skin, an interesting conflict occurs. the front, talky part of your brain (what's normally referred to as the higher functions of consciousness, the part you pay attention to things with) has decided on a course of action and attempts to energize the necessary neural connections to make your arm move in the proper ways. meanwhile, other parts of your brain, higher-level stuff that's involved in making connections so you actually know stuff about the things you think about, quickly realize the ramifications of these muscle movements, associate them with pain and wrongness and energize associated neural connections to prevent your arm from carrying out the plan. at this point, there is a balancing of forces which may last for only an instant or which could keep your frozen and staring at your hand for quite awhile. on one side, your primary consciousness has made a decision and is attempting to carry it out. on the other side, your secondary consciousness (i guess the Freudian term would be subconscious, not to be confused with unconscious) has found this to be a bad idea and is attempting to prevent the action. in physiological terms, the struggle is between different sets of neurons, both of which have indirect control of your arm. they are both energized along their paths towards your arm, and before either can make it there they have to pass some circuit which will only allow one signal or the other. one path is energized by your frontal cortex which has made a decision, and the other is energized by a lifetime's worth of conditioning and cultural information which indicates that the decision is wrong. whichever circuit can muster an adequate electrical charge first will be completed and its course of action carried out: slice yourself open or put the knife down.
obviously a pretty funky situation. not often is the decision-making process so visible, or the conflict between different functions of the brain so pronounced. this is interesting as it is, but the really neat part is seeing how the situation gets resolved. for an act of self-mutilation to occur, either the single decision to cut oneself has to overpower a very ingrained defense mechanism, or one's defense mechanisms must be degraded to the point that even the decision to cut oneself (which is not a very attractive choice in several different ways) can overpower them. this, of course, combined with the sort of morbid brooding on pain and death which suggests the idea in the first place, is why people suffering great depression are pretty much the only ones who do. happy people who possess massive willpower usually do something else, Aleister Crowley being a notable exception.
this bizarre inversion of the decision-making process explains why people actually get addicted to hurting themselves. it provides the satisfaction (and probably dopamine rush, although i don't know) of exerting your will in the face of opposition. you can triumph over yourself and the world that says that you shouldn't do such things. at the same time, you are defeating your own ability to take care of yourself, and undermining the process by which you realize you're making a mistake.
all considered (not here, written, but considered) i would say that the act of inflicting injury upon oneself is a fascinating and bizarre process which involves alot of your brain in ways you may not use it very often. it has the potential to profoundly alter the balance and structure of your mind. a very dangerous tool.