ises carefully. They also have excuses ready when someone asks about the scars (there are a lot of really vicious cats around)" (Martinson).
             There seems to be a lot of myths about self mutilation, such as it's a failed suicide attempt, a cry for attention, that the people that do it are crazy, and that it's a minor thing. All these are not true, in fact far from it. Steven Levenkron claims "Self-injurers are not suicidal. They're actually pretty careful about what they do and how they do it. They don't intend to destroy themselves, so they quickly figure out how deep, how long, they can safely cut. The wounds are usually quite short (only an inch or so, usually on the non-dominant forearm) and very controlled. Nevertheless, tragedies -- including serious medical complications or death -- can and do occur" (Sullivan). Self mutilation is a lot more common that most people realize, statistics show that ".75% of the general American population practices self mutilation, the highest percentage being among teenage females, people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and people with one of the dissociative disorder.
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