Cutting

Having been raised by a Sociopathic father, who was jailed and later sent to a Psychiatric ward for electro-shock therapy, I had bitten my finger nails since I was 5 years old, an activity which can be a lot like cutting. Once, when I was in a Zen temple in Japan, I told my teacher, (86 years old now, 74 then), about the nail biting. "Mmmmmmmm????" he said with the strangest bewilderment. "This is Buddha, you are biting Buddha!" He then brough his Kusaku stick smashing down on the Tatami mat. "Damae!" (wrong, selfish, or improper behavior). I never thought a little, 74 year old man could ever scare the crap out of me! I stopped biting.
If you want a more detailed intellectual slightly Western interpretation of what my teacher was saying, read Ken Wilber's, "Spectrums of Consciousness." It's been a LONG time since I read it, so someone help me out, (I'm also giving some, or a lot of my own interpretation here. Each time a seperation of consciousness occurs, we drop to a lower, more confused level of existence.
Originally, there is the Absolute, Unspeakable. Seperation occurs and there is the absolute and the observer of the Absolute, (now given a name This, The Absolute, Divinity, God).
Next seperation is the Transpersonal level, the observer consciousness has become many indivdual observer consciousnesses, sharing one collective consciousness, (the ESP level, Psychic).
Next seperation is the Existential level, the whole body mind human seperate from any idea of collective consciousness, living physically in the world, your choices are your own, consequences also.
Next seperation is body mind seperation. "Yes, that's my body, down there, carrying me around." The feet are seen as being like a pair of shoes, just tools to get "us" around.
Next seperation is Mind - thought. Here, we enter the severely Neurotic mildly Psychotic. Classic example is the Latent Homosexual, who gets a thought of having a homosexual encounter, and calls it a voice in his head, or an alter ego.
Next seperation is Projection, thought seperates from thinker. Here the Latent Homosexual, projects that thought out into the world. It was someone else's homosexual desire, not mine. They hear voices. This is a full Psychotic break.
My long-winded point unspokentruth785 and anyone else in your/ my boat, is that you and I are seperating from and turning against our own bodies. The deeper we go into the darker levels of consciousness, the more complicated, confused, difficult, and traumatic our problems become.
One level needs meditation or absorption only, the next needs physical yoga, next needs therapy physically and psychologically, the next needs Psychiatry and medication, the lowest are sometimes almost beyond help and can only use medications which sedate and numb, stopping the thinking process altogether.
See where you/ we are on the path, which way do you want to go?
The scars on your body will only further isolate you from others in your fear of how they'll judge you. I used to always hide my fingernails by curling my hans up, on the subway holding the rail, signing my name at the bank. I know a woman who cut and she teaches children, she always covers so that the kids can't see it. She can no longer be comfortable at the beach in a bathing suit.
This illusory "self" is a disease, a heavy, burdensome weight. We grow attached to it, as a disturbed person grows attached to foul smells, and repulsive images. Love yourself, and laugh at yourself often. Subtly expose your bizzare thoughts to your friends through humor.
As for this young man, of whom you've become so fond, try to remember that love gives, but infatuation takes. Happiness is the greatest aphrodisiac. It is addictive and when others see it in you, they will not be able to leave you alone. If you continue to grasp to sorrow, others may find your company a burden, and a drain as though they were always trying to help you even if they've done nothing to help you.
You can either shake this burden off now at 22, or you can look back at a ruined life 30 years from now. Don't believe me, go to group therapy, see 50 year old talking about what you're dealing with now.
Ever see the movie Fargo? In the end, Marge says to a prisoner in the back seat of her cop car going to jail for life, "And here ya are, and it's a beautiful day... I just don't understand it." Don't let yourself rot in that prison of your own creation.