Self-Destructive Behavior

Mood: Pensive
Music: Foo Fighters

So here's a question: why is it that people who are upset or feeling down for whatever reason do things to themselves that make them feel worse? Why does the teenage girl that think she's ugly cut her forearms? Why does the guy thats just been dumped go and get drunk? Yeah believe me, scars are sexy and there's nothing like a depressant to chase the blues away.

It boggles the mind.

But of course the last thing I need to do is judge. I probably wouldn't be writing this if I hadn't engaged in my own form of self-destructive behavior as of late. I understand why people do these things to themselves: they think the need to be punished. Cutting, drinking, drugging, sleeping with people you don't care about, anorexia, bulemia, binge eating, (binge anything for that matter), obsessing, etc.

Think about it: if that girl thinks she's ugly, there's really no one to blame that on, so her rationalization is that if there's no one to blame, then it must be her own fault. That's why she cuts on herself right after throwing up that salad. If that guy's relationship is over, he gets drunk because he cared about her, and for her to leave him he must have done something wrong, so it must be time to kick himself in the liver and hope to forget.

There's other reasons too, of course. Drinking to forget is a pseudo-logical response, because memory is hampered, but its only short-term memory. He'll not only remember why he was drinking the next day, but that hangover will be a bitch. That girl might sleep around not because she's a slut or a nymphomaniac, but because she thinks that if a guy wants to sleep with her she must be attractive. Of course she'll eventually decide that he did it because he's a guy, not because she's pretty, and that will just start the cycle over again with the extra added bonus of feeling like a whore now too.

My own self-destructive tendencies aren't even what most people would consider harmful, but, as this blog proves, I am a crazy person (see, for example: A Discourse on Love, How Do Women Do It?, A Question of Ethics, A Question of Ethics: Reprise, Something Isn't Quite Right Here..., or Re: Ethics). I wish to God I didn't have this curse of mine that lets me see every side of a situation and could just enjoy the things in my life like everyone else seems to.

Anyway, I put a stop to it, and now I'm wondering if that in itself was a self-destructive behavior. A part of me enjoyed it. Plus, now people are pissed off at me for, yet again, doing the right thing. Sometimes I wonder how some people justify their reality when they get angry with people for doing what they know to be the right thing.

Now I know how Tycho feels (not that I didn't feel this way already lol).

Peace