What is the psychology behind self-mutilation in children?

Everyone’s situation is different. I can only talk about my own situation. I'm a girl, but definitely a good girl type. There are 13 scars on the arm, each one going up will be fatal. After three years of self-mutilation, there is no barrier in my heart. When the moon waxes, it loses; when the water is full, it overflows. I am the kind of person who is too stressed out for too long and needs to find an outlet. To put it bluntly, I cut myself to vent my anger and punish myself.

1. I have low self-esteem and hate everyone. In front of others I was number one in the class, but behind the scenes I felt like I was worthless and living under the mercy of others (of course this was a childish idea at the time). I longed for "self" and wanted to express myself. I hate those who manipulate me. The words "die to death" and "hate" are written all over the notebook. The back of the paper is so strong that the notebook is broken. Under such secretly extreme emotions, I couldn't throw pots or bowls, so I could only perform severe surgery on my arm, just like someone jumping off a building in a hurry. The flow of blood seemed to take away my negative emotions. When I calmed down, I would silently wipe away all the blood, and nothing happened.

2. My self-mutilation process is almost always filled with a sense of ritual. It seems that blood means to me that I can abandon everything that is unsatisfactory and start over. Because the failure of something brings impatience and anger to the point where I can't bear it, I will self-harm. Use it to punish yourself for making low-level mistakes, as a warning. Sometimes I would write the word "oath" in my notebook with the blood from my wounds, vowing to do something. It has the meaning of "if you shed blood and suffer injuries for it, you will become a benevolent person if you don't succeed". At this time, my efficiency will be extremely high (manually laugh and cry)

3. I never hurt myself just to attract other people’s attention. This behavior is so stupid. If so, I should have let the whole world know and care about me the first moment I was injured. The truth is that I hid it from everyone until my mother accidentally discovered the blood stains on her clothes, which was almost three or four months later.

4. Later, after the second period of secondary school, I began to mature and no longer thought about inexplicable philosophical issues, but at this time I discovered that self-mutilation is really an excellent tool to vent my emotions. I began to self-harm in a controlled and conscious manner. When you feel extremely self-blame or extremely anxious, just have a knife (a knife, old iron?), and you will feel comfortable after the cutting.

5. Later I discovered that self-mutilation is a very selfish and irresponsible behavior, which brings great impact and pressure on the people around me. I don’t want to implicate others, and I don’t want others to look at me like a gorilla. So I stopped harming myself until now. Okay, the scars will never go away in the next life, and my physique has changed a little because of it (scars will remain even if the body is slightly bruised), but I feel that the 13 scars have made me recognize myself. I don’t feel inferior or cover up. Blame yourself. I will not laugh at how pretentious people who self-harm are, nor will I praise them for being cruel or deserving of pity. Everyone has their own story, and their own life needs to be grasped and understood carefully. No matter how painful it is, you can always learn something.