anything to do with him. Many “cutters”—as I would soon find out Amber was—have a history of trauma. When they mutilate themselves, they can induce a dissociative state, similar to the adaptive response they’d had during the original trauma. Cutting can be soothing to them because it provides an escape from anxiety caused by revisiting traumatic memories or just the challenges of everyday life. In dissociative states, as we’ve discussed, people can become so disconnected from reality that they move into a dreamlike consciousness where nothing seems real and they feel little emotional or
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