" Emotional attachment makes a child feel connected and supported, not alone and helpless. One of the most important roles parents play is helping to regulate a child's level of arousal by providing a safe and appropriate balance of food, rest, play, comfort, and stimulation. Abused and neglected children never learn from their parents how to soothe themselves and cannot trust others to help them do so. So they may turn to cutting and other forms of self-injury as a means of self-soothing and reestablishing, at least temporarily, biological and psychological equilibrium. "

― Marilee Strong , A Bright Red Scream: Self-Mutilation and the Language of Pain