Welcome to Gaia! ::

I know a social worker in the psychiatric field. She told me of two methods that proved effective to her clients.
One was to use a red marker (preferably washable) to simulate the appearance. It may temporarily help allay the urges.
One was that someone squeeze an ice cube, squeezing it until it melted each time he or she had the urge. The urge went away after just a few tries.

I only did it myself, twice. The first time I lied to myself and said "I only want to see if I can break the skin." The second time the lie was "I want to see if I can do it sober."
Now this was a slippery slope. I probably could have just kept adding conditions, like "I wanted to see if I could do it standing on one leg, in the kitchen, on a Tuesday"... But I didn't. I said "Alright. My curiosity is settled. If I do this again, I'm going to have to actually admit that I have a problem and seek counseling." My laziness won the day.

It probably isn't the same for me, as it was for me. I felt no joy, no euphoria, no release. I was just so deep in the hate in which I was drowning that I wanted to destroy something and I had already stopped doing all of my schoolwork and picked up heavy drinking, so if I was going to inflict more damage on something, it may as well be me. It didn't leave me with urges to do it more, and I'd have rather done it to particular other people... Or maybe even strangers. The distinction stopped mattering, quite so much... But that's off topic, and probably unhelpful.

I hope that something that I told you helped... Hang in there, alright?

Those are good ideas too, but I think that scrubbing so hard that you bleed is a terribly good idea. Whether you do it with a knife, or a scrub brush, you're still doing it, so I urge you to avoid that one.
You could reward yourself for not cutting, but I urge you not to punish yourself for cutting. That might just make it worse. Either treat yourself to a nice snack or maybe spend a little money on yourself if you want. Maybe take an extra long shower, or take extra you-time doing something else that you like. I don't know what you like, but I'll bet you can think of something.
You could try a variant of what I did and say "Alright, I'm serious about stopping. I'm going to try all of these things and if they don't work, and I cut again, I'm going to tell someone," if you haven't told someone already. We are just random assholes on Gaia, after all. I'd bet that none of us is certified and while we are all trying, we aren't really licensed to do this. I hope that it doesn't come to that, but if it does, I hope that you will tell someone and perhaps seek further help.

I hope you'll let us know how it worked and keep us updated. Don't forget that all treatments take time, so don't give up.

I don't cut, but I do tend to bite my hands/ / arms/ / wrists and also dig my nails into them..

I find that stressful/ / depressing situations cause it all, so I try to listen and sing along to some calming music or songs that I know will keep from doing it.

Not many people know that I do what I do >But I find that staying out of stressful/depressing situations can really help keep me away from it.

Perhaps you could try doing what I do? Taking a long walk can also be a bit of a relaxing thing to do, so's taking a warm bath/shower. 3nodding

Try and find a way to distract yourself from your habit.

i've done it for years and have managed not to for about 1 year now. you need to want to first, that's the big part. and it doesn't just stop over night and then you never do it again, it takes a lot of time. try and find something that can distract you if you want to do it, something to keep your hands busy if you can. i typed or wrote for example. there's also a good chance that you'll fall back into it and have to start over again on stopping, but eventually you'll either feel the need to less often because you've grown used to not needing to and can deal with whatever the problem is without hurting yourself. it does take a while though, and you'll still want to from time to time, but you have to keep telling yourself that you don't have to do it to feel better

No need for agurements people, I'll handle this one.
That was an incredibly useless and immature tip.

It might not have been phrased in the most sophisticated manner, but marijuana does help some people, particularly schizophrenics.
It can subdue the impulses and mood swings that cause some people to cut.
For schizophrenics it can also inhibit the voices or other hallucinatory stimuli.

There are other psychoactives that can be useful in treatment too, like neurontin or gabbapentin.