As dark as it gets sometimes, and believe me it can get pretty bad, I know that there is light at the end. I used to think recovery was impossible. I even thought I didn’t even deserve it. But then I told my best friend and then eventually my mum and then got into therapy. I still have some bad days but it’s definitely getting better for sure. I’m moving forward and out of my darkness. So I guess I want to tell you that you can come out of the darkness too…you can find the light!! You got this!
All posts by SPLewis79
Just beyond the horizon…
It started earlier than I use to think. When I look back I think I was maybe 6 or 7 when I learned to use pain to help with pain. Physical pain, for me, was an easier thing to deal with than emotional pain. It slowly progressed with age. I started cutting at 14. I didn’t know that self-harm was a thing. I did not know a single human who did it. When I looked back and before I knew the neurobiology behind it, it was scary to me that a person’s natural response to intense emotional suffering would be to cause physical pain. I was actively engaging in harming myself for 5 years. I use to count injuries but I lost count after the first year. I tried to stop for other people but at that point I was addicted. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college at around 20 when I chose to stop for myself. I went 3 years without harming. Since then I have messed up a couple times and relapsed once. The best part of the story though is that it has been a long time since I harmed last and now I am in my final year of graduate school! I am in my clinical year of school which means that I am now counseling people who are in similar places that I have been. God has really used my pain and struggles to then help me to help people in pain. I love that I now get to sit across the room from people who are so brave to allow me into their pain. Even if they are not able to see that it will get better, I get to hold the knowledge and experience that it does get better and that healing is possible.
I still have a long way to go but man I love to look back and see how far I have come. I just want you to know that there is hope and redemption is possible. It is okay if you can’t see it yet, just know that no matter how long it takes, it is just beyond the horizon.
Tell someone that you trust
I have struggled with self harm for over a decade and for so long I have never really talked about it because I felt ashamed and embarrassed that I was doing it and I thought that people would make fun of me and call me weird and think I was crazy! I have gotten responses like this from people and it really upset’s me because there are so many people struggling with this and are afraid to talk about it because they are afraid what people will think and I want to tell anyone who is struggling in silence with self harm to tell someone because they will not make fun of you they are here to listen and help you 🙂
Tell someone that you trust a friend, family, teacher anyone because suffering in silence is only going to make things worse 🙁
I still struggle with self harm everyday but if what im saying can give someone the courage to speak about it then ive helped at least someone from feeling alone!
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From Pain to Peace
I have struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder for the last twenty-three years. I started cutting when I was eleven, and it has been a twenty-tw-year battle. I’ve been hospitalized in psychiatric units eight times, and I’m really ashamed to admit all of this. However, I’m proud to say that I haven’t cut in three years, as I have found other coping skills. Now, I’m creating a website to help other people understand mental illness, self-injury, and it also includes strategies for crisis intervention and suicide prevention. It’s hard to share my story of mental illness. It’s humiliating to show my scars and admit things like psychotic features. I’m always afraid that the person I’m speaking with wont understand. However, I decided that it’s important to put it all out there for people to see so they know they’re not alone and that there is hope for recovery. I believe God has given me this desire to create this kind of a website as a ministry. It’s hard to share it all, but if it helps others, it’s totally worth it. Every time I feel my scars, I remember that Jesus will have His scars for all time so that, when eternal life begins, mine will go away.
My journey for peace
When I was in the seventh grade I read a book that was about a young girl who had entered rehab for self injury. I had never encountered self injury before, but long story short my young, impressionable, anxiety ridden little mind thought it sounded like a good way to cope. Thus began my messy, painful, brilliant journey for peace inside a hurricane of a mind. As I grew things only got worse. I can remember countless nights of feeling like the sky was falling, my pillowcase soaked with salty tears. Self injury seemed like the only way out. The only way to make my frantic mind quiet. To stop it from running in circles, from replaying every single thing that could go wrong. To be quite honest I didn’t see the harm in it, it was an immediate release and it made me feel better. I wasn’t trying to kill myself so I remember thinking that it didn’t “count.” I thought I could stop. I would go months without it, but as soon as something bad happened the cycle would repeat itself. This went on for five years. When I was in the twelfth grade a friend I had confided in was having a hard time. She said she would see someone if I did, and because she held my heart in her hands, I reluctantly agreed. I hated seeing a counsellor, I thought I could do it on my own, I thought because I came from a good home that I didn’t have a right to feel the way I did. I resisted her help, I wanted to sit in my sadness and be left alone, until one day she said to me, “you’re going to be okay you know. It’s just getting through right now that’s the hard part.” Something about that little sentence made a world of difference to me. It didn’t fix me, I continued to have bad days and relapses. But I always kept that tender moment in my back pocket. Because the sun will always come up tomorrow, and nothing you are feeling now will last forever even if it feels like the sky is falling and you are feeling every human emotion all at once. I have now gone six months without self harming. I have scars now, and on bad days they serve as reminders of every time I thought my soul would crawl it’s way out of my body. But I know those days are temporary. On good days I embrace them, they are a part of my story now, a reminder of where I’ve been and how much I have overcome. A reminder that my body healed itself every time I tried to destroy it. I am still on my own journey for peace. Parts of me still feel broken and old feelings slip through the backdoor when I’m not looking, but I’m better than I was.
I hope you remember that even on days that you do not feel like it, you are such a beautiful human being. Take a deep breath and remember that you are capable of love and compassion and empathy and how amazing that is. Look in the mirror and tell yourself you love yourself even if it’s not true quite yet. Don’t resist help, embrace it, ask for it, there is no shame in that. You will be okay. There are a million other human beings rooting for you if you look for them.
I wish every one of you luck and love on your journey to find your peace.
We are ALL survivors
I was twelve years old when it all started. I did not know what it was. I did not know what it meant. All I knew was that it felt strangely good.
I grew up in a country where mental health was not recognized. There was no information on depression, eating Disorders, and of course, self-injury. All I felt was this overwhelming sense of shame that was eating me alive. I felt “abnormal”. I felt like a failure. As a result, I tried to cover up my emotions and made up stories to explain the scar on my arm. Even to this day, I still make an effort to cover up some of the more visible scars just to avoid questions.
Things spiraled downwards in middle school. I was living in a school dormitory with 5 other girls. It was a very competitive school and everyone strove to be the best- not only academically but also physically. In particular, every girl I knew was dieting and was comparing who could be the thinnest. It was like a plague and I could not escape it. I started to starve myself and would only eat an apple a day. But it didn’t go as well as I planned. I started to binge as well on the weekend and I was not losing weight. I felt even more shameful and hopeless. I started to feel like that I had no self-control and I was letting myself go. Whenever I felt this way, I would pinch myself so hard that I couldn’t feel anything anymore.
When my parents realized that I wasn’t eating enough, they became extremely upset. So upset that my dad punched me in the face when I refused to eat. All I remember was tears mixed with blood streaming down my face. However, I was told to keep quiet and make up stories when people asked. Curiously, no one ever asked. It was as if everyone knew not to mention it. Instead, they alienated me and I fell into an even darker abyss. I contemplated suicide almost every day. I cried myself to sleep almost every night.
Fast forward to 15 years of age, my parents decided to send me to Canada, alone. I did not know anyone and did not know a single word of English. I felt “inferior” to everyone else and was even more frustrated with myself. My eating behavior became more erratic and my mood more depressive. I did not know how to regulate my emotions and as a result, whenever my partner at the time and I argued, and whenever I could not take it anymore, I would go and cut myself. Of course he did not know what was going on and thought that I was completely insane. I would always feel ashamed after what was done and blame myself for not controlling it better.
Luckily, as time went on, I learned more about Mental Health. I still remember my first lecture in Psychology 101 in my first year of university. It was a lecture that changed my whole life. Over time, I took a more serious interest in Psychology and decided to specialize in it. I volunteered at many research laboratories and read many interesting articles in the field of Psychology. Nothing felt better than knowing what I felt was not wrong. Nothing felt better than knowing what it was. Nothing felt better than feeling empowered that this all can be better. I started to accept myself for who I was. I started to see that all this hardship gave me strength and make me more resilient. I started to see, after so many years of struggling, that I was getting better. I can’t say I’m completely “cured”. I still have moments to this day when I want to injure myself. But what I learned that was the most helpful to me was self-acceptance. I am okay with who I am. Self-injuring does not mean that I am defected. It only adds to my story and experience, which make me stronger. This is why, after graduation, I decided to pursue a career in Psychology. I want to share my experience and knowledge to help those who also have struggled. I want to advocate for mental health. I want to make those who suffered like me to know that we are not weak, but we are all survivors.
Writing my own story
When so many people saw only what they wanted to see, when so many people misjudged, mistreated and misunderstood me I could never see the “light at the end of the tunnel”. Over the years since I was 11 to now, those around me saw it as attention seeking.
They never understood.
I got to a point earlier this year when I thought that it would be better for everyone if I wasn’t around, if I was to just disappear from this earth. Would anyone miss me? Probably not, were my thoughts. I didn’t know if anyone would miss me, but I did know that I would miss those around me. That sounds so corny but that’s how I felt.
Each day that I endured; at school where I feel lost with my friends, at home where all the time there was pain and abuse when home should be a “tranquil haven”. Why does society think that every home is the same. Why did people look at my body and judge me for what I had done. They had no idea what home life was like. Why should they? They’d never stopped to ask what the marks were for, or why I had cut so deep. They never asked.
I don’t look at self harm as a disability or a bad thing, I look at self harm as an easy way out.
My home life, was inpredictable. The arguments and fighting would be fine to handle. On the outside, when I turned 15, I no longer cared what others saw. They wouldn’t understand anyway. The fighting would be frequent and my escape was to draw until I couldn’t stand it any longer and a blade was the next solution.
I loved to draw when I was younger, the sound of the paint being applied to the piece of artwork I was creating used to be my favourite sound.
I viewed my paintings as graceful and beautiful, but my friends thought they were depressing and soulless. That shattered my world, and I turned into a shell of a girl. Cliche, I know but I couldn’t seem to help it. I was falling into a darker hole and it was my so called friends who had put me there.
I made this one friend who I happened to find by chance, she was new to my school and we had not talked much since she arrived but that first class I remember with her, she never judged me as I sat next to her in my uniform, I knew she saw the cuts but she never stared. After a while we started to spend more time with each other out of lessons and we became the closest of friends. I never thought I’d be so lucky as to find someone who I bonded so closely with. I didn’t think I deserved it but she was mine and I was hers. We were each others’ equals me and her. We did everything together.
I noticed that she began to become quite quiet and withdrew herself from others when I got to know her better but with me she seemed to be open and social.
We appeared to bring the best out in each other.
We were in the park when she did something I’d never expected, she pulled the sleeves of her top up and showed me her scars. I was shocked and she cried, she said “you can give up on your family, you can give up on friends, but never give up on yourself.” She cried and we held each other until i said to her “I’ll never let you down”. I meant this from the heart and we have been inseparable since.
My life changed because of her. We both promised each other to never give up on each other or ourselves.
I’m not going to say that my life was changed just like that. But I now had someone. I had someone who understood without asking “why”, “with what” and “are you okay?” We knew that we were never going to be “okay” because no one is ever “okay”. A life is never perfect and a life is never too bad to end. I realized that I’m not living today because I’m doing it for someone else, I’m living today because I haven’t given up on myself yet.
I hope this helps someone out there to realise that they too have the potential in their own life to live for themself and not for someone else because although it may be hard to grasp but we are all individuals, we all have something to offer.
Please don’t give up.
You DESERVE recovery!
I remember when it started. Most people probably do. I was 16 and my dad was lecturing me again. I remember thinking I just couldn’t take this long conversation anymore, but I felt trapped. I couldn’t leave. I felt like I couldn’t even breathe. I couldn’t speak. All I knew was I needed out, but I was stuck there.
Unfortunately, my knowledge of self harm was that it was just “cutting.” I had no idea that it could manifest in any kind of harm that one does to him or herself intentionally.
As the years progressed, my mental health deteriorated. It first it was just depression, then anxiety joined the party. Then I had Bipolar II, then Bipolar I. Then, they wanted to tell me I had Schizoaffective Disorder. They missed a crucial diagnosing factor, though, because I lived in denial about my self harm for many years. When asked, I always answered no and I thought I was telling the truth. I justified it as “well I’m just doing what I have to do to get by.” And that was true – I later learned to be compassionate and look at it as a coping mechanism for the things I had no other way of managing.
Eventually it became hard to ignore. At that point I had no choice but to admit to myself that this was self harm and incredibly dangerous. As I came to terms myself and shared with my trusted mental health professionals, I finally received a correct diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. After going through Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, my self harm stopped and I learned better coping techniques and I now no longer meet the criteria of BPD.
I share my story for two reasons: “cutting” gets most of the press and many people may not be aware that self harm can take many many forms. The second reason is that I want to share hope. Recovery is possible and you can learn new coping mechanisms that are more healthy than self harm. But be kind to yourself – don’t beat yourself up, because you are doing the best you can with the skills you have. All you have to do is learn new skills. It is a challenging journey, but you are worth it. You deserve recovery. It’s not too late, and you’re never too far.
How My Celebrity Crush Saved My Life
I know this may sound weird but yes, someone famous who doesn’t even know I exist actually saved my life.
At the beginning of last year I started suffering from depression and self-harming. No one knew about this until one of my “best friends” saw the scars on my wrist and told my other friends. They all came to my house and started yelling at me and telling me stuff like “idiot” and “stupid”. Of course they told me that self-harming wasn’t the answer and forced me to tell them what was going on with me. I couldn’t explain what was happening to me so I just told them that I hated myself, which was true, but there was more than just that. I was 14 at the time and I didn’t receive any attention from my mum, in fact, sometimes she left me having dinner all by myself or told me that I was stupid, useless, fat, stuff like that. So what I always thought was: “if my mother doesn’t love me, how am I supposed to love myself?”. My friends made me tell them all the things I didn’t like about me and then left, because they thought that I’d get better with just one talk where they treated me like I was some stupid girl who just self-harmed for fun, until one day my actual best friend came to my house and told me that she used to self harm too and to listen to a link on her tumblr page. When I opened the link I saw that it was from Calum Hood, who I swear is the love of my life and makes me happy every time I need. I never told my friends that the reason I stopped self-harming was that link because I knew they would think it was dumb and I mean, I wouldn’t blame them because it’s lame to think some random guy who makes music helped someone to stop cutting but yeah that’s the truth and if someone needs it, even though they don’t know who Calum Hood is, it can be really helpful, so please if anyone needs it, I’ll put the link at the end of my story.
If you are still reading I want to thank you, it means a lot and if you are going through this stuff, you’ll get over it. I know it’s hard and it may seem the end of the world but that’s not true and someone out there cares about you, you just need to find the right person to talk to about this because not everyone understands.
Anyway, stay strong, I love you
Things will get better!
Hi. When I was 6 months old my battle began. I had a hair pulling disorder called trichotillomania. It’s very rare for someone to get it but even more rare for babies to get it. But I had it. I was bald up until I was 10 and bullied my whole life. The main thing I was called was a boy. I struggled a lot to become a normal child. I had extreme moods. When I had just turned 13 I started becoming very depressed and was still being bullied but for different reasons. But the end of 2015 I started self harming. It started off as a little cut here and there on my hand then things turned for the worse. My parents finally found out and got help. But not enough. I ended up trying to kill myself a couple months later. That’s when I really got help. I was then diagnosed with bipolar disorder 1. I was finally on medication and I had lots of support streams. But once again that wasn’t enough. I attempted suicide for the second time a few months later and went to a crisis stabilization unit. I was considered out patient. I was put on more meds and was getting better but things still weren’t right. I was still self harming and I ended up attempting suicide 8 more times. So by the fifth attempt I went to a psychiatric hospital for two weeks in September. I spent my 15 birthday there. But little did my family know, that was only my 8th time not 11th. Things have been very hard. I’m still self harming but I’m as stable as I have ever been. I’ve been homeschooled all my life but was bullied in church. I’m still getting bullied here and there but not as much. Although everyone at my church knows what’s going on with me since I am the pastors daughter. I’m on lots of medications but I’m feeling better. The only reason I’m writing this is because i want whoever is reading this to know that things will get better. It’s hard and it may not seem like it but it is. I am down right now but I’ll get better. I know it. So thanks for reading and I hope that maybe I helped someone. 🙂
