Post by Xombie on Jul 28, 2006 13:50:13 GMT -5
Spread throughout the nation today is a group of teenagers, each with individual dreams, fears, and pains. The one thing that they have in common is that they have been trapped in a cycle of exchanging one pain for another, and the only relief that they find for the many emotional pains in their lives is the destruction of their bodies.
Take a look into the life of one of these teens. More than likely, you will find a young woman (although many young men also struggle with cutting). She has probably been sexually or physically abused, comes from a broken home, or has parents that are emotionally absent. She sits in her room today and cannot suppress the urge to drag the razor blade across the skin on her wrist once more.
She is not sure why she does it, and she hates more than anything else the fact that she has no idea how to stop. Ensnared by an enemy that has left her mentally defeated, she chooses again to do the thing that both pleases and disgusts her the most.
How it Started
For many who have never struggled with the impulse to cut themselves, there seems to be no logical reason for it. However, there is a common motivation among those who have turned to cutting. In each of their stories, there is a yearning for a release from tension and anxiety. The pressure has become too much.
Riley was thirteen years old when she began cutting herself. She was hysterical after her parents had been yelling at her. “Searching for some way to calm myself, I found it in a pin… After I had done the deed, I looked. I examined my handy work at every angle. I started to cry, not because I was hurt, but because I had finally found something that helped me cope, which helped me forget what was going on… Cutting was a different kind of pain, a release pain, and a happy pain.”
Others, like 19-year-old college sophomore Lissa, wanted to escape negative feelings about themselves and their own bad habits. She says, “I didn’t cut myself a lot and usually only did when I ate too much.” Struggling with an eating disorder since her freshman year in high school, Lissa cut to escape the guilty conscience and negative emotions she experienced because of it.
As these young women trained themselves to ease pain, guilt, or pressure in their lives, it is likely that they went to great lengths to continue to nourish this addiction.
Feeding the Addiction
Many young women who cut themselves find that they turn to this addiction regardless of the emotions that first triggered the behavior. Cutting is extremely addictive because it helps to express and suppress emotional pain in a way that doesn’t require words. As Riley said before, it also allows them to cope by reducing the level of emotional arousal. They are able to escape from emptiness, depression, and other painful feelings, even if only for a moment.
Regarding her addiction, sixteen-year-old Richelle comments that “cutting is the only way I find to get away from life. I cut when things around me get too much or I just feel really down.” As she began to escape from life, she says, “It got too much; my writing in my diary wasn’t helping. I wanted to run away. But how could I run from myself? I only want to be pretty and be loved.”
This is also true for one young lady who identifies herself as Miss Jane online. She explains that cutting herself was her escape route from the sexual abuse she experienced as a pre-teen. “Well,” she says, “after every incident, I would cut myself up with whatever was available. Razors, knives, soda cans, whatever.” She even cut herself in school in eighth grade with “one of those rulers with the paper cutter edge,” which she believes was her most obvious call for help.
Holly, a 21 year old student in Texas, cut from the age of fifteen until she was nineteen. She has successfully overcome this temptation but explains that even after she had been through counseling she would do it in smaller ways, “like with a box-cutter knife at work.”
For one moment of control over these overwhelming emotions, or to be able to forget about them for just a short time, these young women would turn to any household object sharp enough to pierce the skin. Running away, each woman knows no other way to escape, no other way to cope with feeling unattractive or unloved.
Hoping for Freedom
While cutting time after time to escape from life, these young ladies dream of freedom. This yearning is not just about liberation from the emotional pain, but the desire to be released from the bondage of the self-injury that only provides a temporary release.
Miss Jane writes, “I feel so dumb that I do it, but I can’t help it. I think that if I give it time, and make some supportive friends, I’ll be able to come through this alive.”
After attempting suicide, Richelle explains, “I did get help, but the most help has come from my family, friends and boyfriend. They are always trying to get me to love myself. And I feel nowadays that maybe I could love myself and not need the knife to punish myself.”
To conclude the explanation of her struggle with cutting, Riley writes, “I am nowhere close to quitting cutting. It is the hardest thing to do ever. This is why I wanted to get my story out, so that no one will ever start. I hate thinking that I thought it was a way out, and I hate thinking more that I still do.”
Each of these young women looks forward to a day when she will not need to cut herself to make the pain go away. True freedom will only come as she experiences the love of God. Only then will she not need to punish herself, because she will know that there is a greater love, hope, and freedom for her.
Finding Freedom
It is not unrealistic to think that such deliverance can take place. These young people have allowed life’s circumstances to take control of their minds. Freedom is found when the spirit of God takes over.
Holly has found this way to freedom. She looks back on the times when she was crying for help, too. Much like the others, Holly still experiences a temptation to cut herself on occasion, but she knows that she does not have to. When she stopped cutting, she found out that “you can’t just stop doing something you don’t want to do; you have to replace it with something else.” That is exactly what she did.
She says, “It is more about what you should do. It is more about Jesus. Learn to put truth in your mind and not worry about what others think. Satan will still whisper, ‘No one will know. You know you’ll feel better.’ But with Jesus, you know you have victory even if you don’t feel like it. You just have to walk in victory.”
LauRen, now 21-years-old, would certainly agree with Holly. After cutting for three years while never feeling good enough, she now finds herself on the other side of the addiction. It has been almost seven years since the last time she cut, and she is more than willing to tell us how that happened.
She explains that when she was fourteen, she just had to “make a firm decision that God is better and bigger than her pain.” Her emotions would no longer control her, but God would instead. After reading Hebrews 6:19, she realized that there was hope and that God would be an anchor for her even in the storm of her emotions. This is what kept her strong through times of temptation. The only way to overcome, she admits, is by believing the truth of God’s word.
Believing, proclaiming, and meditating on scripture is how many Christians have overcome any number of strongholds, and this is no exception. By trusting in God completely and deciding to live by truth instead of emotion, freedom is possible.
This is the good news for any young woman that is trapped in this cycle of self-abuse. For a generation yearning to escape pain, true freedom is available through the cross of Christ and the truth of His Word.
[glow=red,2,300]Steps for Overcoming
[/glow]
Step #1: Acknowledge Christ as your primary source of help through:
Prayer
Scripture study and meditation (See “Who I am in Christ” Scripture list)
Church fellowship
Step #2: Decide to change your way of coping
Unless God does a miracle, it would be unrealistic to expect to change your habit in one day. God is well able and powerful enough to do so if He wants to, but there are times when He chooses to take a person through the “process” of change. One thing is certain according to Romans 6:18: As believers, He has set us free! The problem is that we have allowed the circumstances of our environment (problems) to take control of our minds. We begin to live life through our feelings instead of the spirit God has put in us. But, you CAN change.
Step #3: Decide to be honest with someone trustworthy
Talk to them and set up accountability.
If you go to someone and talk about the urge you get before you cut, it will help you reduce the distress you may be experiencing at the moment. Therefore, begin to build a network of godly friends that you can be honest with. They will support you during the difficult times. Above all, know that God is always there for you.
Step #4: Set up accountability
As you build your network of friends, you will need to help them help you by instructing them on what you expect from them and how they can be supportive for you. If you only want them to lend a listening ear to help you process what you are thinking and feeling, then you will have to let them know. If you want them to ask you specific questions when they see you, then tell them what questions you want them to ask. If you want them to pray for you, simply request it. If you need someone to be with you during the moments of “temptation,” let them know in advance so that they can know what to expect and how to help.
As you build this network of friends, remember that this is a battle that you can only win with the help of Christ. It is good to have friends that will help with emotional support, but you should not place all of your hope on them. Your full dependency should be on Christ alone. The body of Christ is available to pray with, confide in, and fellowship with, but remind yourself that they are not your Savior. They are there to support you and help you through this difficult time in life. Jesus is the one who will give you the strength you need.
Step #5: Put new skills into practice
In the past, whenever you felt the overwhelming sense of life’s problems, you may have dealt with them through cutting. If you want to stop hurting yourself, it will be vital for you to start practicing new coping skills to overcome the urge to injure yourself.
The following list of suggestions might help you to overcome that urge. Please be advised that not all of these suggestions will be helpful for everyone, as not all battles will be the same. So, what is helpful for one person may not necessarily be helpful for someone else
Take a look into the life of one of these teens. More than likely, you will find a young woman (although many young men also struggle with cutting). She has probably been sexually or physically abused, comes from a broken home, or has parents that are emotionally absent. She sits in her room today and cannot suppress the urge to drag the razor blade across the skin on her wrist once more.
She is not sure why she does it, and she hates more than anything else the fact that she has no idea how to stop. Ensnared by an enemy that has left her mentally defeated, she chooses again to do the thing that both pleases and disgusts her the most.
How it Started
For many who have never struggled with the impulse to cut themselves, there seems to be no logical reason for it. However, there is a common motivation among those who have turned to cutting. In each of their stories, there is a yearning for a release from tension and anxiety. The pressure has become too much.
Riley was thirteen years old when she began cutting herself. She was hysterical after her parents had been yelling at her. “Searching for some way to calm myself, I found it in a pin… After I had done the deed, I looked. I examined my handy work at every angle. I started to cry, not because I was hurt, but because I had finally found something that helped me cope, which helped me forget what was going on… Cutting was a different kind of pain, a release pain, and a happy pain.”
Others, like 19-year-old college sophomore Lissa, wanted to escape negative feelings about themselves and their own bad habits. She says, “I didn’t cut myself a lot and usually only did when I ate too much.” Struggling with an eating disorder since her freshman year in high school, Lissa cut to escape the guilty conscience and negative emotions she experienced because of it.
As these young women trained themselves to ease pain, guilt, or pressure in their lives, it is likely that they went to great lengths to continue to nourish this addiction.
Feeding the Addiction
Many young women who cut themselves find that they turn to this addiction regardless of the emotions that first triggered the behavior. Cutting is extremely addictive because it helps to express and suppress emotional pain in a way that doesn’t require words. As Riley said before, it also allows them to cope by reducing the level of emotional arousal. They are able to escape from emptiness, depression, and other painful feelings, even if only for a moment.
Regarding her addiction, sixteen-year-old Richelle comments that “cutting is the only way I find to get away from life. I cut when things around me get too much or I just feel really down.” As she began to escape from life, she says, “It got too much; my writing in my diary wasn’t helping. I wanted to run away. But how could I run from myself? I only want to be pretty and be loved.”
This is also true for one young lady who identifies herself as Miss Jane online. She explains that cutting herself was her escape route from the sexual abuse she experienced as a pre-teen. “Well,” she says, “after every incident, I would cut myself up with whatever was available. Razors, knives, soda cans, whatever.” She even cut herself in school in eighth grade with “one of those rulers with the paper cutter edge,” which she believes was her most obvious call for help.
Holly, a 21 year old student in Texas, cut from the age of fifteen until she was nineteen. She has successfully overcome this temptation but explains that even after she had been through counseling she would do it in smaller ways, “like with a box-cutter knife at work.”
For one moment of control over these overwhelming emotions, or to be able to forget about them for just a short time, these young women would turn to any household object sharp enough to pierce the skin. Running away, each woman knows no other way to escape, no other way to cope with feeling unattractive or unloved.
Hoping for Freedom
While cutting time after time to escape from life, these young ladies dream of freedom. This yearning is not just about liberation from the emotional pain, but the desire to be released from the bondage of the self-injury that only provides a temporary release.
Miss Jane writes, “I feel so dumb that I do it, but I can’t help it. I think that if I give it time, and make some supportive friends, I’ll be able to come through this alive.”
After attempting suicide, Richelle explains, “I did get help, but the most help has come from my family, friends and boyfriend. They are always trying to get me to love myself. And I feel nowadays that maybe I could love myself and not need the knife to punish myself.”
To conclude the explanation of her struggle with cutting, Riley writes, “I am nowhere close to quitting cutting. It is the hardest thing to do ever. This is why I wanted to get my story out, so that no one will ever start. I hate thinking that I thought it was a way out, and I hate thinking more that I still do.”
Each of these young women looks forward to a day when she will not need to cut herself to make the pain go away. True freedom will only come as she experiences the love of God. Only then will she not need to punish herself, because she will know that there is a greater love, hope, and freedom for her.
Finding Freedom
It is not unrealistic to think that such deliverance can take place. These young people have allowed life’s circumstances to take control of their minds. Freedom is found when the spirit of God takes over.
Holly has found this way to freedom. She looks back on the times when she was crying for help, too. Much like the others, Holly still experiences a temptation to cut herself on occasion, but she knows that she does not have to. When she stopped cutting, she found out that “you can’t just stop doing something you don’t want to do; you have to replace it with something else.” That is exactly what she did.
She says, “It is more about what you should do. It is more about Jesus. Learn to put truth in your mind and not worry about what others think. Satan will still whisper, ‘No one will know. You know you’ll feel better.’ But with Jesus, you know you have victory even if you don’t feel like it. You just have to walk in victory.”
LauRen, now 21-years-old, would certainly agree with Holly. After cutting for three years while never feeling good enough, she now finds herself on the other side of the addiction. It has been almost seven years since the last time she cut, and she is more than willing to tell us how that happened.
She explains that when she was fourteen, she just had to “make a firm decision that God is better and bigger than her pain.” Her emotions would no longer control her, but God would instead. After reading Hebrews 6:19, she realized that there was hope and that God would be an anchor for her even in the storm of her emotions. This is what kept her strong through times of temptation. The only way to overcome, she admits, is by believing the truth of God’s word.
Believing, proclaiming, and meditating on scripture is how many Christians have overcome any number of strongholds, and this is no exception. By trusting in God completely and deciding to live by truth instead of emotion, freedom is possible.
This is the good news for any young woman that is trapped in this cycle of self-abuse. For a generation yearning to escape pain, true freedom is available through the cross of Christ and the truth of His Word.
[glow=red,2,300]Steps for Overcoming
[/glow]
Step #1: Acknowledge Christ as your primary source of help through:
Prayer
Scripture study and meditation (See “Who I am in Christ” Scripture list)
Church fellowship
Step #2: Decide to change your way of coping
Unless God does a miracle, it would be unrealistic to expect to change your habit in one day. God is well able and powerful enough to do so if He wants to, but there are times when He chooses to take a person through the “process” of change. One thing is certain according to Romans 6:18: As believers, He has set us free! The problem is that we have allowed the circumstances of our environment (problems) to take control of our minds. We begin to live life through our feelings instead of the spirit God has put in us. But, you CAN change.
Step #3: Decide to be honest with someone trustworthy
Talk to them and set up accountability.
If you go to someone and talk about the urge you get before you cut, it will help you reduce the distress you may be experiencing at the moment. Therefore, begin to build a network of godly friends that you can be honest with. They will support you during the difficult times. Above all, know that God is always there for you.
Step #4: Set up accountability
As you build your network of friends, you will need to help them help you by instructing them on what you expect from them and how they can be supportive for you. If you only want them to lend a listening ear to help you process what you are thinking and feeling, then you will have to let them know. If you want them to ask you specific questions when they see you, then tell them what questions you want them to ask. If you want them to pray for you, simply request it. If you need someone to be with you during the moments of “temptation,” let them know in advance so that they can know what to expect and how to help.
As you build this network of friends, remember that this is a battle that you can only win with the help of Christ. It is good to have friends that will help with emotional support, but you should not place all of your hope on them. Your full dependency should be on Christ alone. The body of Christ is available to pray with, confide in, and fellowship with, but remind yourself that they are not your Savior. They are there to support you and help you through this difficult time in life. Jesus is the one who will give you the strength you need.
Step #5: Put new skills into practice
In the past, whenever you felt the overwhelming sense of life’s problems, you may have dealt with them through cutting. If you want to stop hurting yourself, it will be vital for you to start practicing new coping skills to overcome the urge to injure yourself.
The following list of suggestions might help you to overcome that urge. Please be advised that not all of these suggestions will be helpful for everyone, as not all battles will be the same. So, what is helpful for one person may not necessarily be helpful for someone else