Pain

I know this is a repost but I have been feeling that it was something I needed to do, so here it is.

I have scars. They are faint and unless you were looking you wouldn’t know they were there. These scars I’m talking about were self inflicted. Self harm has almost become a trendy topic, in some circles to the point were it’s talked about and played with as something to do. The truth is the reasons behind it can be much darker and deeper. Self harm isn’t something you should do to fit in and a lot of people that do it don’t talk about it. If you ever see their cuts or scars they may dismiss them, make light of them. But with or without the bravado it’s a cry for help.

For me it wasn’t something I was proud of or something I wanted others to know. My one friend who saw the cuts did so because I rolled up my sleeves one day without thinking. Was she nice and sensitive about it? Hell no. She ripped into me demanding answers and when I wouldn’t give them to her she kept pushing. She then insisted if I ever felt like doing that again I had to call her. I don’t think I ever cut myself again.

I’ve known girls who self harm to shrug it off, saying it’s unimportant. They display all this bravado but honestly if there wasn’t something wrong they wouldn’t be doing it.

As far as this topic goes, for me a blade wasn’t my big thing. If you’d asked I would have said I did it because I was curious but let’s face it what normal kind of person is curious about being cut by a knife. They just aren’t. My more common method of self harm was my hands, to be precise I use to hit things, big solid surfaces. It didn’t tend to leave obvious marks, sometimes grazes and bruises but nothing as noticeable as scabbed up cuts.

It’s important to note that self harm isn’t always about cutting yourself nor is it always connected to attempted suicide. I never thought about ending my life. Which then leads to the obvious question – what was it about then? The one word answer is pain. That probably doesn’t tell you much though. A better way of putting it is pain management. I had a lot of baggage, a lot of stuff I didn’t know how to deal with properly, years of insecurities that culminated for me in my twenties. I was never popular, I was teased a lot and had self image problems, all hidden behind walls I’d built around my emotions. In early high school guys weren’t particularly mean, they just ignored me for the most part but the girls were really nasty. Later on though there were a few guys who seemed to like nothing better than attacking me verbally in any way they thought was funny. I always had things to say back to them and never let them see the damage they caused, but just because they didn’t see the pain didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

Later on I used my physical assets to get attention, but attention and good healthy relationships are two vastly different things. The attention made me feel better momentarily but didn’t do anything for me deep down. Deep inside I felt alone, as though no-one cared to know the real me. That’s the danger when you live to get approval from people in general. When your happiness is reliant on the external and you live to get surface gratification, you find it only lasts for a brief moment. We all really want someone to care for us deep down, not just like us for our breasts or because we will put out.

I had plenty of people hitting on me but that didn’t stop me feeling depressed and alone. I’d walk home after a night out with my girlfriends and I’d punch the rough rock walls because I felt so miserable on the inside and for a brief while, the pain caused by the rocks overshadowed the pain I felt on the inside. I think this is at the heart of self harm. It is a way to cover up inner pain. If we are going to deal with something like this we have to learn to deal with the underlying problems. We need to look at what is causing the pain and how each person deals with it.

There are healthy ways to deal with the pain life throws at us. Of course not all of us have parents or friends we can go to or even someone we feel we can trust with out innermost, dirtiest, scariest secrets. So instead we build internal walls and hide our emotions away. We don’t deal with our problems in an effective way and as a result at the very least cause ourselves no small amount of hurt. Sure you could say we don’t do it to ourselves it’s others that have done it to us but the truth is the only one who can decide how to play the hand we’ve been dealt is ourselves.

I suppose the next thing you might be curious about is how I overcame it. Well my friend was a good start. Like I said I don’t think I cut myself again but it’s worth considering that cutting was something I’d escalated up to so it’s possible that if my friend hadn’t stepped in when and how she did I could have kept going. That one conversation with her didn’t stop all my self harm and it didn’t stop the depression and loneliness but it was a step in the right direction.

The depression and loneliness followed me back to Australia (I spent a couple of years in my early twenties in the UK) and I kept living a lifestyle that sought approval and gratification from the people around me. I still lived a very superficial life. I wasn’t happy and I knew it. One day I accepted this and decided I was the only one who could change it. I didn’t do it alone but I needed to make the decision and I needed to take responsibility.

For me faith in God was something I grew up with so when I decided to sort out my life I knew it was my spiritual life I needed to deal with first. I went to a camp and used the time and environment (away from the city, work and all the influences that cluttered my days, drawing me into a superficial life) to deal with my issues. How did I do that? I cried out to God. I swore off men and took my loneliness, hurts and frustrations to the cross. This was a turning point in my life. Many things changed that weekend, not least of which being that I met the man I would be engaged to six weeks later. But that’s another story for another time.

All this was ten years ago and just so you know not all my problems vanished in an instant. I made the decision to change and took steps to do so. I also realised I needed a better way of dealing with things. It took time but I found my better way through faith and doing the things I love – for me performing is a great way to get rid of built up stress. Of course meeting my future husband meant the man thing wasn’t much of an issue anymore. The depression became much less of a thing as well. I still suffer bouts of it but it no longer drags me down for days on end and causes me to stop functioning effectively. Now I know there is a way out. I still feel lonely sometimes but now I know not all of us can surround ourselves with friends and be happy all the time. And of course my life still has many frustrations but they help me move forward, even if I do occasionally feel like punching a wall when I am at my most frustrated.

Bottom line is even though things don’t always go my way, or the way I think they should, I know now how to deal with my problems better and if I feel unattractive, useless or hurt I have someone I can pour my emotions out on. Even if my husband doesn’t understand or know what to say, God does. He knows the intimate parts of me including the darkest parts of my heart and he loves me still.

Not everyone’s path is the same but none of us need to deal with things alone. There is light at the end of the tunnel but we have to choose to walk to it and continue in it.