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finding.myself...through.GOD |
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My blurb on a few issues that fall under the category of SI that I've dealt with in the past 2-3 years...
Honestly, I don't really know what goes on this...whatever topic this is under probably really isn't the right one, since there's more than one.
I'm a grade 11 student at a Christian school right now...I grew up in a Christian home, I regularly attend church, now I regularly attend youth. Basically, I'm pretty immersed in the whole Christian thing, and a lot of the times I wonder if that hasn't sort of made it worse, in a way.
I've struggled with several different things, some of them "minorly", as I like to think of it. I was a pretty good - if somewhat naive - person back in younger years at school, up to grade eight. A lot of times now when I'm in worse moods than I am right now (my moods fluctuate so much. It's annoying, and it completely taints the way I think) I think of grade eight as being the last time I was really happy. I remember meeting a girl one day in our school library from a different grade...she showed me scars she had scratched onto her leg and how she got in trouble for them. Or so it probably seemed from her perspective. I tried emailing her...she never responded. I remember feeling so sad that anyone could feel so bad they would do something like that to myself. Found out this year that she's only a year older than me...she left our school. I don't know where she is or how she's doing. But this is my story, not hers, so... (I apologize now. I ramble, a lot. So...sorry for lengthiness.)
In grade nine, that was when I started getting a little "obsessed" (not very much) with darker things, like depressing stories, depressing music. About the same time, I started writing a little darker, more depressing, and also felt a little bit depressed as well. Nothing really came out of that that year, except my learning about concepts of cutting, concepts of suicide. They sort of fascinated me.
By grade ten, though, I'd already started cutting. Late grade nine, summer, early grade ten. And I could honestly say that for the majority of the time, I really had no reason to cut. I approached it rather methodically. It was partially fascination, partially a silent rebellion, partially thinking: "I'm doing something no one knows about!" It was...powerful, in a way. Wrong word. There was something to carry around something that should have been so obvious but that no one but yourself knew. The reasons there were for cutting - the two main ones that I could come up with, that a) one felt numb and disassociated and needed to feel or know they were alive, or b) one felt emotional pain and needed to find an outlet for it and hurt themselves to let it out that way or distract them - neither of those were me. In fact, ironically, it was the lines and cuts I wanted, knowing they were there, not the pain. I wanted minimal pain. I had no reason, except the slight fascination and a sense of - now I'm depressed, and so I'm cutting. Just like a lot of teens all over the place! I did tell a guy...who became my boyfriend later that year, not very healthy, since... He never condoned the cutting but never stopped it. I told him it wasn't that big of a deal, and it wasn't, to me, and so I guess it wasn't, to him. And he also introduced me to drugs.
In the beginning (and I mean for about 3/4 of the year-or-so period I did it) it was for recreation. I wasn't as antagonistic towards it as I could have been because they were OTC drugs - cough syrup, really - and it didn't seem that big of a deal, and I couldn't really say that it was wrong anymore, because I justified it by saying it was just for recreation, like cliff-jumping. I wasn't using it as a form of escapism or to do anything stupid, just...recreation. It was fun. Like any other thing, equally or even more dangerous. Nor was I addicted, or dependent, or getting addicted.
I guess somewhere along the way situations with my family got a little tense, and ultimately the cutting was 1/2 for the "rebellion" idea, that I was doing something I knew my parents would disapprove of - greatly - and so I did it. And also, using dex sometimes was a way of - "Okay, people are fighting again. I'm sick of this - I want to zone out and listen to music and not think about this for a while." It was stupid, I knew, because the cutting didn't even help or pretend to help, and I also knew that the drug also did nothing and didn't even make me forget while I was on it. I got more depressed, doing a bit of suicidal ideation and thinking along those lines. Come summer after grade ten, there was a summer day camp program at my church for girls, and during that time I decided, for really no apparent reason, that I just wanted to tell someone. Possibly for the shock value. I realize now that I think I crave attention sometimes. (I'm sure a lot of people do.) So I told one of the leaders - two, actually, and a good friend of mine - and of course, what with the drugs and cutting (I didn't mention suicidal ideation), they HAD to tell my parents, and my thoughts then were - I wish I hadn't, because honestly, this isn't an issue anyone can help me with, and I've decided to stop - and I really had, about a month prior - but tell my parents I had to.
My relationship with them was, and still is, a bit strained. I detailed everything out to them in a letter, very factually, and then after the first initial bit, the subject never came up again, and I was so grateful. I still am. It isn't actually something I want to talk to them about, because I feel like I just can't. I can talk to other people, but not my parents. I think this is something I will have to work on in the future, and may be better once I am in college and don't necessarily have to live with my parents.
Anyhow...it wasn't really that easy. No cutting, no drugs, but that year, nearing the end of the school year, I was reinformed, as I had forgotten, that I would have to drop concert band. That really tore me up. I cried in bed a lot of nights. I pretty much hated my 16th birthday (I still think I'm a little bitter over that, and I have to get over it) and my parents for getting me roses and gifts after I said I didn't want anything, because the day before my birthday was the last band gig I would ever have. Thinking about it now doesn't drag me into the deep pit of depression like it used to, but wounds take time to heal.
Anorexia/bulimia was another issue. Kind of disdainfully, I'd think: "I like food too much to be anorexic, I hate throwing up too much to be bulimic, and I'm too chicken to ever kill myself, so I think we're all good." I had no way of skipping meals, and that was pretty much out. Occasionally I'd take some other OTC drug (honestly, parents - in your homes. DM cough syrup and Gravol/Benadryl - that's plenty enough) which had the side effect of making my appetite decrease for a day or two. And I tried, multiple times, to throw up. I could only gag; that was as far as I could get. I felt that if I stared at myself in the mirror and hated myself more for being fat and calling myself so would make me get up and do something about it. I still need to...it's a working process, but my more negative views on it are hopefully now gone.
Some time after my "vow" not to do drugs or cut or whatever again that summer - I had left myself a loophole, a personal one by never promising completely - I started again. It got a little worse...I had, if I wanted, access to ecstasy. And I wanted to try it. On and off I would make decisions to stop using or to never take ecstasy but it was too easy to change my mind. Whatever God had done in me that summer, as I had thought then, I kind of negated, ignored, again. Cutting, even, a little. Even as I write this the last few lines from about a week and a half ago are pretty much almost all healed. A former student at our school came and spoke at our chapel...it was, actually, a bit fire-and-brimstone-y but at some point or another, I ended up making a recommitment that I was so scared I would break again, as I have so many times in the past - with other things unrelated to SI. Except this time I stayed committed. I guess this is my path to healing. There are things I need to change about me. I know I screwed up twice after said commitment (not SI related), and I've been tempted, a few nights ago, to substance abuse, but I didn't. Things look a little more promising. I've been praying more, reading the Bible more. I kind of figure that the next thing I ought to do is tell the rest of my tighter group of friends about this - these - things. For accountability, for support. Sometimes I have bad days. I know God has been working in me; my family is going through some problems with my brother right now and I was always so sick of the yelling, the fighting, everything - I hated my mother and I hated my brother for it and I liked to turn that back on me, sadistically, and I liked to think, again, of how suicide would be revenge on my mother. It wasn't that pleasant, just the fact that I had the thoughts to be so vindictive even though they weren't things I would carry out. Now - I don't know that family issues have gotten better. I do still get bitter, or sarcastic, but it hasn't been like the way I gelt before. I keep up a private blog as a journal, and I've been able to see how my reactions differed. Obviously, God is at work.
I still am not sure exactly why I started the cutting...I think partially it was to, in that twisted way that it always ends up being, to impress the one or two people who knew. The drugs were half to impress, half to enjoy for myself. Honestly, I could say that there was a sick sort of satisfaction in fulfilling these very cliche, angst-y teenager issues. But then at some times I would think of the girl from school...and I would laugh, not happily, because I had gone from pitying her to being in her position. And for some reason, in the past, I had wished that I could be like in the stories, of depressed teenagers...fanfic-types. And then it came true, and it wasn't pleasant at all.
Some people like to wallow. I guess I'm one of them. God really, then, did pull me out of the miry clay and let me get going again. Sometimes I want to just sit back down in it...I haven't yet, but I'm not about to presume that I never will. I don't trust myself not to. That's where God comes in, I guess. I need to learn to fully turn things over to Him.
And I'm rambling, and writing myself into a rut, as I often do. I just wanted to make a comment about my other drug...music. Aside from the morality of the content of the songs I listen to, it's very easy for me to get addicted to music. I don't like not having my mp3...I listen to it every night as I fall asleep. I'm not severely addicted, but I know I am. I left it with a friend tonight for the long weekend. I'm missing it right now. It's something I think I should give up more, for longer periods of time. Sometimes I can't hear other people speak to me with the earbuds in...how do I expect to hear God if I'm so wrapped up in music?
I pray more. I pray for my ex-bf, who is still into the drugs. He claims he's not really addicted...I can't say that's so. And - I pray he'll really find God. Our relationship was in no way healthy; we were both weak, and so he didn't hold me up as I fell, he fell with me. I made a lot of mistakes with him, and some I will regret. They'll stay in my mind, but they'll stay as reminders, and I've learned from it all.
...
Here's where I grind into the mud and am stuck. Writing-wise. That's pretty much it up till now. I pray that I'll continue to stay on the rocks and not fall...there's a lot of things I've committed to, and...I just pray I remember who's really in charge. I have friends by me. I know that. I know I'm growing - I do wish my parents wouldn't push me too much on religion - and hopefully that'll continue. The growing.
...Yeah. God bless. :)
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