“For if thou altogether holdest they peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
-Esther 4:14
She is standing in front of the mirror trying to look at herself. But the longer she looks the more she hates what she sees. She just told someone that God made us wonderfully and beautifully. Then why can’t she believe that for herself? She cannot see the beauty that God has created inside of her. The more she looks into the mirror the uglier the picture becomes. The emotions are becoming too much, and she begins to cry. This pain she feels becomes too much for her. She can’t handle these emotions; she can help others walk through theirs but not hers. These feelings are becoming too much, there is only one thing she can do. She has thought about doing this for a while now. But has never been able to, until now.
She reaches for the one area that she hates the most and no one can see. She has nails, so using her nails wouldn’t be considered self-harm. Right? She is only taking away the pain, so this can’t be self-harm. She digs her nails into her stomach. Clawing at every inch leaving no part untouched. First, it turns red but then the blood starts. The emotions are lessening, and she can move on with her day. She hides the mirror again, so she doesn’t have to see the ugly person or the scars she created.
Once the mirror has been covered, she cleans the blood off and covers it to ensure no one will ever see them. Once that is done, she heads out the door with a smile on her face and the pain hiding inside. She thinks about the last few minutes, thinking that would be the last time she would hurt herself. But that was far from the truth. There would be countless times that the pain would come knocking again and countless times that her nails would meet her stomach. She prays that one day this pain would go away and never return. But she hides the mirror, hides the scars, and pretends that everything is okay. But in reality, everything is falling apart.
According to the Webster Dictionary self-harm is the act of purposely hurting oneself as an emotional coping mechanism. The most common form of self-harm is using a sharp object to cut the skin. However, there are other forms such as scratching, hitting, or burning parts of your body.
Self-harm is not a cry for attention. It goes deeper than attention seeking. You might self-harm because of past trauma, loss of a job, loss of a loved one, low self-esteem, difficult feelings, or bullying. These are just a few reasons why people self-harm. Self-harm isn’t always in one area of the body. You might think that people only cut their arms. But that is far from the truth.
When you think of someone self-harming you don’t think of a person that always seems happy. But you never know what lies inside of that person. I was that person. Someone once told me that I am a strong person and that I can handle anything. But what they didn’t know was I falling apart inside with no way to say I needed help. So, I would keep on moving forward never letting anyone know the dark secrets that lay inside.
The self-harm would come when the emotions were high, and I couldn’t control them any longer. I would tell myself that this scratching was not self-harm because I didn’t use a sharp object. Yet, the scars would tell a different story. Self-harm isn’t always using a sharp object to cut yourself. Let alone only cutting on your arm. Self-harm is more than what people think. For years I believed that self-harm was only when you cut your arm. So I would tell myself as I was scratching myself that this wasn’t self-harm. Maybe you read that and think, you only scratched what’s the big deal. The big deal is I would scratch until I made myself bleed. No one ever saw my scars, so the last thing people thought I would do was self-harm. But that is far from the truth. You see I had learned to hide my mental health from everyone because I didn’t want to be looked at as weak. But showing I needed help shouldn’t be looked at as a weakness. But at times it can be.
The problem I faced was allowing myself to feel my emotions. I had been hurt in the past by many people, and I no longer trusted people. Therefore, I would keep my emotions inside a little box and never allow myself to feel them. Or so I thought. This would cause the beginning of my self-harm journey. When my emotions would become too much I would simply self-harm to relieve the pain. It would work for a time, but the emotions would always come back up. Because I was not facing the emotions, I was masking them into something else. This is not what God wants us to do. God wants us to feel every emotion because God is right there with us to help walk us through them. Jesus even felt emotions. It tells us in John 11:35 “Jesus wept.” So we know that Jesus even felt his emotions and cried when he needed to. So what makes us different?
My self-harm was not only about pushing the emotions away, it was also the part of my body I hated the most. I could not look into a mirror without seeing the ugliness that would stare right back at me. Then the emotions would become too much, and the scratching would begin. Little by little it would become worse, and the pain would come back quicker each time. I would scratch just until it started to bleed, but months down the road it would turn into scratching for what seemed like hours. Because it was my escape from the ugliness I saw and the emotions I was feeling. But what self-harm did to me was lead me down a dark road that I didn’t know I was heading down. It’s like sin, you start with something little and by the end, you are so far into it that you don’t know how you got there. That’s how self-harm started for me.
It started out as a once-and-done thing, but then months down the road I was scratching my skin off so much that I became numb to it. It became a weekly occurrence, something I became custom to. But what did it give me in the end? It gave me nothing. I thought I had self-control over this, but it had control of me. What I didn’t know at the time is that self-harm is a step closer to suicide.
I can remember the days leading up to suicidal ideation, my self-harm had been at a high. At that point, I had not self-harmed for 3 straight days in a row. I had always given myself a day in between. But not leading up to my suicidal ideation. Not only was work and life becoming stressful, but I had people getting upset at me which means I wasn’t able to please their every request. Along with all of that, I was trying to learn to love myself. This means I would look in the mirror, but what I would see was this fat ugly person looking back at me. My emotions were high, and my self-image was low. I thought if I could just self-harm for the next few days my pain would go away. But it didn’t, it increased more by the hour.
You see, self-harm might relieve the pain at that moment, but it will always return. I was that person that started self-harming thinking this will just be a few times to release the emotions. But each time it would take longer for me to feel the release, simply because the emotions were becoming too much. You see, self-harm is not a one and done thing, because the reason why you are self-harming will come out again and again unless you address the issue. Now that isn’t to say God can’t heal you from self-harm. Because we all know that God can heal us from anything. But sometimes God wants you to walk through the situation so you not only can see what the root of the problem is, but maybe it’s also to help someone else in the same situation.
God did not heal me in one moment from self-harm, this is a battle I still fight today. But I know that God is right there with me when I feel the need to self-harm. I have learned that when this feeling comes I reach for my Bible and read His word. God has taken the place of self-harm in my life. What I mean is that I reach for him to help me through these feelings. God never intended us to hurt ourselves.
"Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
-Isaiah 41:10
God did not want us to harm ourselves. You might be in a moment in your life where you feel alone and feel as if there is no one in the church feeling the same as you. That is a lie from the enemy. The enemy wants nothing more than for you to feel alone. But you are not alone, there are people in the church that have felt just as you do. You are God’s child, and you will never be alone. The next time you feel the need to harm yourself remember I care for you. I have been where you are, and I have self-harmed in the past. You are not alone. You got this and you will make it to the other side.
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