Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Self Harm

I had a few friends that cut themselves when we were in high school. At the time I always swore that no matter what I wouldn’t turn to cutting. I never understood why someone would want to physically hurt themselves when going through emotional pain. But during my freshman year of high school my thought process changed about self harm. It was a week before homecoming and I was tired of feeling numb from the emotional pain.


It was then that I realized why people cut, burn, or abuse themselves. They have become so numb from all the emotional pain in their lives. Unable to feel anything, left with no emotion, no feeling. In the brief moment of taking a blade to their skin and seeing their own blood they feel alive. Out of everything in their harsh reality their own physical pain becomes the realist thing they know. For once they feel alive. It also becomes the one thing they are able to control.



It becomes difficult when you learn that someone you love is harming themselves. Especially when we ourselves are believers in Christ. So many questions come up about how can I help them, how can I get them to stop? For me when I am faced with someone who self harms or when Satan is trying to get me back on that path I take a moment. I start to think about Jesus’ last moments before the crucifixion. He was whipped,  beaten, had a crown of thorns forced onto his  head. He was so bloody and disfigured from the torture He was unrecognizable.


Jesus bleed so we don’t have to. He endured horrific cuts on His body, so why should we cause ourselves to bleed?


In times of strife and heartache, when I want to give in to the blade I think of that. He doesn’t want to see us hurt. He wants us to come to Him and lay our problems at His feet and let Him take care of them. I look at my scars and I remind myself that I don’t have to hurt myself.