Battle Wounds

This is a very difficult post for me to write, and I'm trying to take my time writing it.  I hope I am able to convey everything the way I want to and in a way that people can understand.  This is the post that I have felt determined not to write, but something (the Spirit) keeps telling me that I need to.  So whether this is for me, or someone else, I'm writing it, but I am terrified to write it.  If anyone has any questions or needs someone to talk too, please feel free to contact me.  I hope that maybe this can help someone or help someone feel less alone.

***While I am not posting anything overly graphic, this may be a triggering post for some***

I have been in a war against depression for as long as I can remember; and, just like many others, I have battle wounds, and I'm really sick of being ashamed of this.

Sometime around the age of 13, I began hurting myself to deal with anything I was feeling.  This started after an episode of my favorite TV show, "DeGrassi: The Next Generation."  One of the reasons why this show was my favorite was because it dealt with a lot of hard topics: abortion, abuse, suicide, drugs, alcohol, rape, cutting etc etc etc, it was really easy to relate too and could make you feel a lot less alone.  In this particular episode, one of the characters had been having a really hard time: alcoholic and verbally abusive mother, trouble in school etc, to deal with it, she cut herself.  Now, the episode never actually showed her doing this, but they showed her thinking about it and they showed the scars on her harm.  At the end of the episode, she has a friend who helps her realize that she needs help and she starts to see somebody.

I didn't really think much of it when I first saw the episode, but I thought about it more and more in the weeks that followed.  I was dealing with depression, anxiety, and a number of other things and I wanted to feel better.  One day, I decided to see if it really would make me feel better...it did, at least temporarily.  This quickly became my way of coping and surviving, and it was the only way I knew how to cope, and has been my method ever since.

Throughout the years, I've only let a handful of people in regarding this; it's always incredibly hard to do and something I'm very cautious about.  Though not everyone that I've let in is still a part of my life, I'm grateful that they've all been supportive and caring while they were.  I've spent many years trying to hide this about myself from everyone else, though I didn't always have the energy to do so, or the energy to care about doing so.  Because of this, there were obviously other people who noticed, and I proceeded to lie about it to try to hide it.  I lied to my parents, teachers, guidance counselors at school and even my church leaders.  At one point, I had finally grown to trust my bishop and I had shared my struggles, but shortly after I finally started trusting, he was released.  I had a really hard time with this because I didn't trust or open up easily, so when the new bishop was called, I didn't even try to share.  But during a temple trip to do baptisms, my new bishop saw the cuts and called me into his office the next day at church and confronted me about it.  I didn't deal well with the confrontation, I barely knew him, and so I lied until he let me leave.  Looking back, I am aware that I likely didn't fool anybody, but at the time, I believed I had.

Hurting myself hasn't just been limited to cutting, but even burning and bruising.  I know this is a hard concept for a lot of people to understand; why would someone physically hurt themselves?  It's a coping mechanism, just like any other good or bad mechanism.  But it's also an addiction, just like drugs, alcohol, gambling etc, and it's an addiction I've really struggled with.  Sometimes I can go months without hurting myself, sometimes it's only weeks or days.  One time about 6 years ago, I had managed to make it two years without giving in, but one day, in a moment of desperation, I gave in again.

There are a lot of things I feel that drive me to this.  Many people believe that people who hurt themselves only do it for attention; let me assure you, this is not the case.  For the most part, a driving force for me is control.  As you know/have learned, I've struggled with depression and anxiety for as long as I can remember.  This isn't something I can control.  Even when nothing specific is "wrong", I'm still overwhelmed with darkness that I can't control.  When I hurt myself, that is a pain I can control.  It also creates a pain that is easier for me to understand.  I don't always understand what is going on in my head; hurting myself takes the mental/emotional pain, and makes it physical.  There is something there that I can see and understand.  I tried to come up with an analogy some time ago to help others understand, the best I could think of was comparing it to a bottle of soda that has been shaken.  Please imagine- you have a bottle of soda and have been shaking it for 5 minutes or more.  The pressure in the bottle has built up so much it seems like it might explode.  When you start to open it, even the smallest movement of the lid begins to release some of the pressure, the more you open it, the more pressure that is released.  That is what it feels like when I hurt myself, every time I act, it releases more and more of the pressure that has built up inside of me.

While this is something that I am trying to overcome, it is also the only coping method/way of surviving that I know.  My old therapist recognized this, and was very compassionate and understanding.  This was the thing I was most scared about sharing with my new therapist.  I've been on a number of support forums online throughout the years and I've heard some horror stories from people about their therapists, so I was terrified that my new therapist might be one of those stories.  I considered not answering when the question inevitably came up in our appointment, but when she was gathering information about my past/background and she asked if I ever hurt myself, I told her that yes, there was a history.  She then asked me if I thought it helped, and I told her that it sounded like a trick question, but that yes, it did.  She said it wasn't a trick question, that many people find that it's helpful and for many people, it's their way of surviving.  I'm grateful that she was understanding of this.  One of the goals we set in therapy was to learn other coping skills so that I don't have to rely on this.  Over the years, I have tried many things to try to cope, but it's an addiction, and I keep returning to it.  Of of the greatest things I have found to help is crocheting.  I'm not very good, but when I crochet, I keep my hands busy, and when I'm doing that, I'm not hurting myself.

Some day I will overcome this.  I'm still not sure why I was so prompted to write and share this, but I pray that maybe it will help someone.