F%ck Self Harm

Trigger warning: If anyone is triggered by the topic of Self Harm. Please don't read this post! I have so many others for you to enjoy. If you'd like to read about my personal experience with Self Harm the only two words I have for you are: Buckle Up.

I was 14 and knee deep in an alcohol addiction following a sexual assault. I was numb. I hadn't slept in a few months at that point and I was drunk beyond human belief. To this day I'm shocked I didn't die. I was extremely numb from everything that happened to me. I couldn't tell anyone what had happened to me, nobody would believe me. The person that did it was an athlete in my high school, it would have been their word against mine. So in the midst of my addiction I added another. Cutting. -Side note: I don't condone cutting, please don't do it- Anyone whose struggled with self harm will most likely tell you this as well- Anyway I started cutting, I was numb and I wanted to feel. I wanted a way out of my pain. I thought I could just bleed it all out. I thought if I bled all my pain out I'd feel better. I realize that makes absolutely no sense but in my mind it did at the time. I thought I deserved to bleed out all my pain. So I cut. I wore long sleeve shirts and pants most days. I would never roll up my sleeves for fear of being found out. Nobody could know what I was doing. To this day nobody knows that I cut. I'm to ashamed to admit to those around me. But I'm telling you here and now so that maybe my story can help someone else whose gone through similar things. I felt I had no control over my life and I thought if I Self Destructed enough I wouldn't be here. I thought I would finally be at peace and have the kind of zen that ancient healers preached about. I thought I would feel loved and finally someone would wake up and realize how much I had been hurting all that time. I stopped cutting for a very long time, I was so proud of myself. I thought I had finally beaten my addictions. The alcohol, the eating disorder and the cutting. I thought I was on top of the world. Boy was I wrong. After my last relationship ended I dabbled right back into Self Harming and Eating Disorder behaviors. The world was shut down due to the virus and I was beyond broken. See my last relationship was abusive in ways that I've written about in both my book and here. I felt gutted and numb, the same way I had felt almost 12 years ago. I felt that pain in my heart and soul. I felt lonely and sad and gutted. I felt like a shell of a person just going through the motions of life. I didn't feel whole. I didn't even feel alive. I felt like I wanted to die. I started going to therapy last year and that has helped immensely. I've healed from things I didn't know I needed to heal from. My Self Harm voice has quieted and I don't have the urge to do it anymore. My eating disorder rears it's ugly head once in a while but the voice is pretty quiet overall. My Drinking? I haven't drank in almost 13 years and for that I'm beyond grateful! I still have much more life to live. I'm glad I'm still alive.