Pain. Fear. Misery. Loneliness. These things can lead to a feeling of desperation. Sometimes you just feel trapped in your own confusion, and you yearn for unusual, scary things. You get to the point where you don't know what to do, or how to help yourself, and you have a negative outlook on life. So then what happens?
When you don't care about yourself, it can lead to being used as a sex object, doing drugs, or harming yourself - or even all of the above. For me, it was self harm. I cared about my virginity and wasn't ready for sex - emotionally or physically. So I wasn't going to just sleep around. I've never been into drugs and was never interested in them. So what did I do? You got it, I cut myself. How come I harmed myself when that's strictly prohibited in the Bible, but didn't give my body away? Doesn't make much sense, does it? The main reason: I was raised my whole life believing in saving virginity until marriage. I had only read about 'taking care of our bodies' one time. But also - I wanted REAL love - not one night of guilty pleasure.
Why did I carve a heart into my leg? Yes, I jabbed a heart into my leg with a pin and re-traced it every night for about a week. I made it bleed about 3 times. But why did I do it? Because I had been through so much in one month. I couldn't handle the stress on top of the chaos of my everyday life. Too much was going on at one time, and it was going by so fast - so fast that I didn't even have the time to feel anything. I could not identify any of my emotions, not one. I felt numb, like I couldn't feel anything because so many feelings and emotions were shot at me in such little time. So instead of being patient and trying to let each emotion soak in so I could identify it and fix it - I gave myself a feeling I could easily comprehend - pain. Better yet, it was physical. Not emotional. And that was more tolerable than the emotional pain. It was my re-assurance that I really COULD feel, that I hadn't been shot by novicane. I WAS NOT NUMB and that's all I wanted to know. But once I jumped back into reality - it became my escape, my escape from heartache.
Did it hurt? Yes, it did. It stung so bad I almost started screaming. But it felt good at the same time. When I drew blood, I became terrified, yet, I didn't stop. I couldn't. The blood was the pain being set free. I wanted to bleed more so I could let more hurt and pain flow out of my body. What made it better was the tears - I had never cried so hard in my life. So everything was being set free in two different ways: Crying & cutting. But after those days of painful pleasure, a knew feeling developed in me, and I could identify that one, also - guilt. I knew I had done something wrong but wasn't quite sure why I felt that way. A few days later - I remembered. I remembered what I had read in the Bible about how we must take care of ourselves because our bodies are His temple and we were made in His image. I just felt sick, and I became even more upset with myself. I realized that I had let the devil take over me. What I did to myself was evil. I begged God for forgiveness and apologized more times than I could count. After that, I was able to resist the temptation, even when things seemed worse than they were when I slit myself. I learned how to solve my problems in a more Godly manner - and I don't want to damage His temple anymore. I want to please Him, and I know He cares about me and doesn't like seeing me in pain - emotional or physical. I know how to give all my emotions to Him - whether I can identify them or not.
But why a heart, you may ask? Why did I choose to engrave a heart into my leg, instead of just engraving various lines, like most other people do? Well, I didn't know what love was, and I wanted to know. I wanted to feel love - whatever that was. I wanted it so bad that I decided to engrave love's symbol into my skin. But then I realized that a heart isn't love's REAL symbol - the cross is. What is Love? GOD is love. And love is God. Love comes directly from God because He first loved us - even before the beginning of time. He died on the corss so our sins may be forgiven and we may spend eternal life with Him. If that's not love, then I don't know what it is. This heart on my leg isn't going away any time soon - I'm basically scarred for life now. When I look at it, it reminds me of the trauma I went through, it makes me feel guilty & ashamed, but it also lets me remember that God's love is written all over my heart. The scar isn't going away - and neither is Jesus. That whole experience was just a lesson learned. The past is forgiven, and so am I. I now know that harming myself isn't the answer to anything, and it's not gonna take away any pain - instead it will give you guilt & shame.
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