Hi everyone,
I've read every post on this board and can entirely and honestly relate to each one. Seriously. And I know what each one of you is feeling and can identify with your struggles and frustrations and fears. But I'm not posting to you so that we can wallow in our pain and dispair. Instead, I'm hoping to offer some answers to each of you . . . I am a former self-injurer and since coming out of that bondage I felt led of the Lord to write this post. I hope and pray with all my heart that it will reach as many as is possible.
Well. So here goes.
I used to be where you are. I used to cut, burn, scrape, file, needle . . . the whole deal. It was my life. I lived for it. I enjoyed the aching and the suffering and yet at the same time wanted out. This is what all of you are saying and I totally know what you are feeling. Through a complicated series of events that would take too long to explain and through various circumstances that are a tad irrelevent, I ended up meeting someone on this board who kinda told me they'd received a word from the Lord about me. That I was dealing with some pain and hurt and that I needed help. This was totally weird because I'd always made sure to cover up my si very well and mask all the dispair I was feeling.
Anyways, I eventually spilled it all out and the Lord used this particular individual to point some really significant things out to me. There were issues in my life that I was bitter about, angry about, hurting from, mad at God about. As they spoke to me about that, the Lord helped me realize that si was my way of venting about those issues. Here I was thinking that I had a major psychological illness (which, in a sense, I did) when really it was a chemical imbalance that was being knocked into a tail spin by the issues in my life. In other words, si was my way of dealing with the dysfunctional family, etc. This is the only way I knew to respond.
Anyways, so this person and I talked for a long time and I began to see that the Lord wanted to help me clear up those issues in my life. Sure the problems themselves are still there but now by looking to the Lord and daily asking him for the strength and the grace to have a right response to these issues, I have been freed from the bondage of self-injury. The temptations to return are still strong sometimes and I'll admit that I have slipped up. But I am freed from si. And I could only be freed from it when I confessed my anger, bitterness and unforgiveness to the Lord.
If you would like to talk to me personally about this, I would absolutely love to do so. Please pm me so I can give you my email address or my IM usernames. I want to help you.
~eccl12.13
I've read every post on this board and can entirely and honestly relate to each one. Seriously. And I know what each one of you is feeling and can identify with your struggles and frustrations and fears. But I'm not posting to you so that we can wallow in our pain and dispair. Instead, I'm hoping to offer some answers to each of you . . . I am a former self-injurer and since coming out of that bondage I felt led of the Lord to write this post. I hope and pray with all my heart that it will reach as many as is possible.
Well. So here goes.
I used to be where you are. I used to cut, burn, scrape, file, needle . . . the whole deal. It was my life. I lived for it. I enjoyed the aching and the suffering and yet at the same time wanted out. This is what all of you are saying and I totally know what you are feeling. Through a complicated series of events that would take too long to explain and through various circumstances that are a tad irrelevent, I ended up meeting someone on this board who kinda told me they'd received a word from the Lord about me. That I was dealing with some pain and hurt and that I needed help. This was totally weird because I'd always made sure to cover up my si very well and mask all the dispair I was feeling.
Anyways, I eventually spilled it all out and the Lord used this particular individual to point some really significant things out to me. There were issues in my life that I was bitter about, angry about, hurting from, mad at God about. As they spoke to me about that, the Lord helped me realize that si was my way of venting about those issues. Here I was thinking that I had a major psychological illness (which, in a sense, I did) when really it was a chemical imbalance that was being knocked into a tail spin by the issues in my life. In other words, si was my way of dealing with the dysfunctional family, etc. This is the only way I knew to respond.
Anyways, so this person and I talked for a long time and I began to see that the Lord wanted to help me clear up those issues in my life. Sure the problems themselves are still there but now by looking to the Lord and daily asking him for the strength and the grace to have a right response to these issues, I have been freed from the bondage of self-injury. The temptations to return are still strong sometimes and I'll admit that I have slipped up. But I am freed from si. And I could only be freed from it when I confessed my anger, bitterness and unforgiveness to the Lord.
If you would like to talk to me personally about this, I would absolutely love to do so. Please pm me so I can give you my email address or my IM usernames. I want to help you.
~eccl12.13
