Darkness before Dawn

It started my sophomore year in high school. I didn't fit in, I wasn't athletic, and it was just a New Years resolution to get healthier. I took up jogging, started eating "healthier". The spiral of control began and by April I had to be hospitalized due to malnutrition, severe dehyrdration, bradycardia, and the beginnings of hypothermia. I was there for six weeks, and relapsed after coming home. That fall I went to a treatment center in Arizona for two months, but faked my way through. Relapsed in the Spring of '08, and that summer, I voluntarily put myself in treatment again. This time, I wanted to get better. When I went in I was clinically depressed, had an incredible amount of shame, and was cutting myself regularly. I discovered so much about myself, my family, and who God is. I had a really distorted perception of God, and the idea that I had to earn his love. But finding that isn't true is bringing freedom. The past two years have been darkness. Emptiness. Heaviness. Suicidal thoughts. Questions. Struggles. And life certainly isn't perfect now. Cutting is still an addiction and I wish this somehow had a happy ending where I was completely recovered. But life is no fairy tale, and all I can say to people who struggle like me, is there is hope. Don't give up. Dawn is coming. I've made it through a lot, and there's a lot more to work through still. It's a long road ahead. But dawn IS coming.