Lessons Learned...
I'm not writing to specifically encourage or offer advice. I want to share the deeper reasons of what led me to self-injury. Once I understood the roots it became easier for me to stop. I only hope that this gives others insight into their own actions.
Cutting is interesting. Actually, all self-injury activities are interesting. They are a realm of sickness that I could not have begun to understand until I had pursued them myself. Even though I won't claim that my experience mirrors that of everyone I believe there are probably important commonalities. I was intensely hurting on the inside; every non-physical part of who I am felt ripped to shreds. But physically I was fine. There was an incongruence. Causing myself physical pain seemed to restore some sense of balance, however false and temporarily. It made me feel like a whole person again and not some being split between two unconnected parts. It also provided some visible symbol of my internal wounds, even if only a token symbol. An accurate representation of how I felt inside would have been closer to a sucking chest wound and not the mere scratches on my arm or bruising on my hands, but it was something. I have not committed an act of self-harm for quite a while. I still have those impulses. I still, just for half a second, believe the lie that I will feel better, that it will bring some relief. It's still a very real temptation, only one that I no longer surrender before. But my experiences in wrestling with these temptations helped shape two important thoughts regarding the role emotions play in our lives.
One, we were created to act as an integrated whole. We are not our bodies, but we are also not merely our souls. We are physical and spiritual in the same way that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. To deny one of these qualities is to reject who He claims to be; to deny either is to deny His identity. We as humans are at once both spiritual and physical and to deny one is to be no longer human. Our bodies distinguish us from angels and our souls distinguish us from animals. We are unique in all creation, each of us a nexus between two worlds. Our souls may be the greater of what makes us human, our souls may sometimes be able to rise above the sufferings of our bodies, but the body is not able to rise above the sufferings of the soul. When our souls are in turmoil our bodies suffer either automatically or by choice (self-injury), sometimes both. Self-injury is a terribly sick act, but I understand it because I've done it. It pulls the body down to join the soul in its suffering, thereby restoring some sense of integration between the two. That activity becomes an addiction when someone associates the soothing feelings of physical and spiritual integration with self-injury and comes to believe that it is the only way these feelings can be achieved. Like all addictions, it eventually becomes necessary to self-injure just to feel normal.
Two, we say we believe in a soul but usually don't think of it as a real thing. The soul is not a metaphor for consciousness or feelings; it is not merely a way to conceptualize immaterial products of our physical brain. The soul is real. Our thoughts, our emotions, our joys, our grief, our sympathies, our sentiments, our wills all flow from a source that is not physical, but being nonphysical does not make it, well, immaterial or less real. Someone with a broken heart is just as in need of healing as someone with coronary heart disease, but do we think about ourselves and others that way? I have seen miraculous physical healings through prayer, literally the blind being given sight. But is it less of a miracle to be healed of grief, or shame, or anger? When someone is suffering from a physical malady, it is visible and verifiable. But when someone is suffering from a malady of the soul, he is alone in his knowledge of his pain. He can try to describe it, he can try to help others understand, but he is his own and only witness. So when the physical sufferer is prayed over and remains unhealed it is clearly seen and accepted as God's will, but if the spiritual sufferer remains unhealed it is assumed that he is impeding God's will. Do we assume God's healing of the soul more than His healing of the body? Do we assume God's healing of the soul more than we should? If we suffer a catastrophic physical injury that leaves us maimed and scarred, we must learn to accept it and learn how to pursue the best life possible despite it. Do we have the same patience with catastrophic spiritual injuries that leave our souls maimed and scarred? We rarely have that kind of patience for others, but how much do we really even have that patience for ourselves? I suffered a catastrophic spiritual injury. It has left me maimed and scarred. But I do not have patience for these consequences. I pursued self-injury in order to validate invisible suffering, but also out of self-hatred for the grief I continue to feel every day. Other people's actions deeply, deeply injured my soul but I hated myself for the injuries.
jay
http://sexualchivalry.wordpress.com/
You can find help for your alcohol addiction now at heartsupport.com. You are not alone in your substance abuse and can find support.
