Last week something happened that I never thought would happen, nor ever thought I would wish to happen. I was engaging in my most comfortable “coping mechanism” because it quickly numbs the tears and softens the blows that sting to my core. But last week a strange thing happened: the tears became more intense and the blows hurt even deeper.

I instantly became angry and started yelling at my body, “You worked all the other past times, why can’t you work this time?” and “Come on now, just feel numb already, what you are waiting for?”  At that moment my safety blanket instantly slipped out from under me, and I felt the self-hate running rapidly through my veins. I quickly became very guarded against AFH staff and the other residents in the house whenever they were anywhere near me.  But to the staff this loss of my safety blanket meant something much different.  It meant me seeing that I could no longer continue to “fix” myself with this bandaid. I need to “fix” myself by taking off the bandaids and treating what’s underneath. At that moment my hope that “it” would go away with adding just one more bandaid became shattered; a hope that never really existed in the first place.

Once I was able to see what the staff saw I was both sad and happy.  Sad because I realized I could no longer continue to deny hurt, a part of life that is going to be there whether you fight against it or with it. And since my “coping mechanism” no longer works, there is no use in continuing to use it when the it only adds to the hurt. But ironically I am happy for the same reason.

I am tired of trying to appear okay, and I don’t have the excuse of “just one more time” because now I know that next time no longer exists.  I want to live, not just exist in an empty shell, by experiencing and embracing, not fighting, the emotions that come with the good times and the rough times. Yet I am terrified of leaving behind the known, and jumping into the unknown. In reality every time I used my “coping mechanism” just one more time I was deepening that fear and sabotaging myself and my family by emotionally cutting them out of my life.  Yes there are still days, honestly most days, that I’m terrified of accepting the fact that hurt and joy are a part of life that I’m built to feel. I continue to fight this fact because I’m terrified of exposing the “real Kelly” even to myself.

By now you might be wondering why I used quotation marks around the words coping mechanism.  The answer is simple, my coping mechanism of self-injury, cutting, isn’t a coping mechanism that’s needed anymore to survive the past, present and future tears and blows. A Friend’s House has given me the gifts of time and unconditional love to learn how to create a voice that’s expressed with dignity and firmly stood behind. Baby steps, baby steps.

-Kelly

Dear Friends,

We finished up our Anger and Forgiveness group this past week. I have been very blessed over the past few years in that the Lord has given me the grace to truly and tangibly experience His love and mercy. That experience has spilled over into other areas of my life, including being able to make peace with my past and really begin to like myself–not because I am extraordinarily special (any more than anyone else) or because I am achieving any particularly great feats. Instead, it is because I have finally stopped struggling against God. I have given up trying to do it my way. My way has never worked in the long term. It barely worked at all in the short term. I used just about every unhealthy coping skill imaginable to deal with the pain I felt, from disordered eating to self-injury to substance abuse to unhealthy romantic relationships… the list goes on. (continue reading…)