Through various of abuse and constant shifting of homes. Self-injury was the one constant in my life that kept me sane.
(*Before I begin my story I would just like you to know that this story IS true but the names are not. I\'ve changed them to be polite.*)
This story begins just shortly after my mom re-married. The man, Brad, was introduced to my mom by her parents. They started to date and Brad showed all the potential of being a great \"new daddy\" so when I was about 3½ they got married. Just weeks after the marriage Brad turned into a nightmare of a daddy.
I don\'t remember what I had done wrong. I just remember the yelling and me being too terrified to speak up and tell him that I needed to go bathroom. I wet myself and it got on to the carpet. When Brad came back from running my bath water he saw what I had done and shoved my face to the floor and rubbed my face in it. I had a rug burn right across my face for weeks. My mom to him to wither get out or go get counselling; he got conselling and the nigtmare rollercoaster begain.
When Brad got conselling he was a great daddy, taking me for ice cream when I was good, regular (non-abusive) punishments when I was bad; making it seem like everything was going to be ok. However, as soon as he stopped couselling the nightmare returned. Things were mostly ok when I was good but since I had a mood disorder growing up, I was in trouble quite a bit. Brad would beat me with a plastic baseball bat, pieces of drywall, and one time, a strip of plywood. He would make me do repitious manuel labour that was fit for a 11-13 year old boy and not for a 9/10 year old girl.
I grew scared, lashing out at school, and completely quiet at home. Afraid to ask questions if I was not fully sure I understood the task I had to do. I had nightmares, cried myself to sleep, and sometimes in my sleep. I lost myself in books for as long as I was aloud to. Finding some sort of false happiness within the pages of someone elses story; even though it was fictitious. I eventually forgot how to smile. I started to feel distant from everyone and I couldn\'t even laugh at something funny on the television.
At school, kids were afraid of me. Some friends I had. Ones that didn\'t really care about my mood swings. However, for the most part I didn\'t know how to be a friend. I constantly lashed out in school, having to be restrained, and became a bit of a bully. The teachers didn\'t know what to do with me. They finally just let me roam the halls as I pleased to keep me happy even if it was in the middle of a test. None of the teachers knew what was going on in the home and none of them suspected anything either.
My mom told me once that on numerous occassions she had pleaded with Brad not to punish me with the plastic baseball bat but I am still not sure I believe her and with good reasons. When I told her \"secrets\" and she promised me she wouldn\'t tell anyone, she did. When I asked her why she wouldn\'t divorce Brad and go back to my real daddy she scoffed at me. I was even there when she and Brad went for coffee one time and heard them talking to their friends, people who were complete strangers to me, and it sounded like I was just a problem child. That I was the one doing the wrong and no one else.
When I was 12 I ran from home. I stayed at my grandparents for a time and then my aunt an uncle but I couldn\'t stay with them. When my real dad heard what was going on he was furios at Brad but still wouldn\'t let me live with him. Social Services agreed to let me stay at my great grandparents because another one of my aunts and her husband lived in the apartment right above them.
It was too late though. I couldn\'t find peace and books weren\'t working for me anymore. I heard of something at school. A rumour that someone was intentially hurting themselves and I wondered if it would help. I started small but eventually I started to cut deeper and deeper, more cuts at more frequent intervals. I was new at it and one day I slipped up and didn\'t cover my arms well enough. The youth worker (a mentor) that was visiting me saw and soon I was sent into foster care.
The first foster home I was in I was physically and verbally abused. Not to the extent I had been getting at home but enough to make me unhappy still. When I ran from there and complained enough they moved me. I lost count of how many foster homes, group homes and treatment centers I was in. If I had my choice I would have stayed in the one treatment center despite not being able to come and go as I pleased. This was the one place where I had never been abused or mistreated. I started to learn to have fun again but when they saw that there was a great deal of improvement they found a foster home for me to go to. This was just how it was. They needed the bed for a more problematic teen then myself. Between the abusive homes I would find myself on the street not sure if I really wanted to let social services help me out anymore; they had hurt me way to much already.
At my last group home I had the second worst experiance ever. The staff there, and the couple that ran the group home, would punish me everytime they caught me cutting. Not to mention restrain me without my consent (which I found out that in order for them to do that they had to have my signature on the forms even though I was 15; which they did not.) They would push everyone to do laps as punishment. Sounds like a not to bad punishment,eh? Think again. They came up with a ridiculous amount of laps for every wrong that we did and until those laps were done we had no tv, games, or interaction privalages. If we refused to do the laps. Many of us kids started to feel ostracized. It was, again, another nightmare.
Despite getting punished when I got caught cutting (which was nearly everytime as they had a sharp eye out for it) I couldn\'t stop cutting. There was always one thing or another that kept me from really stopping. Psychiatrists and Psycologist didn\'t know what to do. Cutting wasn\'t so very well known yet and try as I might I couldn\'t get them to understand that cutting was an addiction for me, away to releave the depression and emotional pain like some people did with drugs and alcohol. They mostly saw it as a failed suicide attempt. Something that I had attempted to do on a few occassions.
When I left the group home on my own my older sister and brother agreed to let me stay with them. By this time cutting wasn\'t enough. I started to drink and experiment with drugs. It was that difficult either as I knew just enough people who would buy me some alcohol or weed. Sometimes not expecting me to pay them back.
I went to this bible camp when I was 16. It was a camp I had attended numerous of times when I was in elementary school but I hadn\'t gone to very often when I reached Jr. High. The guest speaker talked to me personally and I found out that there was hope for me and that God was in fact there and I believed it because the speaker had scars from when he too use to cut.
I started to cut less and eventually stopped for a time. I had gone from cutting just about every single day to once a week to once a month and then stopping completely.I even felt truly happy. I remembered how to laugh and smile again but this only lasted for a month or two and then something would happen and I would start again. This pattern went on from the time I was 17 until I was 21 (which meant I had now been cutting for 9 years).
When I was 21 I was sent to see this psychiatrist. I was diagnosed with bi-polar and put on medication. When I was on the drug the cutting ceased but I still felt like something was missing. I felt kinda hollow. This lead to me only taking my medication when I wanted. Leaving mr to cut when I was off of it.
Someone asked me how I was able to cut. Wasn\'t the pain hard to bear? By that time I couldn\'t feel anything when I cut. Not until all the anger and frustration that I was feeling had seeped out with the blood and then when I felt the pain of the cut it was only then was that cutting time finished.
At 22. I went to YC Alberta 2008 and the thing that I struggled with the most, besides being able to believe that there really was a God out there that loved and cared for me, was talked about. The speaker was Reggie Dabbs, he had hit a weak point in my hardened cell and I broke down crying. One of my friends then told me about one of the other guests speakers in one of the workshops. I heard him and she and my the man that just married my cousin came with me. This speaker was Brett Ullman and he too talked about cutting.
Reggie and Brett both talked about how God could help let go of the reasons why you cut. How it didn\'t have to be this way. I finally started seeing sunshine in my dreary dark world. By the time my 23rd birthday came this past January I was no longer on medication and no longer cutting.
I had finally let go and let God do his work in me. I still struggle to follow Him at times but I am constantly learning and getting stronger.
I went to YC this year as a volunteer. I was able to give Reggie a hug and told him the good news. I then told Brett the good news as well.
I no longer wear sleeves or arm warmers to hide my scars. I wear them only to keep warm now. If someone sees my scars and ask I boldly tell them I use to cut a struggle that God helped me through.
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