10 Years (Personal Time Out)

I have stopped and started this entry so many times that I've lost count. I think about it often, when I'm cooking, when I'm driving, when I'm trying to fall asleep at night. The past couple of months it's weighed heavily on me. How do I get across my point without glorifying the past and without drawing out the whole gory story? And I realized that I should just come out and say it and then explain the story as best I can. I think then that you can understand why this anniversary is so very, very important to me.

Most people don't know the story of my past and even when I tell them it's hard for them to imagine. Sometimes it's hard for myself to remember it clearly, as if it happened to someone else. And most of the time even my family will state that it seems like it was a lifetime ago, like a terrible nightmare that we all try to forget but can't shake.

At the age of 14 I became depressed. At first it was just one of those moody-adolescent depressions but very quickly it morphed into something else, something with a life of its own, something that I could not escape or explain. The word depression is thrown around these days but to me it's a very personal term. I was not simply sad. It was not just that I wanted to cry and scream at everything wrong in the world. It was like a black hole of darkness that had no escape and every time you thought you were at rock bottom you were surprised to find there was further to fall.
I did a lot of terrible things while acting out but the one I want to focus on today, and what I am personally celebrating is something called "self-injury." More specifically it started with cutting. At first it was an obvious cry for help but it also quickly morphed into a serious addiction. Self injury gives the same kind of high that drugs give and had the added side effect of punishing myself for the way I thought and felt. I feel like self injury is a very hush hush addiction, a dirty little secret that I've carried around for 10 years now. It seems like the most shameful of addictions and even in my own family, felt like something that was not talked about except behind closed doors and only when necessary.
It's not that I think I need to shout it from the rooftops and divulge my secrets to the world but there is something freeing about speaking out on my 10 year anniversary. Yes, it has been 10 years since I have cut. This is my anniversary to look back at that stranger that I used to be and say, I beat it. I'm still standing here. I'm better and stronger and more thoughtful because of you. 

It is also a moment for me to honestly talk about the struggle that self-injury addiction entails. The constant worry of relapse, because though I'm not sure it's categorized as a real addiction like drugs and alcohol are, it is just as dangerous and just as scary. And relapse is real. It was real and scary and felt inevitable in those early days of graduating from Island View, a Utah residential treatment center that helped get me over my "hump."
While at Island View I also battled drug and co-dependency addictions and I remember being told that from now on, You are an addict. From this day forward you will struggle with this for the rest of your life. Take it one day at time... When in fact I haven't struggled with drug addiction. But no one told me that I would be a self-injury addict for the rest of my days. I obviously have not cut in 10 years, since I am celebrating that fact today, but I have struggled with stepping close to the edge. Of feeling out of control and squeezing my fists, of feeling the bite of my nails into my palm and with it, that bite of euphoria and centering. It is enough to remind me of how easy it is to fall and how close I am at all times.

I also struggle with finding a balance between who I was and who I am. How can I possibly be a mother and wife when I have such a tainted past? I think I finally understand that though I am now a "grown up" doing grown up things and making grown up decisions, I am still me. I still sometimes feel unloved and unworthy and unappreciated. I still sometimes cry about things I cannot change in my life and I definitely lean heavily on the serenity prayer even to this day. I guess, I truly get that adults are just as likely to feel depressed and "act out" as teenagers. Depression happens. Hopefully now I at least have the right tools to deal with it if it ever comes knocking on my door again.

I constantly remind myself that because of what I've been through I am more empathetic, more understanding and more thoughtful. I am a better listener, a stronger support, a better friend and daughter. I am so much more than that person that I used to be and today, after 10 years, that is enough.

In celebration of my 10 years of safety I am getting a tattoo, one that means dearly to me. When I was going through all of this, To Write Love On Her Arms was not around but it is a foundation that I obviously hold dear to my heart. The tattoo will help spread the word of depression, self-injury and suicide prevention, to remind myself of where I've come from and how far I can go, and to celebrate the simple fact that I am here.

"The vision is the possibility that your best days are ahead.

The vision is the possibility that we're more loved than we'll ever know.

The vision is hope, and hope is real.

You are not alone, and this is not the end of your story."

-TWLOHA Vision