thoughts from a christian ex-cutter

Yeah, I’m a Christian. And yeah, I’m an ex-cutter. See, the last thing I want to communicate here is that this is an ok addiction, something not all that serious. If anyone knows that this is serious, it is me. But, I would like to offer some insight into the causes and manifestations of the addiction of cutting from the perspective of a Christian cutter.

I believe that cutting is a horrible addiction – self mutilation, I mean, that’s not ok. So the question is – how did I get there? Why did it become an addiction? And why is it still a temptation that is very much there? I am Christian – I never lost my basic faith in God throughout my entire struggle, I believe. What I lost sight of was some of the specific aspects of that faith.

So, how can a Christian be involved in harmful activities? What is the attraction, and addiction of cutting? And what breakdown of belief is the root cause?

First off, I am of the belief that one can be a Christian, and can still become involved with stupid things. This walk with God does not take away our humanity, it does not remove our struggle. We are constantly forced to come face to face with our essential brokenness. God will not prevent us from making bad choices, nor do I think one has to make some one huge decision to reject God and faith in Him completely to make smaller, very destructive decisions.

Secondly, I don’t think that cutting itself is the sin here. I think that it is a symptom of a deeper sin, a deeper deception. The thing itself is just an activity, and very few activities are intrinsically right or wrong. The sin I succumbed to that led to my addiction was that of unbelief. I struggled, and still struggle with control of my life. It is difficult to really, fully believe that not only is God able to handle my life, He is also good! He has my best interest in mind, really and truly. I was not trusting God, I was taking control into my own hands in a terrible way.

What is cutting? Why is it addicting?

Well I think it comes in many different forms and for many different reasons for different people. It ranges from minor destructive behavior to slitting one’s wrists in a suicide attempt. Basically, the addiction is to inflicting pain on oneself, and causing blood flow. I think the causes range as broadly as the manifestations do. I believe that it can be caused by past abuse, or any number of more violent reasons. However, for me, this was not the cause. For me, it was a simple matter of control.
It was a solution to my problem. A false solution, yes, but one that presented itself nonetheless.

The problem I faced was a deepening confusion and ensuing depression. Trying to figure out what God’s will was in my life while maintaining essential control myself, trying to convince myself that all was well when it most certainly was not, trying to fake my way through things, resulted finally in a debilitating confusion and depression. By the end, I could not even think without completely losing it, because one thought brought on another and another, and it was all just too much. My brain was shutting down, I was going numb, not caring about anything and not being able to think about anything. I needed a way to block it all out, an escape, a way to gain control, and I needed desperately to feel something, anything.

Enter, cutting. It masquerades as the perfect solution, and although from the outside it might not make any sense, it seems to make perfect sense from the other side.

It does block it all out. You have to concentrate, causing the right amount of pain. You can focus on this one thing. It produces an immediate tangible result, which you can escape into. The world goes away and life becomes this. Blood is red. It’s easy to pay attention to. Pain demands attention as well. It easily takes over your brain and the world fades away, offering relief from the confusion for just a little while. There is nothing confusing about this, cut it and it bleeds. Simple.

It offers a power rush. There is something very powerful about controlling your own body. It’s the same rush that causes bulimia and anorexia, I think. The ability to directly control your physical self in a tangible way offers a rush.

Finally, you feel something. The pain is a sharp one, and it assures you that you are still alive and able to feel. And it’s not really an unpleasant sensation like you might think. Cutting chemically produces dopamine, an adrenaline rush, it actually chemically causes a high.

So, while I know full well that there are many different causes and manifestations of the action of cutting, for me it was the attraction of escape from the confusing world, something to concentrate on, a power rush, something to feel, and a chemical high.
All those things are still very attractive, and now that I have participated in cutting the past there is not the normal mental block that would be there for someone who has never done it. So, I still struggle with the temptation quite a lot. For me, this is a belief issue.

Do I believe that God offers peace? He says “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” He also says that Satan is the author of confusion. If I believe this, then rest from the confusion and depression of life is found truly and deeply in Christ.

Do I believe that He is Lord of my life? Have I given Him control? Because as long as I have given Him complete control, the power rush is not needed. My power can be found in Christ, He should be the source of my strength and power.

Do I believe that He is Good? Do I believe that all true Joy is found in Him? If I truly believe this, then I will not go looking for joy somewhere else, because I will know it is counterfeit.

This is a struggle that I face day by day, minute by minute, and it is a struggle of belief.

Love (Part 1)

I once thought love was something that you felt when you saw a pretty girl. That thing your heart does when it seems to loose all sense of sensibility, and your mind devotes itself to thinking about that person. Then you kiss, which was gross.

Then I started to realise that love is bigger, because the Sunday school people said that God loved me. I didnt really want to love God the same way I would a girl, and I definitely didnt want to kiss him. So love must be more than just girls.

I then became great friends with another guy, and I didnt love him the same way I loved certain girls or the way I loved God. I loved him a different way. Like a brother. So love was even bigger.

Recently Ive realised that love is so huge Ill never understand it. I read the bible the other day, and its so full of love its hard to ignore it. Jesus was pretty good at loving people. He hung out with hookers and thieves. I dont even do that. I dont think many people do. Why not?

Sometime in the 1900s people started to decide that they were pretty cool. This thing called individualism started happening. People became selfish. People lost love. The church got involved in politics, and stopped being involved in love.

I believe God shows himself through our love. This is pretty concerning, because were lacking love. I mean, when was the last time you loved someone? When did you give your time up, your money up, when did you sacrifice something to show that you cared about someone? Christianity has become all about shouting at people to confess their sins, but thats stupid if you dont even care about who youre shouting at.

Thats why people think Christians are stupid and full of themselves. Because we are. We dont care about people. Sometimes well give some money to a kid in Africa for a goat, and thats all good, but wheres the sacrifice? Wheres the relationship? You can do that over the internet, in the comfort of your living room while watching MTV.

I read this thing the other day. When I read it I felt like someone had shot me in the stomach. Its a quote by an American pastor called Tony Campolo, who Ive never heard of before. Tony said this:

“I have three things Id like to say to you today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you dont give a shit. Whats worse is that youre most upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.”

Somethings wrong with our thinking. Something got messed up somewhere somehow. Go love someone. Show someone you care.

The Struggle

The human struggle is a despised thing.
Oh, don’t try to deny it. Look at us. We spend our days trying to ignore it, fix it, cover it up.
I’m not broken, I’m fine. I’m strong. I have things under control.
Oh I don’t deny I’ve messed up in my past. I’ve made my share of mistakes but thank God those are behind me now and I’m none the worse for wear. I’m forgiven, hallelujah, and I’ll never make those mistakes again, would you like some tea?
Who needs help? Not me. Ha, no, I’m good. I’d be glad to help you though, would you like some help?

It’s destroying us.

I knew a girl once.
She looked pretty strong, like she didn't care what the world thought of her. like she had an inner strength that left them inconsequential in it's presence. And she did.
She lived in a place she had come to call home, but had very few friends.
She seemed to be on a different page than everyone around her, including her best friends.
She lived in a world of her own.
I worried about her. She didn't seem to be in touch with reality.
She never really connected with what was happening.
She was like Anne of Green Gables, always off in her own dreams. talked a lot, but never really made contact with earth.
And then one day she crashed.
Unexplainable fear filled every day and night, she had come face to face with the world and it wasn't nice.
Something had happened, one of her few good friends had been revealed to be someone she didn't think he was. Someone horrible.
She found out who he really was, and the shock of it brought her world down.
She couldn't trust anyone.
Her dreams were shattered, and so her world was broken
Slowly, her world pieced itself back together, but she was drastically different.
She still walked a thin line between dreams and reality, but lived much more on earth than before.
She retreated to her dream world only when necessary for survival.
She was cynical of everyone.
Oh, a couple people were let in, but only a couple.
She thought no one knew. She was a princess, pure.
She put up a great front
She thought no one knew.
Except her teddy bear. He saw her cry at night.
His fuzzy little head got wet a lot.
A few years went by.
The betrayal seemed like a distant nightmare.
She had friends again, but she kept them at an arms length, the scars of trust remained and she trusted slowly
One friend worked his way in.
She didn't know how it happened. She warned herself many times as it did.
But, in the end, the damage was done. She trusted.
Oh, foolish girl.
He didn't betray her. No, her life did the deed this time.
Life moved on, and she had to leave him.
She left the two or three friends she had, and the one she trusted.
She left the other two people she trusted.
Even they didn't know her secrets.
She started over with her life, telling herself things would be better now.
No-one who knew her. She could be anyone.
But she wasn't anyone.
She was herself. She could not escape.
And her teddy bear still felt saltwater on his fuzzy head.
She looked pretty darn perfect.
Many people told her that she was amazing. She was strong. She didn't play by the world's rules.
She kept going, and she met a boy.
Doesn't every girl?
Oh, she fell hard.
She had never trusted fast, not since the betrayal. But this... oh this took her by surprise
She knew it was foolish. She knew from experience.
But surely... this would be alright... but she didn't fool herself. She never had been fully able to.
She made a decision.
She would trust him. She knew she would be hurt. She knew... but it was worth it. She was, indeed, strong, but she was tired of being strong on her own. And just now, she didn't feel so strong after all.
He was there for her.
He was strong for her.
And she was crumbling.
Because the moment she had thrown her strength at his feet, it had begun to leave her. She began to rely on him, blind to the fact that it was him who was the source of her crumbling. Did I say that moment? But it wasn’t, was it. No, it was much much earlier. From the moment that she thought she was strong. From the moment that she began to walk on her own, she had been running full-tilt for disaster.
She was a cutter. It gave her a sense of power. She didn’t need a razor, no, she had strong nails. No one would suspect, since she didn’t use a knife. What a sense of power, a rush. Pain. Blood. She had control.
But she didn’t.
No, she knew something was wrong. It was hard to deny the human struggle when she was curled on the floor of her dorm room, screaming. It was hard to deny the human struggle as she watched herself bleed.
And the further she fell, the more she leaned on him.
He was a good guy. Not strong enough to hold two people though. No-one is.
He was afraid of what it would do to her for him to pull out. He wanted to be her friend... but he just couldn't be this.
Finally, he told her. They broke up.
She told him it would be fine.
She was strong, after all.
So very strong.
So... strong.
Her teddy bear was very wet that night.
She crumbled completely
She screamed through the night, not even knowing where she was anymore.
Day after day went by like this.
It was hard for her to deny the human struggle. It was hard to pretend… no, not hard. It was impossible. It was impossible to pretend to herself that she was fine. She was, after all, bleeding. And blood is hard to ignore.
One day, as the voices screamed in her head, as her world spun, through her screaming she cried to someone. Someone she had believed in all along, but who she hadn’t thought would be here… surely not here. Surely not.
She cried to God.
She rocked on her bed, crushing her teddy bear in a soggy embrace, asking what was going on. where was she supposed to turn to now?
He didn't seem to answer.
But she knew the answer already, didn't she?
She was supposed to turn to where she had been supposed to turn all along
Slowly, she did. She turned to God.
Not just in the abstract.
She clung to him almost tangibly.
And there, she found him.
He did not take away the pain. He did not fix the break.
But he was there. He held his hands against the wound.
She felt his screaming agony as he cried with her.
As he bled with her.
It dawned on her then, as it never had before.
He bled for her. With her. He bled to stop her bleeding.
Slowly, she began to let go of her game of pretend.
She began to embrace, for the first time, who she really was.
I began to acknowledge who I am.
And he began to take my hands off of my life. And he began to write his Love on my arms.
He began to teach me what I had needed to learn all along.
Never, never, am I supposed to draw all our strength from another human. Never can I draw it from myself. I am deeply, intrinsically, essentially broken.
My underlying strength needs desperately to come from God.
The interesting thing is, I thought all along that I was drawing my strength from God.
And at times I was.
But I wasn't fully… I was running back to him when I couldn’t hide the brokenness anymore, asking for a band-aid to cover the gaping, bleeding wound.
I used a lot of band-aids.
I was drawing my strength from my parents, from my surroundings, from my friends, from my boyfriend, from my amazing skills of an actress of life.
And as long as I was doing that,
I could never draw it from God.
It took this.
It took this struggle. This brokenness. This bleeding.
But he was there. He stopped the bleeding. And wrote His Love on my arms.
God help me if I turn back now.
God help me if I deny the struggle.
God help me if I deny the brokenness.

hold on and pray

Break once again into infinite pieces
Smile at the pieces of life
Cry and let tears wash the bits of your heart again
Laugh at the joy deep inside.

Smile. Cry. Break.
Laugh. Love. Pray.
Life feels like heaven when it doesn’t hurt like hell.
Welcome to earth.
Enjoy your stay.
Because all you can do is hold on and pray.

Pray once again with all the strength that you have
Dance in the warm summer rain
Love with the whole of your heart and your soul
Sing your way through all the pain


Smile Cry. Break.
Laugh. Love. Pray.
Hold the hand of God and don’t ever let go.
Welcome to earth.
Enjoy your stay.
Because all you can do is hold on and pray.