The following is my written testimony. If you don't want to read it, then i also have a video testimony on youtube.
Self Injury-FreedomHer name is Jessica. Throughout her life she has experienced such great pain. Razors tell their tales of what she sees through her soul. Brokenness, hurt, and sadness filled her tears as she desperately looked for a way out. This is her story, as it may be a part of yours.
(Introductory) She is only 14. Jessica's life is far from perfect, but it wasn't that bad, or so she thought. She lives in South Carolina, with an older sister named Alexa, a mother whom she loves dearly, and a father who she hardly knows at all. She is a good girl. Perfect grades and being a model student where her attributes in life. Teachers loved her, God loved her, and she loved herself. Until one day something changed. Life started to change. She started to change.
(Body) Jessica did not know it but the next four years of her life would be hell. She starts off with unexplainable tears. Smiles become a rarity as her thoughts become darker. People notice she's not the same person that she used to be in the beginning of the year. She whispered to God and asked why such sad things were happening. There was no immediate answer, but patience is a virtue and she learned that quite well as time went by. Jessica's outlook on life changed. She started wondering if days were worth waking up to. A friend of hers online introduced her to something called "self harm". This became her best friend and her worst enemy. Erasers could not only erase mistakes on paper, but she learned they could also erase the pain away. The next few months of her life consisted of guidance counselors, erasers, frustrated family talks, and self loathing. God was still there, she didn't read His word like she used to, but she still believed that He would make a way through this. Then she moved to a little town called Lawrenceville in a state where peaches and peanuts where all the rage. It was there that she met a small Methodist church called Prospect.
(Body) When Jessica's family first moved to Georgia, things didn’t get much better in her life but she hadn't hurt herself for 5 months. She was able to control her demon, for now. Prospect was her safe house for the time being. She could run there and escape from the reality of life, but Jessica knew that when she would have to leave those doors, she would come back to a place she dreaded. Once high school started her depression deepened and she started cutting again. Bathroom stalls where the only ones who could know her secret and keep quiet. She enjoyed this. Jessica didn't want anyone to know how much pain she was in, so she only told herself with little wounds. Wounds to her wouldn't get angry if she told them how she really felt, nor would they try and fix her. Wounds said that it was okay to cry, but at the same time, with each slice into her skin they screamed what a despicable person she thought she was. There were also certain people that God sent into Jessica's life to save her from herself. She grew close to these people and they where Gods hands holding her up when she was too weak to do so herself. This was her freshman year. Jessica needed help.
(Body) Her sophomore year was filled with tests. Over the next 14 months she would understand what it was like to cry so hard it hurt to breathe. She realized she needed God to help her so badly, but she had no idea how to let Him in. Cutting was the only way she thought that she could survive. As the pain went deeper into her heart, the cuts went deeper into her arm and even into her wrist. One weekend while she was with her youth group on a retreat, a cut that she had made on Friday had opened up on Sunday morning. The thing every cutter dreads most became her reality. She would have to go to the hospital because it wouldn't stop bleeding after several hours. Jessica would finally have to tell her family, people she loved, and people she cared about.
(Body) From the Emergency Room she spent two weeks in a mental hospital where things didn't get any better. The people in the ward weren't sure what to do with her. They didn't know where they could put Jessica so that she could be safe, but one thing was certain they didn't want to send her back home. But eventually they realized that there was no other place for Jessica to go and they thought that the problems had been resolved. Jessica had hoped and prayed so desperately that they had been healed. Once she got home she realized that they hadn't. Things where worse, much worse. So much so to the point where she couldn't take living at home anymore and told her counselor. A few weeks later the Department of Child and Family Services showed up at her door. They were coming to take her away. That didn't go over very well with her parents. They got mad at Jessica and they got mad at Prospect. At that point Jessica wasn't allowed to contact anyone from prospect. She lost her only escape and people that she loved and could protect her. Jessica had her safe house taken away. Her parents started going to a new church, one that they thought could cure Jessica's demons. A church doesn't heal someone, God does. Jessica had finally stopped cutting once DFACS got involved because she didn't want to get taken away from her mother, whom she loved dearly. It wasn't for herself, but for the love of another. But she told herself that the next time her mother talked to her, Jessica would either cut very badly or over dose so that she could be sent away forever. She didn't want to die, but she would if she had one more talk. Things got to the bottom straw. That's when God intervened.
(Body) Jessica's mom had a talk with her and Jessica's sister in the same day. The next morning Jessica heard her mother sobbing uncontrollably in Alexa's old room. Jessica went in there to see what was wrong, but she just kept crying. Jessica called her older brother who usually talks to their mother in the morning to see if he had said anything to upset her. He did. He pretty much told Jessica's mom that she couldn't handle Jessica anymore and that she should tell the case worker to take her away from the family. Ms. Lyszczasz didn't want Jessica to leave but she knew that she couldn't take her anymore. Jessica's mother started to get very weak. She then told Jessica that she felt that she was very close to death. Jessica was holding on to her mother, making sure she still had a pulse because her breathing was very shallow and her body was slowly slipping away. Holding her mother was like holding onto a dying flower or a fish out of water. Jessica didn't know what to think. She loved her mother more than anything on this earth but yet she knew all to well what it felt like to want to die. It would be selfish to keep her mother in this suffering that Jessica caused. In that moment, Jessica made the hardest decision of her entire life. She prayed "I know Mommy would be so much happier with you...without pain. Please...if you mean to take her. Let her be without pain in heaven with you. It's okay".
(Concluding) What I didn't know was in that moment my mom was doing the same thing for me. She prayed and told Jesus that she can't do it anymore, and she gave me to over to him. Together we both gave each other to God. And that is where the miracle happened. God revealed to us that the root of our pain was love for the other. She understood how her "talks" made me feel and I understood why she felt she need to have them.
(Concluding) We don’t have "talks" anymore. We haven't since that day. I haven't cut myself in 2 years and Jessica is a happier person. Is her life perfect? No. Is yours? Probably not. But the important thing to remember is God takes those parts that aren't perfect and uses that to His glory. Sometimes it just takes longer to figure out how to give those parts up to him. But what can I say? I'm a work in progress. And that is just fine with me. So, I may have been sad most of my teenage years, but now life is different and my strongest emotion will never be sadness again J
The Underling order of the essay is chronological.
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