Update

This blog is very new, so it doesn't have many followers. Just 2 as of right now in fact lol but I'm hoping to get more support in the future. All I want is to make a difference somehow. I hope these stories can inspire someone and get them out of the ditches so they can finally realize that life IS beautiful and there IS hope. Recovery IS possible. I know life might be crappy right now but as my friend Eva once said to me, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. :) [Im not sure I quoted that right but I think that's how it goes] I really hope that maybe somehow I can save a life, and maybe by reading this blog there will be less ignorance amongst my friends. I made a Facebook page where people can discuss anything they want to talk about. I have enabled comments from people who are NOT part of blogger, just so I can get more response from people, and they may choose to go anonymous if they please. I just hope this way people can become more open about their feelings and feel more comfortable sharing their problems with people. As they always say, it's better to talk about it than keep it inside. Because honestly, it will only hurt more the longer you hold onto something. So be free and let go of your fears. We're all here to help each other take a stand against the pain =) God bless all of you.

-The Healing

Survivor # 2: Kasey's Story

"It all began when I was about 13. I realized that I am bisexual. I fell into a depression because I was so afraid that my family would never accept me and I started cutting myself. As time went on the cutting got more and more frequent. I also fell in and out of other disorders such as anorexia and bulemia. I hated myself because I couldn't understand how I could do that to my parents. I thought it was my fault and my worst fear was them being disapointed in me. About a year later (and by this time I was cutting almost any chance I got and barely eating anythng) I was a freshman in highschool. My parents found a note from one of my friends asking me not to kill myself. When my mom confronted me one morning before school, I tried to brush it off as nothing serious. That I was just joking. She wouldn't believe me. That day was the worst day of my life. I eventually broke down and told her about my bisexuality and the look of disgust on her face was unbearable. Dad came home later that day and we all sat down for a little 'talk'. Mainly it was just them talking and me sitting there feeling hurt. They told me how gay people are promiscuous perverted freaks and that they all go to hell. They said that if that was the life I 'chose' I would no longer be their daughter. They told me that if I were to kill myself I was just being selfish and they wouldn't even come to my funeral. They threatened to throw me out or send me to a military academy far away. They banned me from listening to music, which was everything to me. Then they decided they could 'fix' me and that it was just peer pressure making me think those things. That day I had my first panic attack. They pulled me out of school and wouldn't let me speak to any of my friends again. Mom called my best friend who told her about my cutting. She started checking me to make sure I didn't cut anymore, but that only made me find new places to cut. I soon gave up on God. At first I hated him, but eventually I just denied his existence altogether.

Over the next four years I convinced my parents that everything was fine and they were right, it had just been peer pressure. I was living a lie. The pressure to be who they wanted me to be was killing me. My cutting got worse and worse until eventually it didn't do anything for me so I turned to other, more harmful things such as burning myself and beating myself up. Panic attacks became a frequent thing. My mental state was falling apart and I was on the verge of insanity if not already insane.

Kasey is now in college, and is now in a healthy relationship with a man she believes God put in her life. She states, "[He] helped me find God again, he helped me see how beautiful and amazing I really am" She is now closer to God, and has been for five months now. "Now when I think of the past I don't shove away the memories and the pain and pretend like it never happened. I confront it and deal with it. My wounds, physical and emotional, are not completely healed yet, but will soon be that way."

Kasey, too, is a survivor.

Survivor # 1: Kayla's Story

" From the earliest I can remember my father was physically abusive. My first childhood memory is of him banging my head against the frame of my bedpost while I begged him to stop. As I grew older he grew more violent, and when he wasn't violent he was distant and it affected me very much. I started cutting myself at the age of 13, thinking that it would get someone to notice, to see how much pain i was in. It was a cry for help that turned into a full blown disease. I cut myself for 6 years. I felt like I had no one who understood me or what I was going through and I just got sicker and sicker. I spent my entire adolescence in and out of psychiatric hospitals; eventually ending up in SAFE alternatives (the only self injury rehabilitation center in the country) more than 5 times trying to get ahold of this monster that controlled my life. High school was miserable and unbearable. Eventually my whole school found out and I was tortured day in and day out. People would come up to me in the hallways and pretend to hang themselves, draw cuts on their arms with markers to taunt me, and fill my locker with hate notes telling me to kill myself and get it over with already. All of these things made it worse for me; and eventually in the winter of 2008 I tried to kill myself. I swallowed 180 trazadone and 50 ativan and waited to die. I don't remember anything afterwards, but i was told when I woke out of a coma 7 days later that my heart had stopped 3 times. I had problems with my short term memory and was kept in intensive care for a week and a half afterwards. I was lucky to be alive; the doctors told me that no one with that much medication in their system at any point in time should be alive; but god gave me a second chance. It woke me up out of my haze and i realized while laying in that hospital bed, watching my family and their grief; that I could never do that to them again. My parents transferred my school and I got the chance to start over. I flourished; I made friends, I started ballet and dance again; I captianed the cheerleading team, joined clubs and volunteered. I realized God gave me this gift of a second chance of life for a reason; and that reason is to help others. "

Kayla is currently a second year social work major at the University of Saint Francis on a $80,000 dollar academic scholarship with a 3.78 gpa. She states, "[I] plan to use my experience with self injury to give back the gift of life to others who were struggling as i was."

Kayla is not a victim. She is a survivor.