Emma cuts herself/2008-2011

(Emma age 16.)

Emma began to cut herself with light bulbs. She would just smash them into her arm and hands. My cutting affected her. She believed if it was alright for me to cut myself, it was alright for her to do the same. Usually after we have had a fight, the way I used to cut myself after I just had a fight with my own mother. The first time she cut herself it tore me to the core,

“I had done this.” “I had done this to her.” “I had brought her into my life of cutting.”

She would begin to self–injure. When she was about 9, she put her hand into some hot noodles I had just made for her. She just put her hand into the bowl and scalded her hand. I had to take her to the hospital to have her hand treated for burns. Of course, the school thought I had burned her and questioned her, and questioned me over the telephone.

Emma would continue to come home from school with scabs on her arms just rip the flesh right off rubbing her arms against the rough exterior of buildings on campus.

It doesn't always have to be glass or razors. Emma took a hammer to her knee and began to pound away. By the grace of God she wasn’t seriously injured. But to be in the mind-set that hurting herself to take the pain away of living was hard-wired into her because of me. I knew I had to stop if Emma was to stop. We are to parent by example, and I couldn’t very well tell her not to cut herself if I was cutting myself. The same rule had to apply to the both of us. I prayed for the Lord to heal me.

Although I believed “cutting” was okay for me, I knew it wasn’t okay for Emma. I understood the reason for cutting, but I didn’t want her to have to go through this hell, alone. When she would come to me that she had just cut herself, I never condemned her or made her feel bad for doing so. Momma just never understood why I cut myself so she couldn’t embrace me. I wanted Emma to know that I still loved her, and that my love was unconditional.

When I was 51/50’d and was in the Pact unit, momma and daddy didn’t come to see me the first day I was in there. It was like they threw me away, and abandoned me.

Every time momma found out I had cut myself, she was angry, that is one reason I hid my cuts from her. I was “alone” in my cutting, but I didn’t want Emma to be alone. It was an extremely lonely and painful journey for me. It was a journey I didn’t want for my daughter.

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We were certainly dry bones for many years. Self-injury is living as dry bones. God wanted the Holy Spirit to breathe new life into us.

“Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, “O’dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!”

“Thus says the Lord God to these bones. “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live.”

(Ezekiel 37:4-5)