The last day of the first The Lines Project I was inspired to share my story by my teenage son who had shared his. He inspired a lot of people via his social media accounts and I am proud of him. I am reposting it today the first day of the 2nd The Lines Project. I am happy to say that we continue to refrain. The Lines Project is a great way to bring awareness to the fact that ‘cutting’ is a very real issue and also to help people that are living with it to realize that they’re not alone, they’re not freaks and they have  support to find other outlets for dealing with anything that may make them wish to self-harm

The lines my son drew on my right wrist

The third year of The Lines Project we got tattoos…click here

My post for the first year of The Lines Project was really scary for me to share. Read it below…

WARNING: REALLY LOOONG POST EVEN FOR ME!
Today, December 20th, 2013 is the last day of The Lines Project and last night I had my kid draw my lines for me. It was a very powerful moment for me and I’m so thankful that we both had our lines on our right wrist rather than the left. The Lines Project or just ‘The Lines’ is a movement currently going around on social media to bring awareness to and support for those that participate in self-harm or ‘cutting’. It’s a movement geared toward young people but I promise you that people of all ages deal with this issue. There appears to be no website for this movement, but that’s not stopping it’s momentum. To be part of the movement a person draws 6 lines on themselves with Sharpies. To show your support for those who are experiencing self-harm, draw six Sharpie lines on your right wrist December 15-20. If you are experiencing self-harm, you can express yourself by drawing the lines on your left wrist (or you can just draw them on your right if you don’t want too many questions.)
Although the actual number may be higher, statistics show that 10% of young people engage in self-harm activity. That number is probably very low compared to reality and who could be surprised when we as adults have so many socially accepted behaviours that are more harmful to our bodies and disruptive to our lives than cutting could ever be.

   I sorta do and I sorta DON’T want to share my story here but OMG I think I’m actually going to. I might just type it all out and not hit ‘post’ ….I don’t know. If you are reading this I shared it and believe me I don’t blame you if you stop reading right now. We all know that Kiddo can ramble on. ESPECIALLY in the wee hours of the morning. If I do share my story then it’s because I honestly believe that some children and teens began cutting because it was sort of a thing. A fad is what older generations would call it. An accessory to the ‘goth’ or ’emo’ “cultures” but for many it’s a private and shameful act and not shared even as part of anybody else’s ideas of tortured youth. Whatever the reason may be I seriously want the trend to end. I support the project because maybe it’ll make it cooler (is that still cool to say?) to NOT participate in self-harm. Maybe NOT cutting will become fashionable like not smoking did when I was young. For those that are harming themselves for other reasons maybe bringing awareness to the issue will allow them to talk about it and not feel sooooo much like a freak or ashamed or embarrassed. So apparently I’m going to share a little of my story here. Yikes!

It’s kinda hard to make this make sense. I’ll just begin and see what happens….it’ll more than likely be a rambling train of thought, semi-literate attempt to explain something that is difficult to explain.

As a young girl I regularly went through periods in which I would harm myself. Usually cutting but often banging/bruising, jabbing and picking. I would intentionally rip my fingernails past the quick because that would hurt for days and days. I sometimes would rub dirt into my self-inflicted cuts to promote the possibility of infection. Throbbing pain was interesting. Sometimes I would slide the skin of a popcorn kernel between my tooth and gum so deep that it would take days to eventually remove. I did NOT do this for attention. It was NOT a cry for help. I kept it hidden. I knew that other people (adults and children alike) would be appalled to see the injuries. I would be seen as a freak or a crazy person or someone seeking attention. I didn’t really like attention because you can never tell when attention will turn ugly in some way. So I took great care to injure myself in ways that were either hidden by clothing or could be explained. Seriously, do people really so easily believe that a neighbors cat needed to be rescued from a tree or a rooftop? I think they want to believe it so they do…even physicians readily accept the most transparent stories. I actually liked the way injuring myself felt and how it looked….I just knew others wouldn’t. This was before after school specials brought awareness to this. In my mind I was the only one that was doing such a thing. I’m not going to go into all the issues I had growing up because everyone has issues growing up. I will just say that the pain from a cut or a hit made sense. There was a real reason for it. I can say that feeling a physical pain was preferable to feeling internal emotional or mental pain. I will say that I understood my injuries and they understood me. Sometimes during a difficult situation I would squeeze my hurt places and the bright pain would distract me from the pain of being me. I had very low self-esteem and have felt ugly my whole life. The physical scars I watched fade away from my flesh were preferable to the scars I had that seemed to never fade. I walked around trying my best to appear ‘normal’ and not draw attention to myself but sometimes felt like the pain I gave myself not only overshadowed other pains but also was one that I was in control of. I could start it and I could make it stop. It does become addictive though. I would crave the sharp pain of a cut during stressful times and would actually sigh with relief after the 1st cut like people do after their 1st drink after a long day.
I seemed to have grown out of it and I kind of thought of the behaviour in a nostalgic light and felt like the behaviour allowed me to survive my childhood. Then a few years ago I had what I thought of then as a ‘rough patch’ (funny now because I think of my life back then as ‘before the shit’…..how did I think I had problems!?) and just sort of fell back into my old habit of cutting/bruising myself. It felt like coming home. I imagine that falling back into any addiction feels like this. At this point I was married but my husband was on the road a lot so I managed to keep it mostly hidden. When my husband did see the rows of cuts he would get upset. I would feel bad. I would say it wasn’t serious. I even sort of became a proponent of ‘cutting’. I would occasionally meet an adult who was very concerned that a cherished child was self-harming. I would say it’s actually one of the safer self-destructive coping mechanisms kids dabble in. I would ask if they’d rather their child/neice/nephew etc. drink, use drugs, have unprotected sex OR do self-harm, which I explained is almost always superficial and not permanent. I would point out that drinking is a coping method that isn’t only socially acceptable but socially promoted and does so much more harm physically and destroys families and kills innocent people due to drunk driving yet no one sees this as a cry for help unless it becomes very destructive. Drinking and drugs are not only more damaging but so much more expensive. I would advise these people to talk to their loved one without judgement. LISTEN to their loved one. Don’t scold them. Don’t reprimand them. Don’t make them feel bad or like a freak. Tell them you love them and hate to see them hurting physically but also in any other way. I even suggested they advise them to use clean razors and to keep the cuts clean (I know!). In my opinion, I told them, this is the mildest and safest form of self-harm. It’s just not socially acceptable.

And then one day I discovered that my baby. My angel. My sweet perfect beautiful baby boy was. cutting. himself…

everything changed in an instant. This was NOT okay! WHY would he feel the urge to do this!? What bullshit I had spouted to others! My darling child PLEASE don’t hurt yourself. I have lived your whole life PROTECTING you from every discomfort. Please please please PLEASE don’t hurt yourself. The knowledge that he’d already devised a method for keeping his injuries hidden for long enough that older cuts had become healed scars was devastating. I remained outwardly calm while explaining to him that his skin is his 1st line of defense against harmful bacteria which can lead to infection and possibly the loss of a limb or death and told him that it might feel good but it just wasn’t worth the risk. I went to bed that night feeling as if this had to be MY fault. I had either failed him in some way or he was genetically cursed because of me. I swear my husband looked at me with these same accusations in his eyes. My children never knew I had an issue with cutting. I didn’t want to mention it to them. I was their mamma. I had answers not problems. I didn’t want them to see me as damaged or weak. A freak. I didn’t tell my child that I had been injuring myself for years by the time I was his age. I was ashamed. Embarrassed. Lost. Hurt. Scared. Helpless. I needed him to never experience any discomfor or pain. I had known for years that he had self-esteem issues. Like me, my youngest child had very low self-esteem. He honestly thought of himself as UGLY which I totally understood because that’s how I’ve always seen myself but couldn’t possibly understand because he was beyond perfect. I don’t know how or why he felt this way because I had made certain that he was never treated the way I had been treated as a child. I understood that no matter what people say it’s your own opinion of you that counts the most. If you see yourself as disgusting it doesn’t matter if it’s because other people convinced you or if you convinced yourself. The same goes for beautiful. Fortunately this child of mine has now come up with his sense of how he wants to look to feel good about himself.

From the 1st night I discovered that my baby was hurting himself I could never hurt myself again. I prayed that I had talked some sense into him. I berated myself for missing the fact that he had been doing himself harm for months or even a year! When they get to the age of bathing and dressing themselves it’s easier to hide. I hoped that my talk of infection and loss of limb or life would persuade him. I knew how addictive the sharp pain could be so I had my doubts. I did some research and found that nowadays it’s sort of part of the emo culture to harm oneself. I’m not positive I managed to keep the question “so if all of your friends jumped off a bridge would you?” out of my persuasive argument but by the time I discovered he was still cutting himself deeply and more elaborately than I had ever done I knew that whatever the motivation he had for hurting himself he HAD to STOP. I wouldn’t allow one single person on the planet to harm my child even if it was himself so I had to get through to him. I told him I understood. I told him I was also a cutter so I knew it was a compulsion. I told him that almost no one knew this about me. I told him he was perfect and beautiful and that he just wasn’t ALLOWED to hurt my baby boy. I reiterated the infection dangers. I told him that I knew it was sorta cool amongst kids that dressed the way he did and listened to the music he listened to to cut themselves but it wasn’t actually cool. He told me that it had nothing to do with what other people were doing and I believe him because the same was true for me. The third time I begged him to stop and told him he could talk to me about anything. The fourth time I instigated a daily strip inspection. I was never caught as a child but I hoped that my parents would’ve gone through the same sort of process to stop my destructive behavior. I tried not to make him feel punished or judged. I tried not to shout or demand he obey me. I TRIED. I FAILED.

My heart broke. Whatever his motivation for self-harm I wanted it to stop. Just like every coping mechanism we have different motivations and not just person to person but situation to situation. Whether it’s due to trends or self-loathing or the need to punish ourselves, the increased trend of our young people to hurt themselves is just not acceptable. I want to support the movement to stop self-injury. Whatever the reason. If you encounter a loved one, or anyone really engaging in self harm please try not to sound judgmental no matter what your loved one is doing. Be light. Be love. Be accepting and acceptable. To be all of this you must realize that you are worthy. You are beautiful. You are someone’s inspiration. You are strong. YOU ARE WEAK!! You are THE FORCE, the embodiment of the universe. YOU are LOVE!! Don’t judge. Don’t hate. Make your world a better place. We are not all physicians but I think if we all tried to do as Hippocrates is purported to have attempted: to first do no harm – then our world could only be a better place.

When my son used his Sharpie marked right arm to mark my right arm it was so meaningful to me that I almost couldn’t bear it. To those out there marking their left wrist please please see how unbelievably cool we are and determine to follow the trend of right wrist marking. When I was about 21 it had become totally boss to turn down a cigarette at a party by saying “nahhh, I gave those up months ago” so giving up old destructive habits is cool. Even people that had never smoked could use this out and people would respect that. Like, “been there, done that, don’t want it anymore so I quit”   So share this post, forget this post, take it to heart or even remember it one day when certain situations arise but either way I’ve shared it. When my son drew my lines on last night I told him that I hadn’t injured myself since the 1st night I discovered he had been hurting himself and he told me he hadn’t cut himself in about 8 months. That feels better than anything ever has.I told him that maybe I would write something about it but that maybe it was just too big to post for the public.
Now here comes a bit of bragging. My child has many many fans and followers on instagram and his band page and has reached a lot of young people. I don’t follow him online but I do see some of his stuff. Many of his post won’t make sense to many adults. He posts lots of selfies. Typical teen posts I guess. The thing that makes me so proud is that he shared his struggle with his fans last year and a couple of months ago he shared that he was observing an anniversary. He hadn’t hurt himself in 6 months. A friend of mine called to tell me about it. She said so many people commented on his post  that him sharing his story and his success at stopping helped them to stop too. It was very moving. My friend said she cried. I cried. Anyway this is already waaaay too long so I’m gonna wrap its up. I’m sharing my story because my kid shared his and to be part of The Lines Project.

The 3rd The Lines Project post we got Tattoos…click here

Me and my beautiful lines ❤