Cure for Self-Harm

Help If You Sometimes Do Such Things As:

• Punish yourself * Hurt yourself * Cut yourself * Abuse yourself * Hit yourself * Pinch yourself * Beat yourself * Mutilate yourself * Whip yourself * Slap yourself * Punch yourself * Stab yourself * Starve yourself * Hit your head against a wall * Deliberately make yourself miserable * Overwork * Try to make yourself ugly by overeating or how you dress * Fantasize about suffering (being raped, tortured, mistreated, or whatever) * Deny yourself legitimate pleasures or happiness * Sabotage relationships that would make you happy

Healing and Compassionate Understanding

This webpage is of immense significance, especially for the very many of us who sometimes punish or hurt ourselves or despise ourselves. So revolutionary are the answers to self-injury and/or self-hate, that no matter how they are presented they can initially seem off-the-planet or not personally applicable to your situation until you have fully absorbed the entire webpage. So despite any initial qualms, I urge you to keep reading. It can change your life.

If you feel pressured to inflict pain or discomfort upon yourself or make yourself miserable, a common response is cutting oneself but the range of possibilities is almost endless. You might, for example, bite yourself, not allow sores to heal by repeatedly picking at them, refuse to relieve yourself until the pain becomes intolerable, or deny yourself needed medical treatment. Eating disorders not only result in self-harm, they can sometimes be driven by forces similar to those behind other types of self-harm. It is not always the case, of course, but even overwork or sabotaging relationships that fill you with joy can likewise be a form of self-inflicted pain that this webpage addresses. Irrespective of whether you happen to express your extreme distress in one of the possibilities listed at the top of this page or you are even more creative in your choice of self-affliction, you are by no means a freak, nor are you alone in your distress.

Less well-publicized forms of self-harm can seem bizarre and inexplicable even to those hurting themselves. The perplexing behaviour suddenly makes sense, however, when the person’s past is revealed. Strange forms of self-abuse often turn out to be re-enactments of sometimes-forgotten childhood abuse. Real-life examples can prove highly illuminating for some sufferers, but for a few people, details might trigger memories they are currently not brave enough to face.

For specific examples, In some cases, self-harm originates not from deliberate childhood abuse but from significant people in one’s life inadvertently giving the dangerously wrong impression that you are not quite good enough to be loved. Some people with eating disorders, for example, have gained – sometimes mistakenly – the impression that they are almost at the point of being accepted but they need to do just that bit extra to make it. Although the way they were treated is very mild compared to what abused children have received, they can still find it devastating and feel compelled to go to extremes to try to prove themselves worthy of acceptance.

Children’s need for parental love and approval almost rivals their need for oxygen, but even quite good parents can be rather miserly in giving it. It might simply be that the parent – especially common in fathers – is emotionally reserved and has no idea how much he or she is leaving the child with a gnawing ache for parental affection and/or approval. The result is what can feel like an infallible hole in the child that refuses to diminish even after the child has matured into a capable adult.

People suffering this way usually downgrade the significance of having felt love-deprived as a child. They see it as minor relative to obvious child abuse but just as malnutrition in childhood can have serious, long-term implications, so can feeling love-starved. An unmet craving for parental approval can not only last a lifetime, it can transmute into a gut-wrenching feeling of inadequacy that produces an endless striving to be “good enough,” or even result in self-loathing. Even highly successful people can stagger through life little moved by world acclaim, but desperately pining for their parents’ approval, and never feeling they can get it. Sometimes an eating disorder, or some other unusual behaviour is a manifestation of this desperate attempt to be “good enough.”

The critical factor is not how loved, desirable, successful or capable we really are, but how we suppose we measure up. This, in turn, is usually strongly influenced by the self-image we gained during our most impressionable years – our childhood.

In cases of blatant abuse, even more devastating than the inflicted physical pain is the long-lasting psychological wounding. Abusers typically try to ease their own conscience for their shameful acts of cruelty by either forcefully declaring or implying that their victims are useless, or worse. The torment they inflict is so emotionally shattering that it leaves an indelible impression on their victims. Putdowns can have serious implications, however, regardless of whether they come in the form of violent abuse, solely verbal, or only be the rationing of parental love, and regardless of whether the child is correct or mistaken in interpreting it as a putdown. What makes suffering perceived putdowns during one’s childhood particularly devastating is that not only did they occur during one’s impressionable years, those treating the child this way were usually older (and therefore smarter), and hence perceived by the child as reliable, authoritative sources of information. Moreover, abusers often keep their bad behavior behind closed doors and are respected by the community or thought by other family members incapable of doing wrong.

Tragically, though not surprisingly, these factors combine to leave survivors with the mistaken but powerful impression that they must have deserved the abuse they received. Not only do they feel they deserved their past mistreatment, they are often specifically told, or come to conclude, that they are incurably wicked and so deserve continual punishment. For example, for thirty years after her abuse until she was healed, sexual abuse survivor Christine would cry out in her sleep, “I’m bad, I’m bad, I’m bad . . .” Like many people who practice self-injury, what she had suffered as a child amounts to brainwashing that proved far more powerful than her high intelligence in setting in concrete her feelings about herself.

Writes a Christian in her early twenties who finally found Christ like love and acceptance: I believed I was worthless inside and that I had to beat myself up because no one else would take the time to do it like I deserved. Eventually I learned that no one else wanted to beat me up because they didn’t see a need to. Even after I revealed some of my darkest secrets to them, they still loved me. For many, self-harm is combined with masturbation and/or pornography – often mixed with fantasies of being humiliated, terrorized or physically hurt. This is particularly common among sexual abuse survivors, which is hardly surprising since their original suffering was associated with sexual stimulation.

The Need to Feel

When people receive bad news they are usually left numb with shock. How long this lasts varies, with a key factor being how willing the person is to face the reality and full implications of the news. When someone has been traumatized, this numbness lasts indefinitely if the person is unwilling to face the full reality of what happened. People can be so determined not to let themselves feel the natural horror, grief and anger that such an experience produces that they become disconnected from their feelings. An added reason for this happening is that some people believe that anger, hate and bitterness are wrong. Some even feel condemned over experiencing deep sorrow. So, rather than resolve such feelings, many people keep suppressing the feelings, refusing to admit even to themselves that these feelings/attitudes are boiling just below the surface. It’s like having cancer and supposing that if you stoically refuse to think about it, the cancer will magically disappear. Just as removing from our consciousness an unhealed part of our body does not cause it to heal, neither does removing unresolved issues from our consciousness cause them to become resolved.

This denial of one’s true feelings produces a numbness so unnatural and disconcerting that many people feel driven to inflict pain on themselves simply to give them something they can feel. Pain feels a particularly appropriate choice to them because deep down they know they should be feeling and expressing their pain over past suffering that still haunts them because it remains unresolved. Inner pain is just as real, agonizing and debilitating as physical pain, and yet it seems vague, mysterious and hidden. Physical pain is less complicated, more understandable and psychologically easier to handle.

When we inflict physical pain upon ourselves, the reason for the pain is obvious, but with inner pain most of us cannot understand why we are so distressed. We typically tell ourselves, “That happened years ago, I should be over it now,” and/or “Others have suffered far worse horrors.” We are particularly likely to underrate the severity of our inner distress if we keep pushing the memory away and refuse to truly examine the extent of what we suffered. It is like a wound that will never heal because we refuse to admit that it needs to be treated.

A rewarding feature of self-inflicted pain – what keeps us repeating it – is that it provides a more intelligible reason for us being in pain and can temporarily distract us from the reality of our inner suffering. The real reason for our inner pain often remains buried because we are too scared to face it, and while it remains largely unexplored, the pain it produces remains largely inexplicable to us. Later in this webpage we will discover solutions to these dilemmas that haunt and stymie us.

Further Reasons For Self-Inflicted Pain

There are understandable reasons for people hurting themselves in what at first seems bizarre behaviour. One man would pay to get raped and treated vilely in order to reinforce to himself that he was despicable and unlovable. How could anyone find such suffering rewarding? He, like many others who engage in quite different forms of degradation and self-inflicted pain, did it to keep killing his hope of being lovable. Yes, crushing his hope filled him with despair but he considered it worth the physical pain and feelings of hopelessness because he saw relinquishing all hope as protecting himself from suffering ever again from the agony of dashed hopes.

Some people do such things as cut themselves, overeat, dress drably or neglect personal hygiene to kill hope. By having good reason to expect to be rejected, they are not caught off guard or bitterly disappointed when rejection comes. Others engage in the same behavior to repel people because they fear attracting an abuser. Many, of course, are moved by both factors.

Self-abuse is often an attempt to protect oneself from what are essentially the minor risks of life – such as the possibility of attracting sexual assault by dressing normally – but to the person, these seem very likely and terrifying dangers. As far as general population is concerned, their view is statistically distorted, but it is statistically significant in terms of how often it occurred in the person’s own experience. To enjoy life in all its richness, these people need to learn to trust again. In this webpage we will look at how this can happen.

People who have suffered sexual abuse often combine masturbation with ugly fantasies in order to ensure that they remain totally turned off sex. They do this to protect themselves from the possibility of their sex drive or longing for love pushing them into a relationship that could end up hurting them. For some, the inner pain and deep distress within them erupts in the form of inexplicable anger or intense frustration, that might be expressed as self-mutilation or some violent act upon themselves. Some dear people see self-harm as the only alternative to expelling their pent up feelings upon other people. What can be particularly bewildering to these people is that the exact cause of their distress might be so suppressed that they have no idea what is causing these intense feelings.

In our brief overview we have by no means exhausted all possible reasons for self-inflicted pain or injury. For example, a girl was determined never to keep her inner pain secret. By keeping herself injured she would always have something physical to point to if anyone caught her crying and wondered why she was upset. As she matured into a woman, that specific motivation for self-harm faded but it had helped to establish the habit. As she grew, other motives, such as an expression of her hatred of herself, then took over.

A Life Transformed

The truth that will heal you is so mind-boggling that I must reveal it carefully and gradually lest you think I am out of my mind. Let me start by proving that no matter how ridiculous they initially seem, these healing principles really work. I’ll do this by sharing with you Christine’s story. Past sexual abuse featured strongly in her torment. The source of your distress might be very different, but the secret of Christine’s transformation applies to us all.

A key factor in Christine being freed from self-harm was the realization that she was innocent. The first thing she grasped through reading my webPage's was that feeling pleasure when being sexually abused is a normal bodily reaction, not a moral issue. Just as feeling pain is an unavoidable response to being severely beaten, so is feeling pleasure an unavoidable response to being forcibly, but sensually, molested. That’s a helpful insight that almost any counsellor could have provided, but then she discovered something far more powerful. Let’s read her story:

I expect I’ll remember till my dying day exactly where I was standing when the truth exploded within me and set me free. I was on my cell phone talking to Grantley (writer of this webpage), thanking him for his webpage's that explain that the sexual pleasure inflicted on me by my childhood abuser was not my fault. I was thrilled to finally realize that my sexual feelings were an involuntary reaction to the abuse and in no way suggest immorality on my part.

I could sense that Grantley was hesitant; wanting to agree with me, but sounding as if I had missed something vital. “What if you hadn’t been so innocent?” he asked. “Would you then be doomed to live with crippling guilt for the rest of your life?”

Grantley had studied to be a psychologist but after graduating with honours he abandoned the field because he had found a way of healing that has far more power than psychology offers. He began to remind me of an ancient spiritual truth that has transformed the lives of countless millions. Suddenly I realized the ultimate in liberating truths: I don’t have to try to justify myself because God has justified me! The Judge of all humanity sees me as not merely no worse than average people; he sees me as spotlessly pure and perfect, just like his holy Son. This might at first seem uncomfortably religious but hold on while I explain how it transformed my life.

On the cross, the Innocent One swapped places with me; suffering my humiliation so that I could gain his endless honor and, to use the astounding expression the Bible uses, he has made me “the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). I had been aware of the truth before but now it hit me like a divine revelation.

Suddenly Christ’s sacrifice became the most beautiful act ever made. I am fully accepted by the Judge of all humanity, the greatest intellect and highest moral authority in the universe, and since it was all finalized and sealed two thousand years ago, there is nothing I can do to mess it up. All I need do is cling to Jesus and bask in the wonder of what he has done for me and enjoy all the benefits. I am not just as good as most people but, in heaven’s eyes, I’m as pure and holy as God, because of Jesus – and I’m sharing this because it can be just as powerfully your experience as mine. It’s so mind-blowing that I’ve had to keep repeating the Scripture over and over to myself: 2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Until making this discovery, whenever anyone criticized me I would go into a tailspin; not only inwardly agreeing with the putdown but telling myself that I’m incurably wicked and deserve to be treated as dirt and ruthlessly punished. Quickly, the oppressive feeling would balloon until it was so overwhelming that I felt compelled to hurt myself (usually by cutting myself). After that, I’d feel so miserable that I’d be pressured to masturbate in a vain attempt to comfort myself. Now, everything has changed!

Is Christine Out of Her Mind?

I interrupt Christine to admit that what she has been saying initially seems not merely ridiculous but downright impossible.

To help you grasp a difficult concept would you mind letting your imagination run wild for a few moments before returning to cold reality? Suppose you had amnesia. After forgetting all of your past, snippets of memories are slowly returning. Eventually some of the jigsaw pieces slot together and to your horror you realize that in your past you had committed a hideous crime. For weeks you are petrified day and night that someone will find out and you’ll be jailed for life. Finally, you can bear the mental torment no longer. You turn yourself in to the police and confess. They confirm that you have correctly remembered part of your past. They inform you, however, that there are still parts you have forgotten. Years ago, you had been arrested and tried for that crime. You were given a surprisingly light sentence and you have already served the time.

Imagine how relieved you would feel!

Now let’s plunge back into icy reality. What has happened to you is similar, but even more amazing. You are horrified by snippets of your past that you recall. It is nightmare material. You have been hurting yourself because you suppose you have not suffered enough, but what has been wiped from your consciousness is that there is a mysterious but very real sense in which you have already suffered for the past far, far more than you realize – so immensely, in fact, that every bit of punishment you deserve has been paid in full and you are now completely free. Now here comes the part that seems utterly ridiculous: you have already paid the full penalty because Jesus was tortured to death for your past, totally absorbing within himself all your shame, pain and blame until not a shred remained.

“You’re mad!” you object, “Perhaps it somehow transformed Christine but no matter how kind Jesus might have been, and no matter what he did, he’s not me. What he did is largely irrelevant.” I have to admit that you are right – if Jesus were an ordinary person.

What he achieved makes no sense until we realize that Jesus is not just a spectacularly special man, nor even the world’s greatest ever miracle worker; he is divine. With him, nothing is impossible. He is supernatural and he longs to give you the most profound supernatural experience imaginable – a supernatural union in which you and he merge with each other, melting into one so that, as the Bible declares, he is in you and you are in him.

Since Jesus is no abuser, he seeks your full consent before proceeding, but he is so devoted to your lifelong well-being and eternal happiness that he wants to bond with you so that you and he are inseparable. When this happens, both of you have the same spiritual bank account, the same status, the same spiritual genes, the same past (that’s why he suffered) and the same future (that’s why your future is unbelievably bright). For Scriptures about the amazing oneness with Christ that he wants you to enjoy,.

Even though we Christians tend to understate it, this staggering miracle makes you a totally new being, complete with supernatural powers and immortality.

Marriage makes a man and woman one flesh, with pooled assets and a shared destiny. Eventually their very genes permanently unite to form offspring. As this marvel commences with a few spoken words in a marriage ceremony, so a few words in a heart-felt prayer can usher in the spiritual transformation in which you and the spotlessly pure, eternal Son of God become one, with the same past and the same future. (For more about how you can experience this, Often we hurt ourselves because we believe our stupidity or wickedness needs to be punished, but every trace of it has already been fully punished – with inhuman severity – when Jesus took upon himself all our imbecile goof-ups and depravity and was tortured to death for them. All the punishment was exhausted on him. There is nothing left.

When you are in spiritual union with the holy Son of God, you both have the same past. What happened to Jesus happened to you, and what happened to you happened to Jesus.

Do you think you need to be cut or deserve to be whipped or beaten? His skin was flayed to shreds. Think you need to bleed? All the blood was drained from his body. Think you should suffer? His agony was indescribable. Think you should die? It’s impossible to be deader than his corpse. And because it happened to him, it has already happened to you. When you and he are one, for you to punish yourself is utterly needless. The person who did things worthy of punishment is not only dead and buried, he died almost two thousand years ago.

Let me plunder a piece of fiction I wrote years ago: In my mind’s eye I saw myself charging into a burning building to rescue someone I loved more than life itself. Every movement began to slow down. Shielding her body, I suffer horrific burns to carry her to safety, where I collapse, writhing in agony. But it is worth every throb of pain because the love of my life is completely untouched by the fire. All that matters is that she’s unharmed. Seeing my wounds she says, “I don’t deserve such love!” I look on in horror as, overwhelmed by a feeling of unworthiness, she then runs back into the fire and kills herself; breaking my heart by her death and rendering all my suffering an utter waste.

I had been on the brink of treating my heroic Saviour like that. How dare I let Jesus’ agony be wasted! If I beat myself, Jesus was beaten for nothing. If I get angry with myself, Jesus bore God’s wrath for nothing. If I let shame overwhelm me, Jesus was humiliated for nothing. If I think of myself as morally defiled, the Innocent One was treated as a criminal for nothing. If I think I’m inferior, the King of kings was treated as dirt for nothing. The Lord of all suffered horrifically to give me the right of access to all God’s riches. For his sake, I must refuse to throw aside such a costly sacrifice. For some reason – sheer love I guess – he considered me worth it. I won’t let him down. No matter what false feelings flood over me, I’ll refuse to believe them. I’ll enjoy life for his sake. “FOR HIS SAKE!” I yelled. At last I found peace. “Yes, for Jesus’ sake!” I shouted in joyous relief, “For the sake of the One who died for me!”

By thinking of myself as unworthy, I was seeing myself as I truly would be had Jesus never hung upon the cross for me. But he was crucified. He was tortured to death to swap my sin for his sinlessness. He took my guilt and gave me his innocence. And here I was on the brink of pushing it aside and, by caving into feelings of inferiority, reducing to a senseless waste his agonizing death for me. Some children are beaten under the guise of the punishment making them good. Some carry that thought into adulthood. But for us to be punished doesn’t make us good. What makes us good is Jesus being so fully punished on our account that there is no punishment left. And in exchange for him taking our humiliation, idiotic mistakes and evil upon himself, he gives us his moral perfection and dignity. Christ’s nature and achievements are so much ours that Scripture states such things as:

John 17:22 I have given them the glory that you gave me . . . 1 Corinthians 1:30 . . . you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 1 Corinthians 2:16 . . . we have the mind of Christ. 2 Peter 1:4 . . . he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature . . .

He became human so that divinity could flow through you. The Eternal died so that you could be more alive than ever before; took on your mortality to give you immortality. He wore your limitations so you could enjoy his infinity. The Almighty crumbled with your weakness to give you supernatural strength. The Pride of the universe agonized with your loneliness so that you would never be alone again; suffered your isolation so that you and he could be inseparable. The King of kings bore your shame and darkness so that you could be radiant with his honour; was humiliated with your depravity to infuse you with his holy majesty; lowered himself to the dust of death so that you could be enthroned with him in highest heaven. God’s noble Son shamed himself with your foolishness to give you his intellect; exchanging your dirty, cloudy thinking for his crystal purity; suffering for your idiotic blunders so that you could be dignified as a superior being, graced with divine wisdom. He let your sorrow crush him to let you beam with his joy; was impoverished by your debts so that you could revel in his riches. He absorbed within himself all your inadequacies so that you could overflow with his abundance.

Through your union with the holy King of kings, every trace of filth has been flushed out by a torrent of divine purity; all your guilt replaced by pristine innocence; all your shame by royal dignity; all your ugliness transformed into dazzling beauty. You are exalted to the very heavens as someone worthy of eternal honour. Who could punish such a person?

What makes it hardest for us to believe that we can enjoy this holy union that frees us from the pain, blame and shame of our past is that we know we don’t deserve it. “Why would God suffer such agony to lavish his goodness upon me?” we ask in utter bewilderment. The answer is that it is God’s very nature to do such things. He is a giver, not a taker. There is more that is mind boggling about him than the incomprehensible immensity of his physical power and intellect. God doesn’t just love us sometimes, he is love – overwhelmingly powerful, pure, selfless love that refuses to give up or count the cost. I am reluctant to use the “L” word when talking about God. Too few people understand that genuine love has nothing to do with lust. Even those not using the word to con and exploit and hurt people, tend to use it as an excuse to seek their own happiness and pamper their egos. With so many people misusing the word, the true meaning drains away and it mutates into something hideous.

True love is so exquisitely beautiful and rare that you might not have witnessed even a shadow of it in humanity. Divine love is selfless giving taken to extreme levels. It is pure, nonsexual, humble, self-sacrificing and wants nothing but the other person’s greatest good. This rare beauty overwhelms God’s heart and flows freely to us all. He gives and gives and gives, not because of anything in us, but because of his goodness. He is so filled, driven and intoxicated by unlimited kindness, generosity, gentleness and purity that it is impossible for him to stop wanting to give you the best in his uniquely glorious, selfless, holy way.

This is hard for us to believe because it is so contrary to our experience with humans. But God is utterly different to frail humanity. He knows no human inadequacies, selfishness or lust. He is kind, warm and gentle, yet all-powerful and flawless. His motives are pure.

Now let’s return to Christine:

Grantley taught me how to gain maximum benefit from my new understanding of how loved and accepted I am by God. I can now stop myself from spiralling out of control. I can pull myself out of a nose dive the instant it begins.

Here’s how it works: the moment I sense myself beginning to feel negative about myself I inwardly shout, “No, that’s not true!” and begin thanking God that because of Jesus, God accepts me and believes in me. The Perfect One thinks I’m important, declares me to be good and pure and righteous, and has wonderful plans for my life. On and on I go, reminding myself of how loved by God I am; thanking and praising Jesus for being punished so that I need never punish myself, and rejoicing in all of God’s goodness to me.

As I continue, savoring the implications of the cleansing that is mine through Christ, and of me being royalty – a child of the King of kings – my spirit soars to the point where the urge to hurt myself fades and I feel no need to seek empty comfort by degrading myself by masturbating.

Just as bad habits are hard to break, good habits are hard to build. It’s been hard to keep remembering each time I begin to enter a downward spiral to pull myself up, tell myself, “No, that’s not true!” and begin thanking God for the way he sees me through rose-colored glasses – through the precious blood of Jesus drained for me. And it’s been hard dredging up a multitude of positive things about God’s view of me to keep thanking God for, and to keep praise flowing for long enough for my depressing thoughts to fade. But as I keep persisting, it is getting easier and easier, and I’m discovering that, once established, good habits grow strong and serve us well.

I’ve also learnt to, as it were, put money in the bank for a rainy day. Even when things are going well I regularly rehearse uplifting Scriptures and savour God’s love. Then when oppressive thoughts cloud in, I have in my mind a ready store of positive material to recall that will enrich my thinking. Gradually, to think well of myself – seeing myself through God’s eyes – is becoming second nature to me. As a result, self-harm and degrading myself by having sex with myself and ugly fantasies are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Moreover, life is becoming more exciting than ever before.

Christ’s sacrifice is my anchor. No matter how violently stormy seas bounce me around, I’m safe because the anchor of my soul is embedded in the immovable, two-thousand-year-old bedrock of the holy Son of God swapping places with me. Christ has made me acceptable and lovable. It was settled two thousand years ago and nothing can change it.

Cutting Oneself Mentioned in Bible?

It was the showdown: Elijah versus 850 prophets of Baal and Asherah (1 Kings 18:19, NIV). Whose God was more powerful? The Baal devotees prayed. No response. They prayed some more – and more and more. Still no response. Things were getting desperate. They used their ultimate weapon in getting their god to respond:

1 Kings 18:28-29 So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention. We can be strongly tempted to act like them; thinking that God or loved ones might take pity on us if we afflict ourselves enough or make ourselves sufficiently miserable. But God’s heart is already breaking over your distress. The last thing the loving, tender Lord wants is for you to further increase your suffering.

In the Bible, those who cut themselves were pagans who did not understand the heart of God. The emphatic teaching of Jesus is that faith is the key to answered prayer and to moving the hand of God. That makes praising God explosively powerful because praise is faith so purified and concentrated as to reduce problems to dust.

Praising and thanking God are not reserved for when things go well. They form a lethal spiritual weapon against everything that seeks to distress, depress or destroy us.

Ephesians 5:20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything . . . Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Hebrews 13:15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise . . . (Emphasis mine)

This is what Christine was working on. Her automatic, unthinking response to distress had been to stab or cut herself. Now she is establishing a new way of responding. This new habit, instead of acting like a drug that brings temporary relief but actually worsens the situation, is healing her inner pain, and dissipating her distress. Instead of begging God to intervene, she puts running shoes on her faith by thanking and praising God for loving and purifying and beautifying and exalting her. When feeling down, thanking and praising God is as hard as dragging yourself out of a cozy bed on an icy morning, but despite the effort it takes, you soon discover that praising God transports you from frigid depression to the cheery warmth of victory over defeatism.

Louise, who often suffers deep depression, wrote a beautiful poem about a shoot pushing through a seed until finally emerging into the sunshine, only to be hit by the stench of fertilizer. That fertilizer, however, causes it to grow. Gradually the stench disappears and the plant blooms, producing a beautiful fragrance In a personal e-mail to me, Louise made a comment about the poem. I’m reluctant to share it because of the language but it will be very meaningful to many readers:

I keep saying, I am a piece of ----, but I am not. I am, however, covered with it from time to time in order to grow, to push up through it and be strengthened by it.

Practical Help

Anyone wrestling with self-harm is in a uniquely stressful dilemma. In any violent act, to be the victim is traumatic. It is even traumatic to be the attacker, since the attacker must act contrary to good conscience. But in self-harm, you are both the victim and the offender. How traumatic is that! How can you flee from your enemy when you are your own enemy? How can you get any joy out of the defeat of your enemy when you are that enemy?

Forgiving oneself is a critical ingredient of feeling good about oneself and ending self-harm. Over the years, very many hurting people have shared their secrets with me. Their experiences have rammed home to me that forgiving oneself, feeling forgiven by God, and forgiving other people, travel together. They might separate a little, but progress with one type of forgiveness moves the others forward; holding back with one, holds back the others.

So here’s a practical tip of great importance in ending self-harm: when, despite your best efforts, you seem to have reached a stalemate with one type of forgiveness, try working on one or both of the other types. Each type of forgiveness can be exceedingly stubborn but as you keep working on all three, while looking to God for supernatural help, one of the three will eventually move a little and this will make progress on the others a little easier.

Since they are travel mates, each type of forgiveness is critical to feeling good about yourself and hence reducing the pressure to harm yourself. We dare not neglect any of the three types of forgiveness, so let’s list them one final time:

• feeling/believing you are forgiven by God
• forgiving yourself
• forgiving other people

Becoming Whole

Near the beginning of this webpage we mentioned that people could feel unnaturally numb through being too scared or proud to connect with their true feelings about past traumas. This paralyzing reluctance to connect is highly understandable but gnaws away at a person. In an attempt to break the numbness and feel something akin to the magnitude of what they sense they should be feeling, many of these people inflict physical pain on themselves. After all, physical pain is less complicated, more understandable and psychologically easier to handle than the things that are really troubling them.

We can kid ourselves that burying or hiding past difficulties proves us to be the “strong silent type” but the truth is very different. It prevents us from emotionally connecting and coming to terms with what is really troubling us. It can keep us perpetually distressed; one possible manifestation of which can be self-harm. Acting this way can not only cause enormous problems, it is inconsistent with the Healing Lord’s ways. The God of truth says such things as:

Proverbs 28:13 He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. . . . 1 Chronicles 28:9 . . . the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. . . .

Psalms 44:21 . . . he knows the secrets of the heart 1 Corinthians 4:5 . . . He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts.

Hebrews 4:13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

This is not scary because, as stated in Proverbs 28 (quoted above), even when sin is involved, it is only the person who conceals it who has cause for alarm. Like air into a vacuum, divine mercy and forgiveness rush in to fill whoever admits to sin and genuinely wants to be free from it. The beautiful thing is that we never have to revisit the dark places alone. We can take with us a warm Friend who dispels darkness. He is the Light of the world. We don’t have to fear our emotions because we have a God who deeply understands and empathizes. Jesus himself prayed “with loud cries and tears” (Hebrews 5:7). Elsewhere it says about Jesus:

Hebrews 4:15-18 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

We don’t have to fear our emotions getting out of control, because he will carefully monitor them. He will not allow us to suffer what we cannot bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). And if we have anger, bitterness or hate, he does not condemn but freely forgives and cleanses, and empowers us to resolve destructive attitudes so that we can heal.

Breakthrough

I have a down-to-earth prayer that could change your life. I’m not asking you to pray it. Simply read it. If you find it expresses your heart, you could then turn it into a prayer by reading it to God. Dear God, Could it really be that you are gentle and loving towards me? It seems too good to be true. I’ve loathed myself more times than I can count and I’ve assumed you felt like I do about myself. Could it really be that you see me so differently and are eager to warmly embrace me with your forgiveness and approving smile?

You are an infinite God, so I concede that you have infinite love. That has to mean that your love far exceeds my own. But you are terrifyingly holy. How could you be less judgmental towards my failings than I am? Could Jesus dying for my sins have made that much difference? Could it really be that at last the pressure is off and I can bask in the sunshine of Almighty God knowing all about me and yet fully accepting me as his precious child? Could I be like Saint Paul, who saw himself as the worst of sinners and yet be special to God? Like that man of God, could I say, “ . . . but what I hate I do. . . . nothing good lives in me . . . the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. What a wretched man I am! . . .” and then immediately follow that pathetic lamentation with, “Thanks be to God . . . Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 7:15,18,19,24,25; 8:1)?

I need more than fire insurance against hell. To live with myself I need somehow to be able to see myself as being of immense value and morally good. Is this possible for me? You have given your word that if I confess my sins, you will cleanse me from all unrighteousness, and in that same promise you vow you will do this not because I reach some arbitrary standard (we’ve all fallen short, anyhow – Romans 3:23) but simply because you are faithful and just (1 John 1:9).

It would be so wonderful to be cleansed. According to the Scripture just mentioned, you and I both have a role to play in bringing this about. You have to be faithful and just; I have to confess my failings. I don’t have to ask you to do your part. Since you are perfect and good, you’ll never be anything but faithful and just. So I’ll do my part and confess to all the things that make me feel so awful– what I’ve done and even what has been done to me that devastates me. I’d prefer to bury the past and live in denial, but the truth is that the past still eats at me, no matter how much I try to suppress it. My sins and the acts of those who have sinned against me seem too disgusting for you to want to hear about them, and yet you are so interested in everything that hurts me that you ask me to confess them – to tell you about them. I don’t find this easy, but I’ve already prolonged my torment for far too long. I need to get this over and done with, so here goes . . . [I suggest you now share your heart with God, pouring out to him details of all the things that tend to make you feel guilty, ashamed or uncomfortable. You might find it helpful to write it out as a letter to God. Any moral means of expressing your heart to God touches him deeply.]

Jesus was tortured to death to secure my forgiveness and yet here I am still torturing myself and at times wishing I were dead, as if I were unforgivable, when Jesus sealed my forgiveness two thousand years ago.

Forgiveness certainly isn’t my strong point.

I remember when Saul, who later become the great apostle Paul, was still hating and scheming to hurt Christians, the risen Lord suddenly appeared and said, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 26:14). I’m told the picture is of an ox angrily kicking against a spike. Every time the ox kicks, he hurts only himself. Have I been like that? Am I hurting myself every time I inwardly lash out in anger or unforgiveness against you or against those who have hurt me?

I recall the Lord’s prayer: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Could it be that my difficulty in believing that my sins have been divinely forgiven – supernaturally wiped out – is connected to my reluctance to forgive those who have sinned against me? I wish Jesus hadn’t kept linking me receiving the forgiveness I crave with me forgiving others. How can I forgive anyone else when I find it so hard to forgive myself? And yet somehow these different types of forgiveness are inseparably bound, like different facets on the same diamond. I desperately need to forgive myself and to enjoy your forgiveness, so by an act of will, whether I feel like it not, I activate the remaining aspect of forgiveness. I choose to forgive all who have hurt me. I don’t excuse what they did, nor pretend that what they did was even slightly defensible, but nevertheless, I forgive, just as I want you to forgive me.

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst,” said Saint Paul (1 Timothy 1:15). He did some atrocious things, including torturing innocent Christians in the hope of forcing them to blaspheme the One who died for their salvation and turn their back on their Savior. Even if I were a thousand times worse than I’ve ever imagined, however, it cannot change the fact that Jesus died for the full forgiveness of the very worst of sinners – whoever that might be. So forgiveness is mine through Jesus swapping places with me on the cross and letting himself be shamed and violated so that I could be honored. I exchange my need to be punished for the fact that he was punished for me.

I gladly remove my filthy, sin-stained clothes that fill me with shame. Here they are, Lord: I hand you my guilt and condemnation, placing it upon the bleeding body of my Savior and trade my shame for your forgiveness and the divine purity and honor that it brings. I swap my dirty rags, I put on Jesus’ robe of righteousness. Your forgiveness clothes me from head to toe. I accept you as Lord, and now, through the supernatural transformation you promise, I am born of you. As your Word boldly declares, I am your righteousness because of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). Now we belong to each other. We are one. No matter how atrocious my failings and how much they haunt me, the truth is that in God’s eyes all of us have messed up so badly that Jesus had to suffer a torturous death for us all. The degree of sin isn’t the issue. Without Christ, we are all in the same hopeless predicament, doomed to hell, but no matter how alone and hopeless I often feel, the truth is that I am not without Christ. As Jesus took upon himself my gross inadequacies and shame, I take upon myself his sinlessness and glory. Your righteousness is now my righteousness and your honour is my honour. From now on I will live for you and honour you just as you devote yourself to me and shower me with your honour.

I don’t need to punish myself for anything because Jesus has already been punished for it. That’s so mind-boggling that I need to repeat it: the Person who will judge all humanity volunteered to be punished so that I would have no need to be punished – neither punished by God nor by me. Help me grasp the full implications so that this becomes not mere doctrine but life-changing reality.

You pronounce me to be a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:21) – an excitingly new divine masterpiece, a work of art crafted by the Master himself. No matter what I see in the mirror, you, the Almighty Lord, declare me to be a totally new person, sparkling with the glory of God; nothing like what I used to be or how I used to see myself.

I admit that I don’t feel like a new creature – in fact, I feel as bad as ever – but you don’t lie. I look at myself and see nothing new. I still don’t like what I see. But you say that those whom you declare to be good – your royal children – walk by faith not sight. So I need to believe you, and so believe I am different, no matter what I feel.

I am one with Jesus, the holy Son of God, so all the pressure to be good enough, all the humiliation of my past, and all the fear of rejection is over.

I want to honour you by breaking out of my former pattern of thinking. Like breaking any habit, it will be hard work but I will do my utmost to act like Christine, so that every time I catch myself beginning to think poorly of myself I will say, “No, that’s not true!” and start thanking you for who I am in your loving eyes. Thank you that although you require my full cooperation, me thinking this way is important to you because you are selflessly devoted to wanting the best for me.

The above can initiate a powerful transformation within you, but it is like a spark that will blaze into a huge fire, or be quickly extinguished, depending on whether it is protected and fed. In order to ensure that it changes your life, you need to you need to explore all the links below. Each webpage leads to many others, but if you are battling self-harm they are most important for your welfare. I suggest you bookmark or record the web address of this page so that you don’t lose this list, and before even commencing the list, It is crammed with helpful insights into our strong tendency when things go badly wrong to want to blame ourselves, God or others. It explains why this is so destructive and how Jesus’ death formed the perfect and totally satisfying cure.

© Copyright 2006, 2008 Grantley Morris. May be freely copied in whole or in part provided: it is not altered; this entire paragraph is included; readers are not charged and it is not used in a webpage. Many more compassionate, inspiring, sometimes hilarious writings available free online at www.net-burst.net Freely you have received, freely give. For use outside these limits, consult the author.