The Statement

@NoahShrewsbery

Hey guys! I've decided to be brief and tell you where I was, and where God took me. I have a five chapter book on my own profile for the full story, "Why I'm Not Dead Yet." It's kind'ave dark? Actually its really dark, and maybe not something to read while you're eating, either.

I had been depressed as long as I can remember. In sixth grade I started hurting myself, grating pencil lead across my arm. Why? I don't know. I was lonely. I had OCD, depression and some kind of mood disorder, among other things, according to the shrinks. But what the shrinks didnt understand about me was that I heard voices. Not audibly, like someone was behind me or something. In my head. It felt like I had lost it, and I had evil, mean voices in my head, that made it impossible to focus, because instead of thinking of the task at hand, my mind was full of "You're worthless! You're stupid! You're a !#$/ &^*(&^/&& and a !#$$/((**" You get the idea.

Another thing the shrinks didnt know is that I had secrets that only God knows, because some of the things I have done are just too plain disgusting to tell.

My depression had gotten so bad, that even after starting to go to a  church that had the Holy Spirit in it, that I could feel tugging at me every service, those voices still drove me past the point of sanity.

I started to cut myself.
It started out, "Just once, just on the fingers to see how it feels", but soon I was using it more and more. An interesting thing about cutting is that you are in fact rewiring your brain, the "reward system" that makes you feel good when you eat or sleep or do any of the functions needed to survive and reproduce, is suddenly reprogrammed to reward pain. And that means, that cutting becomes not only a psychological addiction, but a physical one.

I had quickly gotten to the point where I was cutting every day. I asked to go to the bathroom in math class,  where I would slit my arms and hands in the stalls. I went home and did the same. Whenever I got stressed out, that was my go-to drug. I felt so disgusting. I hated myself, and I spent many nights crying alone, miserable and pathetic.

It wasn't long until I was running out of space for my addiction. All of my arm had already been cut, and I was pushing it to my shoulders. As I stood in my bathroom to cut myself, the voices in my head prodded myself to cut my throat. A sick smile played across my tormented head as I raised the knife.
But then a different voice came into my head. A gentle one, that was somehow.. soothing.
"Don't do this, Noah. I love you, more than you can ever imagine."
Tears flooded my eyes.
"Shut up!" I roared at the thought in my head. I was not in the best mental state at that point.
I tried to pull the blade to my throat. My hand wouldn't budge. It was if something was pulling against me.
I set the knife down, and began to pray.
"God, please, please kill me! I'm too weak, I'm too stupid to do it myself! But if you don't want to kill me, please, please help me."

I tried to commit suicide several more times, to a shockingly similar result. But I learned, slowly, to trust in God. And He showed me what it was like to have a restful night's sleep in peace, without thinking I was worthless, without having my mind be filled with accusing, cruel and self-deprecating thoughts all night.
He showed me what it's like to have control over myself. Sometimes I was able to control myself from cutting, sometimes not. But He led me. He kept me alive, from Sunday service to Wednesday service. And I began to learn how to pray to Him. For over a year I struggled, fighting with him and fighting against Him. But He showed me patience, and He showed me love, and I can tell you now that every one of those evil voices that led me to hate myself is out of me forever.  He taught me what it meant to love Him, myself and others. I now stand before you, still having psychological scars, still fighting fragments of my old insecurities and sometimes fears, but I live everyday in joy, because I have a hope that no matter what happens, I will always have Jesus beside me, carrying me. Because even when I thought I was too disgusting to love, Jesus didn't.

And my arms? my body, after all that? Even though I had cut so much that I had run out of room, my arm is healed. I should, by all means, have over twenty-some scars on my arm, at least ten on my legs, and a nasty scratch from my forehead to my nose I made with my thumbnail. Not to mention whatever damage I should have had by putting my hands in steaming water, banging my head against the walls, and even biting and punching myself, all in a failed attempt to convert my internal pain to a lesser external one.

But I don't have any of that damage that I should have.
None of it.

Nobody can see my scars. Only I can remember where the near-invisble white lines of scar tissue on my arm lay. And when I look at them, I'm not reminded of my pain anymore. I'm reminded of the Hope I have in Jesus. If it were for me, I would be dead. If it were for me, my past would've caught up with my present, and ended me. If it were for me,  if I had somehow overcome suicide myself, my history would always, forevermore dictate my future. I would always have shame, and live in regret for the things I did, I would be disgusted by who I am, rather than by what my old self did.

But because of God, I am healed.