Let's Chat

Sorry for the late post. I've been fighting with myself over what to post for y'all here. See, I want to be strong for all of you, but I can only do that by being honest, which means, sometimes, by being weak.

Today, I relapsed due to some of the realities of my life at the moment. I knew that I should post about it here, but I fought it. Why? Because I want to be better. Because I want you to feel like you can come to me, and I feared you wouldn't come to me if I still struggled. Silly, I know. I realized that when I saw a quote posted by Hope Inside Love, which read "You were born to be real, not perfect," attributed to Erika Linder.

So here I am, with a fresh bandage on my arm, being real with you. I still struggle. I do not have this down pat. I have some fantastic strategies for recovery, but there will still be relapses while I muddle through it. I just want to start the conversation, particularly in organized religion, that will eventually help people like me to recover. You see, I think one of the reasons we have such an epidemic of self-injury is that we don't talk about it. So, get talking.

The Good Life

After seeing many many people struggling with depression post about wishing their lives were more like so and so's, I feel the need to say this: There is no such thing as an easy life. There are personalities which deal with conflict better than others. There are people who are able to hide their issues. But there are no easy lives. There are only those who suffer differently than we do.

But here's the thing - suffering does NOT mean we can't have the good life. We have things to work through, sure. We need to learn how to manage our conditions, of course. However, we can reach out to others who struggle with similar issues even before we have ours all figured out. Look at me, for example. I still struggle with depression. I still fight the urge to self-injure, and I have relapsed once in the last month. Yet I have two outreach blogs, and I truly enjoy talking to those who are suicidal or on the cusp of self-injury. It is one of the things that helps to keep me from those things myself, because I must make coherent arguments for sustaining life and life without self-injury. It's like taking on an alter ego, in some ways, except that it is how I strive to live every day.

Which brings me to a question I never thought to answer before: Why use the name Nina on my blog? My real name is one I associate with my self-injury struggle. The name Nina I associate with my recovery, and here's why: The nickname Nina was given to me by one of the first friends to know about and help me with my recovery from self-injury. Nina is a shortened version of "ninakupenda," which means "I love you" in Swahili. Nina also means grace, favor, and strong. So, just as Abram took on the name Abraham when God called him (feel free to ask if you would like more information on that story), I have taken on a new name for the sake of my outreach. I make no claims that God has assigned this name, just to be clear, only that it is a name I identify with in my recovery.

Sin Lucha, No Hay Victoria (Without Struggle, there is no Victory)

Hi, all! I hope you had a great time celebrating Self-Harm Awareness Day. One of my dear tumblr followers wore orange to celebrate. I wore my TWLOHA shirt. Anybody do anything more exciting?

Today, I'd like to take a moment to explain the title of the blog, since some of you have asked.

I titled the blog "Cutting Your Way Out" because this is a recovery blog. You could certainly make an argument that the title itself could be triggering. Since this is a recovery blog, that seems counter-intuitive. However, recovery is not pretty. Recovery is a battle. The title is a reminder of that, for you and for me. The title will, I hope, keep me from posting anything implying that recovery is all sunshine and rainbows, even though we will certainly have some sunshine/rainbow days sprinkled in.

Are you currently trying to recover? If so, what has been your biggest obstacle? Your biggest success?

Are you currently muddling through the addiction? What is your biggest struggle? What things help you to have good days in the midst of your struggle?

No matter where you're at in your struggle, know that I love you and that I want you to be happy and healthy when you're ready.