Finding the Line
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen.
Not just because I can see it, but because by it,
I see everything else.”
~C.S. Lewis.
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In the murky underbelly of my life, the deep dark secrets that I don't generally admit to having, I have wondered numerous times whether or not I am still within the circle of sanity. More to the point, how can I tell?
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Below follows a frank discussion of the reasons that lead me to this point, which some may find triggering.
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In December 2007, I cut off all of my long, curly, brunette hair with kitchen scissors on the spur of the moment, at about 6.30am. I'd just finished a nightshift, come in, cut off all of my hair, and then went to bed.
Did I cross that line then?
Many would ask the reason why.
And the truth is, that I don't know. I didn't even think, 'right, let's do this' and then do it.
I just did it.
At the time, if I didn't know you, I'd have told you that I had a head full of split ends (true).
If I knew you, I'd have admitted that it's time for a change.
If I knew you very well, I'd have admitted that it was a 'marker on the road', marking where I was at emotionally at that time.
In the murky underbelly, that area where even I don't look, I could say that it was more of a hope than a marker of where I actually was. And that the real reason is that, that right then, I was intent on self-sabotage.
One of my intimate secrets is that generally I don't shave my legs very often.
If I don't know you - well, I wear trousers a lot, so you'll never know! *wink*
If I know you, I'll tell you that I couldn't be bothered (not quite the truth), or I'll come at it more theoretically: "who gets to decide that women ought to have hair-free legs, anyway? Rah rah rah!!", etc.
If I know you very well, I'll say that I prefer it that way (not true, and yet, true), and that the way God designed us is surely the best way, the prettiest, even down to hairy legs. *grin*
What you would know if you lived in the murky underbelly, is that as a teenager, I would sit on my bed with a pair of tweezers, silently crying, whilst pulling hairs out of my legs, one, by one, by one; what I don't say is that therefore, for the sake of my mental health, I generally prefer not to keep my legs hair-free, because short stubby hairs in between treatments are exactly what I don't need to see. This is the same reason I don't pluck my eyebrows... so I can avoid owning tweezers. Plus, you know, better how we were designed, and all that. *wink*
But the question returns, did I cross the line then?
On the subject of hair, I pull my hair out. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichotillomania ] It actually started as a deflection of my habit of biting my nails. The same root cause, and all that. There are times it's worse than others, and right now, awareness definitely decreases inclination, but it still happens. With a slightly different mood than the legs and the tweezers thing -- this is more about panic, whereas that was more about sadness. Still the question haunts me: am I secure on the precipiece, or falling into the abyss? More to the point, how will I know the difference?
The thing that’s most frightening about this question I hesitate to ask, is the lack of logic to it.
When I was 14, I tried, just once, to put the full stop on my life. (Speaking of precipieces, it was by cliff-diving, but that’s besides the point.) Whilst that didn’t work, and in retrospect I’m very very glad about it, it doesn’t alarm me in nearly the same way. There was logic to that, perverted as it may have been: I had problems that I didn’t know how to handle/overcome, and they came very close to overwhelming me. Or, they overwhelmed me. So it seemed a reasonable outcome. There isn’t the same gnawing sense of not knowing WHY that these other things have, and therefore it is easier to consider it in retrospect than they are. They are just a growling blackness.
I do know that the extremes are momentary. Even when they feel long, they are not.
Christ wouldn’t let me fall out of His grip, and He is pulling me further towards the centre of the circle of sanity all the time.
I didn’t intend to make this a religious article, but this is the area where Christ has made the biggest difference, from where I could be, and I cannot tell ‘my’ story in isolation.
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“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen.
Not just because I can see it, but because by it,
I see everything else.”
~C.S. Lewis.