I just read the diary of a girl who cuts herself. She's convinced she's psychotic. All of the favorites in her profile are "psychotic" things as labeled by her (her favorite music group is ICP). I became more and more filled with sadness and despair as I read. I know she's most likely very intelligent and I hate to see her trapped in the deadly cycle she's in.

Please, please, *please* don't ever cut. If you are now, run like mad from it. Find someone you can tell and trust; find someone who understands the pain you're going through, and tell them everything. Fight it. Do whatever it takes: if you cut because of society's pressure, set your own standards (you don't need possessions to be validated-you're beautiful because you're human, period-etc.). Look at my username; I know what it's like to bottle up emotions and carry them always. It's a huge boulder around your neck that relentlessly drowns you in the depths. There are ways out and smoking, drinking, doing drugs, and cutting aren't good ones. If you're stuck in any of those, get out. Now.

If you think you're alone, you're dead wrong. If you think you're not surrounded by people who cut and who have cut, you're wrong. And this sounds so cliché, but turn to God with your problems. Even if no one else loved you (which is not true), God would take you back faster than a heartbeat every time you turn from Him and return. Without Him, there are so many things I would have fallen into by now with all the emotion I've gone through. E-mail me if you want to talk.

Background:

"...the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil."

-John 3:19

Though light here is used to refer to Jesus (and it's pretty obvious, even without explicit capitalization), it seems like God would use this symbolism on purpose, in a way also telling us that light itself is indeed preferable to darkness, the latter of which envelops evil and allows it to exist and prey on those who have ventured out into it. As a result, I've always had quite a tough time trying to figure out why I enjoy things at night a lot more: concerts are exponentially more enjoyable, stars twinkle, towns come alive, etc.

Conclusion: I used to think I liked darkness instead of light, but now I realize that I like the playing of light in darkness; it's the light I love, not the darkness. Pure darkness is extremely scary; I found that out this weekend when two friends and I were walking down a gravel road through woods at night and all we could see were things illuminated by one guy's flashlight. Everything behind and outside the cone of light was pure black, as in the complete absence of light. It was tangible, thick and heavy, yet void and empty. Like most things, it's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it.