Uncarving old habits

We at Axiomwear want to encourage conversations that lead to healing, hope, and love. Instead of saying "Hi, how are you?" then walking away before you hear an answer, we hope people will start saying, "How is it with your soul?" and intentionally listen to what the other person has to say. We need to be there for each other because it's the right thing to do. This is online so it's only a partial hug, but it may be just what someone needs to hear. Sometimes we feel like we can't tell our closest friends our deepest thoughts, or our hurts and fears...even doubts. So we ask that you share your stories - stories of hurt, help, hope, and healing. Please know that we do not and will not share your personal information and will not post your name or your story without permission. This is a process and a starting point.

Please respond in kind if you were particularly touched by a story. Or email us your own true story through myspace or axiomwear@gmail.com.

Here is the first one:


Female, 17, Australia

My first reaction to this was, do I even have a story? Wouldn’t it be just another one?
That same sad story, one that is overly recognised and unavoidably superfluous. But here I am, writing this all the same.

Ideas are floating around that everything is meaningless. Lives are painstakingly built up, only to be lost and passed materialistically on to the next in line. To me that seems like an empty justification. I’m allowed to f*** up because it doesn’t mean anything.

To the people that are watching you, it means something. This idea might not be as apparent, but I assure you they don’t ignore you because they don’t care. They can’t pay attention, because admitting there is a problem with someone they love is harder than most people can cope with.

Having realised this, I tried to sort things out on my own. But that wasn’t so successful. Big promises made on good days. Sincere as you may be, it’s hard to stick to a decision when life is being particularly turbulent.

Maybe it’s because I’m no good at decisions. I’m a floater, just waiting for somebody else to illuminate my path and give me some direction. I use to wonder, if I could just find that direction, I’d be able to embrace it, and that would make me better, right?

I’m able to stand up and say, there are things wrong with the way I sometimes look at the world, and I will readily admit that I am not strong enough to do this on my own.

For me, being reliant on God has meant that I have come through. It’s like every absent-minded “Lord, I need help, don’t I?” was somehow taken into account and slowly, you cannot imagine how slowly, things began to sort out.

I have given up a few detrimental aspects of my life. And the amusing thing is they were never conscious decisions. You say things will be different, that the changes will be extreme, and the next day you’re lying on the bathroom floor sick from your latest purge, or simply lying there because the energy required to move again seems too overwhelming to consider.

I can remember how bad things got. How bad they still do get. But I have learnt not to indulge my sadness. It’s the easiest path, letting things go, and like most things what is easy is not the same as what is right.

I read somewhere that madness was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I expected techniques of replacing and distracting to make a difference. When things didn’t change I should have re-evaluated. Life was about chasing that distraction, that feeling of ecstasy, that empty bliss. But that’s a lie. Ecstasy is merely not knowing things will fall apart when you wake up.

For the first time in two years I can say I don’t have an eating disorder. I no longer harbour the anger that forces me to carve what I refuse to feel into covered places on my body. That doesn’t mean I am not overcome with the same feelings of depression, but such lows are growing fewer and further between.

What I can finally appreciate now is that things are never going to be perfect, but that doesn’t mean I have to make it worse for myself. It takes a change to get you out of old habits. It takes an acknowledgement of the situation, and a friend to sustain you when you feel like giving up. Most importantly it takes a God who loves you, even when you’re pathetic or wrong, to bestow mercy in a way no other person can offer. That is what gives my life meaning, and hope that things will continue to get better. Being accountable to God, and to the amazing friends I’ve relied upon. My weapon against the awful darkness is the knowledge that when I fall, someone is waiting to pick me up.