It’s hard, especially for teenage girls, to stop for a moment and not care about what others may think and say about them. Girls can be cruel and those who are the cruelest and have difficulties accepting who they are feel the need to take it out on others. For teenagers struggling with self-harm, a dirty look or quiet snicker can lead to leaving class, going to the bathroom and cutting until class ends. I know this because that’s exactly how I dealt with those issues during my teens. It took years to finally get to a place where I could look in the mirror and feel okay about the person starting back at me. I still struggle with my confidence, and most people do, but compared to the struggles of my past – I have proudly come so far. However, sometimes we need something to remind us of our strength and our beauty and music can be the source of strength needed.

There is no easy way to discuss past self-harm. No matter how you go about bringing forward difficult struggles from your past, it is almost always going to be an uncomfortable situation. Even for the most confident person, there is always something that gets in the way of that confidence and, for some, it can be discussing a mental health issue, like self-injury, they must deal with.

Everywhere you turn, you see or hear about CrossFit, Zumba or Mud Runs. Within minutes of scrolling down your Facebook feed, you may see people on diets or cleanses or posting “before and after” photographs. It’s terrific that people are working on bettering themselves in healthy, up-and-coming ways, but it also takes a toll on those dealing with body image issues. By having photographs and messages thrown from every angle, some people may see this not as being helpful, but as a reminder that they continue to struggle. For those who do not have the motivation or interest in getting healthy or fit, these constant reminders can become overwhelming. We know that feeling overwhelmed often leads to anxiety or anger and when you’re at that point -- you must find a safe outlet for those emotions.

Being twenty-five years old, I am smack in the middle of a time when many friends and family members are either getting engaged, married or popping out babies. While I am perfectly content with my job, boyfriend and Miniature Schnauzer, it can cause overwhelming anxiety to those who feel as if they need to rush forward with certain parts of their lives. We tend to focus on adolescents who self-harm because, well, that’s when most seem to struggle with it. However, even though I am unaware of the statistics, self-harm continues to be an issue for many even after high school graduation. I was twenty years old when my last cut was made, but who knows how many people in their twenties are still struggling with the need to self-injure?

Keep Your Eyes on the Road and Not on Your Skin Whether or not you’d like to believe it, the uncontrolled obsessiveness many have with their phone is similar to how people feel when they need to self-harm. Here's what I mean by that analogy. When you’re driving, distractions are everywhere. You may not realize you’re distracting yourself by making your music louder or adjusting your sunglasses in the mirror, but you are. Whenever your eyes are off of the road for a second, you are that much closer to getting in an accident. We have seen so many deaths and injuries from texting related incidents and it’s extremely hard not to look down at your phone during a commute. Most of the time, you have no reason to look at your phone in the first place, but you are just drawn to it, automatically.

When self-harm is brought to the table, how do you think it feels when you call someone a cutter? Do you think the person wants to be seen as just that – a self-harmer? Why not call them a musician or a writer? An athlete or an artist? Why not recognize them as the person they really are, not the struggle? Why do negative labels often take priority over the positive ones?

Life doesn’t always go as planned. Routines are broken and schedules are never set in stone the way we want them to be. This is because life gets in the way, whether or not we want it to, and it is up to us to handle those bumps in the road. Some people turn to self-harm as an answer due to something unplanned happening in their life. This can range from getting a bad grade to the death of a loved one. Everyone has a different breaking point and for some, the smallest things can make that break occur. The most important thing is to look at the big picture and decide how important the issue really is and figure out a healthy way to go about dealing with it.

We all have songs that bring us back to a certain moment in time. Sometimes it can be a song from your childhood that makes you feel a sense of innocence. It could be a song shared in a past relationship that brings forth some fond memories. Sometimes powerful lyrics can bring you back to a place of happiness, hardship or love. However, songs have the ability to flick a switch in your brain and bring forward thoughts you want to push away. The problem is, sometimes music brings you to the point where you can’t make yourself to push stop. You may visualize a time when your arms were filled with fresh scars and those images could bring you to the brink of making those self-injury marks again.

To Talk or Not To Talk About Self-Injury When it comes to talking about uneasy topics, everyone holds a different opinion. Many people stray away from conversations surrounding religion or politics because it makes them anxious. Maybe you feel uncomfortable when others openly discuss sex or drugs because you’ve never been that way. For some people, discussing difficult topics can be more comfortably done in a personal setting while others would rather talk about it in a large group. When I speak to health classes about my novel, Noon, I find myself more at ease talking about my past relationship with cutting to a larger group.

A moment of normalcy in self-harm recovery can go unappreciated. But we shouldn’t wait until we are feeling sick or depressed to realize how it feels to be happy or content. We often don’t recognize how we feel when we no longer struggle with unrelenting urges to hurt ourselves. In fact, it usually takes a negative situation to make us realize how lucky we were to feel, well, normal. I know it’s difficult to describe what normal means, but let's try to find our own normal so we can appreciate those moments of normalcy in self-harm recovery. What would a moment of normalcy be for you?