interview
Lanae Hale: Confessions From a Teenage Cutter
By Mia Evans
The 700 Club
CBN.com
– Mia Evans [reporting]: Six years ago, Lanae Hale was in the fight of her life. She sings about the pain she's experienced and her music is reaching listeners everywhere. Whether she’s on tour or getting airplay on MTV’s hit show, The Hills, she bravely shares her story. Lanae Hale used to be a cutter. Her descent into this addictive behavior, that’s growing among teens at an alarming rate, didn’t happen overnight.
Lanae Hale: No one really knew all the insecurities I had. I was the girl who thought I was never good enough, not pretty enough, not worth a lot. I believed [being good enough was] for everyone else, but not really for myself. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around this thing called God’s love, which I had heard about because I grew up in church. I had always heard about God’s love and His grace, but those things just never really - I just couldn’t; I didn’t get it.
Evans [reporting]: Instead, Lanae sought the love and significance she craved in a serious relationship in high school.
Hale: I received a diamond ring, and he promised that he’d marry me. So, I was like, "Yes I’ve found it. I’m in love; this is what I want to do." When it ended, I guess at that time, I didn’t see it as God saving me from an unhealthy relationship. All these insecurities that I had kind of accumulated in my mind about myself were solidified at that moment.
Evans: What was it that drove you to cut yourself for the first time? Because that’s painful! What was going on inside?
Hale: After the really awful breakup and the different things going on in my life at that time, I began to walk down this road of depression. It was just this downward spiral of you know, guilt and self condemnation. I would go through these anxiety attacks, sort of panic attacks. I’d cry all the time. I got to a point where I was so tired of feeling weak that I just wanted to cut away all my emotional pain; so I could still look like the strong girl that no one could break on the outside. But because of that, no one knew that I was falling apart on the inside.
Evans: Did you hear about it somewhere? What gave you the idea just to cut yourself?
Hale: I hadn’t heard about cutting. That’s what’s so scary! In my mind, that was maybe a way I could commit suicide - if I got deep enough. That was my initial thought. 'Oh, I’ll just find a vein and let’s just see how far it will go' kind of a thing. But in doing that I realized, 'Oooh, I don’t have to kill myself; but yet I feel pretty good.' It just felt so good to not have to worry about emotions; it took it away. It was just this adrenaline rush that just made me forget my pain.
Evans [reporting]: Lanae kept her dangerous habit a secret. When she went away to college, her abusive behavior became more severe. Lanae went from cutting herself with thumbtacks, to using shards of broken glass, and finally knives.
Hale: Whenever I cut, I would have this voice in my head that would say, “Go deeper, deeper,” just over and over in my head. I was sort of in a trance. I would just cut and I would hear that voice. But I remember that there was just something deeper within me that wouldn’t let me take my life.
Evans [reporting]: Lanae believes it was God who kept her from taking her life. As a child, she began a relationship with Jesus; but as a teen her faith became a struggle.
Hale: In my heart, I loved God, and I wanted to do right. I remember, when I would cut, I would pray and I’d beg God to forgive me. I’d say, “I’m so sorry. It’ll be the last time.” And it wasn’t, because I didn’t leave it in His hands. I wanted to control my own life. So, I think it was a control struggle between God and I. I just didn’t want to let Him control. I wanted to fix myself.
Evans [reporting]: She sought help from a psychiatrist on campus. In the middle of her first session, Lanae had a change of heart.
Hale: I just thought, “What am I doing? I am trying to get answers everywhere and trying to find this peace that I’ve had before, and it’s nowhere to be found. I’ve had it before.” I felt like God whispered in my heart, “You’ve had this peace before, what are you doing? Why are you going so far?” I remember leaving there in a daze going, “What am I doing?”
Evans [reporting]: Lanae discovered hope in the Bible.
Hale: I read Psalm 147:3 that says that He binds up, He heals the broken hearted, and He binds up their wounds. I was like, “Really? OK.” I was so excited and so desperate for that. I grabbed a hold of that verse, and I just begged to God, “Please heal me.” I realized too that I actually had to give Him the pieces. I had just tried so hard to mend them all myself. I had to give up my control. I had to stop controlling my own life and hand over the pieces and ask that He’ll heal me. He really began that process, and it was a long hard process.
Evans [reporting]: Lanae threw out her stash of knives. She cried out to God for help to resist the urge to cut again. Tthrough prayer and reading the Bible, she grew stronger.
Hale: That’s when the Lord really began to minister to my soul and do the intense healing within me. I get so excited when I talk about it, because it’s the first time in my life that He began to show me and I began to understand what God’s love is - and what this grace that I had always heard about. I learned that in order to fight these lies in my mind I had to fill my mind with truth. Just throughout life we have to discipline ourselves to read the truth and to fight. It’s so easy just to sit down and die and just let Satan beat us up, but man, there’s so much power in Christ’s name. I really learned the power of who Jesus Christ is.
Evans [reporting]: Lanae found the healing she desperately needed in Christ. Through her music, Lanae offers the hope of freedom in Christ to those who are hurting like she did.
Hale: There is that peace that just has washed over me again, that I don’t have to wake up in despair everyday. I wake up and I have a reason to live and that’s because the Lord’s given that to me. I have hope where as I was hopeless. I am free in Christ, because His truth has truly set me free.
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