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 : and welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show prescribing Hope for Healthy Families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner and mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well hey there friends and welcome to my favorite time of day getting to spend time with you prescribing Hope for Healthy Families.

Non suicidal self injury is a coping mechanism intended to overcome emotional pain

And listen, I want to tell you right from the beginning that we have got a tough topic today, but one that I am very convicted that we need to talk about. We've talked about it on the show before, but it has been a while and not too long ago I was at a youth camp where on the last day several, many, many kids got up and shared their story, their testimony and this was a common thread. Now I see this a lot in clinical practice. I see this among my kids, peers, I see this in my community, I see this in the school schools that I'm serving. But it was really very prevalent and I was very convicted and thought we need to come back to this. And I know just the person to do it. If you're wondering what that is, hang with me. But I do want to tell you that today's content is a little tough. So adjust your listening audience, make sure that those younger listeners, you save this to come back later, protect their ears because this is a tough topic to talk about. Now we live in a generation that is talking about mental health more than ever before, which is a fantastic thing. I really appreciate the open conversations we have and destigmatizing that. But at the same time we still see anxiety and depression and loneliness and self harm continue to impact millions of kids and teens and even adults. And a lot of families are just wondering why is this happening? How, how could it happen to us? We feel blindsided by it. How do we help someone we love? And where does our faith fit into all of this? And the reality is that emotional pain often hides beneath a perfect looking exterior. The student who's earning straight A's, the church volunteer who never misses a Sunday, the parent who seems like they just have it all together. Sometimes those wounds are ones that no one else can see. We can't see from the outside. Now what we're talking about specifically today is something called non suicidal self injury. You may hear it referred to or abbreviated as nssi. Now to break that down even more, we're talking about things like cutting or burning yourself or causing physical pain or harm to yourself. It is a coping mechanism intended to produce endorphins and other feel good chemicals in your bottle and your body to overcome emotional or psychological pain. It's intentionally harming yourself without intent for suicide that's important and it is more common than a lot of people realize. Studies estimate or almost 20% of adolescents, almost 20%, that's almost one in five who report a history of self injury. And many never tell another person because they are really afraid of shame or of judgment. But the best intervention is early intervention. Compassionate conversation and connection with trusted adults. Faith communities can be a place of healing and, but they can also be a place of unintended continued hurt. When this, this is disclosed and that, that really breaks my heart. Now as Christian families we are called to speak truth with grace. Scripture never promises that life is going to be easy and pain free, but it does remind us that God is near to the brokenhearted. And we do see people struggle. And no one, no one is immune. No one is immune. And sometimes I think, we think, oh, if we have our kids in church and we're doing all the right things and we have all the right effort, then somehow our kids get some sort of magical immunity from any hurt, pain or poor decisions or trauma or whatever it is. And that's just not the case. And we're going to talk about facing those issues head on, finding hope for healing. And I have just the guest today to do it.

Our guest today is Brittany Tinsley. She's a writer, a speaker and an advocate

Our guest today is Brittany Tinsley. She's a writer, a speaker and an advocate whose work sits right at the intersection of faith and mental health. She is a contributing author to the Oxford Handbook of Non Suicidal Self Injury. She's written a lot of things and she has a book called Stories our Scars Tell and it offers compassionate hope for anyone who is carrying emotional wounds or walking alongside someone who is. So again, I do want to let you know that we are going to discuss things, issues of self harm, shame, anxiety, emotional distress. We're not going to be overly graphic. We'll be trauma informed, we'll be gentle when we talk about it. We but especially those listeners with lived experience, I just encourage you listen with care, listen with discretion. Ask God for wisdom as we proceed. Brittany I'm so glad to have you back on the show. Thank you so much for joining us.

Brittany Tinsley : Thanks so much for having me again. It's so good to be here.

Brittany became a Christian at a very young age

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, Brittany, I really appreciate you sharing your own personal lived experience with this, because as many times as I'm sure you've told your story, it's hard to do. But I'd love to just start from there. Just introduce our listeners to you and your experience. Experience and how that led to your road of advocacy for kids who are experiencing some of the same hurts and pains that you did.

Brittany Tinsley : Yeah. So I grew up in a Christian home. I'm the oldest of six kids. My dad was in the military, so we moved every couple of years. And my faith was really the stabilizing force of my childhood. Anytime we moved, we immediately got plugged into a church. I became a Christian at a very young age, and that was really like a key, defining feature of my life. right before my freshman year of high school, we moved from New Jersey to San Diego, and I got, again, immediately plugged into a church. I was sort of your stereotypical oldest child, straight A student on my school's volleyball team, had lots of good friends, had a boyfriend, had a life that looked really good and appealing from the outside. but then at the end of my freshman year in that May, one of my good friends died by suicide. And I decided that that was my fault because I hadn't noticed that something was going on. He didn't share that he was thinking about doing that. And that guilt that I felt just became overwhelming. But because I had grown up in this military family, where feelings and emotions aren't necessarily something you share, it's very pull yourself up by the bootstrap sort of environment. I just kept that to myself. And over the course of that summer, between my freshman year and my sophomore year of high school, that guilt and anger and grief grew, and I didn't know what to do with it. that fall of my sophomore year, I started school again, and was trying to manage my life. Essentially that, at that point, felt fairly out of control because there was just this overwhelming amount of negative emotion that had built up. And I came home from school one day and went into my bathroom and sort of on impulse, cut myself for the first time. It wasn't something that was premeditated. Mental health wasn't a conversation then the way it is now. So it wasn't really something I'd heard of before. I didn't have any friends who were doing it. I hadn't been exposed to it on tv. It was. It felt very, sort of random and, like I said, impulsive. And I immediately. All of that noise that had been going on just silenced. And I thought, I'm pretty smart. I figured out the secret, like, everybody must have something like this that they use, that they're hiding, that helps them exist in the world. Because if I do this, if I hurt myself in this way, it quiets all of that other stuff. And I don't feel that guilt anymore. I don't feel that anger, the sadness anymore. It just numbed everything out. And that was what I wanted in that moment. But as these things do, it quickly picked up speed. and the thing that I thought I was using to control all of this other stuff started to control me. And I stopped using it only when I felt this guilt, and that sort of thing. But I also started using it anytime I felt too much of anything. So if I was too happy or too sad, I would hurt myself. If I was, too numb or not numb enough, I would hurt myself. And it became this. This tool that I used to sort of keep the pendulum from moving at all. My goal was to remain in this sort of completely neutral state.

Dr. Jessica Peck: And.

Brittany Tinsley : And so very quickly, I went from hurting myself, you know, maybe once a week or whatever, to once every couple of days to every day, to. It got to the point where I couldn't sit through a single class period without leaving class in the middle of the class to go to the bathroom to hurt myself. And as that progression happened over the course of a couple of months, I thought, this is sort of getting out of control. Like, I recognized that I was in some trouble. And so, even though it had remained my secret up until that point, I thought, I'm going to do the thing I swore I would never do. I am going to go tell somebody and ask for some help. And I didn't necessarily know who to tell because I was a military kid. It wasn't like I had a lot of consistent adults in my life who I trusted. But I had a friend at my youth group who really trusted one of the youth group volunteers. And so I decided I would tell that youth group volunteer. I met with her before a Wednesday night. I told her, I've been hurting myself. I think I just need some accountability. That was a big buzzword in my circles. You know, if you just had accountability, you could, like, overcome anything. And so I thought, I just need some accountability. I'll be able to get on top of this. And she agreed that she would be my accountability partner and that she would ask me every Wednesday before service if I had hurt myself that week. And if the answer was no, then that was great, problem solved. But if the answer was yes and continued to be yes, then we would eventually need to get what she called a real adult involved. She was 20 something at the time, which seemed very old and mature to me as a, you know, 14, 15 year old. But looking back now, I'm like, I understand what she meant when she said we might need to get a real adult involved.

Dr. Jessica Peck: And,

Brittany Tinsley : you know, it's probably not surprising that that did not go especially well for me. I wasn't able to just suddenly miraculously stop hurting myself. And so she and I together decided we would go tell my youth pastor, who would hopefully have some resources, or some advice to give or something along those lines to offer. And so we went and met with him, and I shared with him that I had been struggling and I'd been hurting myself, and I didn't know what to do. And I was so hopeless. And, you know, all of. All of these really sort of heavy things. And I. I did what I was taught, like, you go to the church when you need help and they give you a way to. Out of whatever the problem is. And instead, he asked me to come back the next week before service. And he told me that effective immediately, I was not welcome anymore, that I was being removed from every volunteer position that I was in, every leadership role that I had, that I wasn't welcome at camps or at youth group events or anything like that. I could be there Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights when the doors were open to everybody. But outside of that, please don't come, Please stay home. And I thought I, I mean, part of me understood that I was a liability and that they saw me as a liability that way. But the other part of me thought, this is what I've been doing for the last, at that point, six to eight months. The only difference is that now you know about it. The only difference is that now I've been honest about it and told the truth, and I'm asking for help. And instead of being given help, I'm being kicked out of the only community that has sort of existed for me in my entire life. And that was a really difficult, a really difficult thing to sort of deal with and manage. But I thought, this is not how this was supposed to go. Our two years in San Diego were very close to being up, and so I thought, I just have to Sort of ride this out for a couple more weeks. We'll move, I'll start over. And that's what happened. We moved.

In a landscape where we talk more openly about mental health, self injury remains taboo

I started over. I, I didn't quit cutting, because nothing had actually been dealt with. I just got better at hiding it. And again, I sort of fell back into it. And at that point I sort of was like, I'm. This is. I gotta figure this out on my own. Like, nobody's coming to save me. Nobody's gonna help me. Nobody understands this. Everybody's gonna think I'm crazy or trying to kill myself or something along those lines. None of which was true. And so I decided I just had to figure it out. And, over the next several years, through the last two years of high school and into college and into early adulthood, I really just tried to figure it out on my own. And at that point, in the depths of that struggle, I just remember thinking, one day God's gonna use this. And I didn't know what that meant or how exactly that would look. I thought it would probably be when I was much, much older, maybe in a conversation one on one with some teenage girl somewhere who was struggling with the same thing that I had. You know, where I could be like, listen, I've been there, it's gonna be okay. And have like a very private sort of conversation about it. but God had other plans. And instead I ended up writing a piece of, for an organization called Write Love on Her Arms. And that piece got a lot of attention and was one of their top performing pieces of the year. And that started opening doors because as it turns out, not a lot of people, are talking about self injury. Even in a. In a landscape where we talk a lot more openly about mental health, self injury remains a pretty taboo topic. I think a lot of people just don't understand it. It's hard for them to fathom it is, as the name suggests, self inflicted. And so people, I think, look at it and they're like, why are you doing this to yourself? Just stop. Like, you don't have to act this way. You don't have to be doing this. And so, to now be in a place where I get to share not only what it's like to, like to have that sort of lived experience, but also to offer hope and say, just because you're in this right now doesn't mean that you always have to be in it. It doesn't mean it's always going to look this way or be this hard or be this difficult is something that's really special. And so I get to have conversations like this. I got to write the book. and it's, it's really been cool to see how God has turned this mess that I created for myself into something that, yeah, still is a really hard thing, but that has actually turned into a ministry of sorts that I get to have. And so that's how I ended up here.

Dr. Jessica Peck: You're right. God has turned your mess into a very powerful message. And I have lots of questions. And when we come back, we'll talk about this because I know that families listening or facing this today will have more help and hope. On the other side of this break with Brittany Tinsley. Don't go away.

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Healing Rain by Michael W. Smith: healing rain is coming down it's coming closer to the lost and found. Tears of joy and tears of shame Are washed forever in Jesus name Healing rain it comes with fire so let it fall and take us higher. Healing rain I'm not afraid to be washed in Heaven's rain

Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back friends. That is Healing Rain by Michael W. Smith and we are talking about an issue healing today. Talking about a tough topic, I want to give you a content advisory right up front. Some of this may be difficult for some listeners to hear, but it is a truth that we must speak out loud. We're talking about something called non suicidal self injury or self injury. This is things like cutting yourself and it affects about 1 in 5 to 1 in 16s. It is much more common than you think. I'm talking today to author and advocate Brittany Tinsley. She's written a book about this called Stories our Scars. Tell hope, healing and honesty about the wounds we carry. I really feel like anyone who is leading a youth Bible study Sunday group life Group. You're leading a group of kids. This would be a great resource for you because often what I see is youth leaders are blindsided, thinking everything looks perfect on the outside. That's often a characteristic of kids who are high achievers, who are trying to find a way to cope. And one of the greatest battles that we fight isn't what's happening around us. Not easily visible to others is the story that's playing inside of our minds. I'm broken. I'm too much, I'm unlovable. I'm crazy even. And this is the story that I saw many kids share when I was at a camp this summer, earlier this summer, hearing even the testimony of a tennis player, a guy who looked very strong, like nothing could stop him, and sharing his own story of self injury. It can happen to anyone. No one is immune. And Brittany, in the first segment, shared her story. We can learn so much from her story. One of the first things I want to point out about it is how the teenage brain works. Brittany, you experienced something really painful. The unexpected death of your friend by his own hand. That is a painful thing. And when kids experience pain, they look for ways to deal with it. When we're not properly equipped to handle grief, your emotion, the amygdala in your brain goes on hyperdrive. And then the logical decision making part of your brain, the upstairs brain, the prefrontal cortex, it goes offline. So you have high emotion, you have low logic, and then you do something that gives you some relief in that moment and your brain says, hey, do that again. And then you do it again and again and again until that neural pathway is like a rut in your brain and your brain is saying, nope, this is the way, this is the way. And I think often as adults, we look at kids who are engaging in self harm and self injury and we think, well, just like you said with your, with your story story, it's just an issue of self control. Just stop. Like, okay, we've caught you, we know you're doing it, just stop. Or what is wrong with you that like, you know that you're made in the image of God and you shouldn't be doing this in spiritual healing, but it's like we can't expect self control. And, and that spiritual, that spiritual formation piece, which don't develop till later in adolescence to overcome really powerful biology that's been going on.

Step into that moment when you discover someone is self injuring

Let's talk a little bit about stepping into that moment when you have just when you discover someone is self injuring or they Disclose it to you. What are some helpful things in that moment, Brittany, that you can meet them where they are?

Brittany Tinsley : I think the biggest thing is just curious compassion. I think a lot of times people sort of panic because it's a big deal. It's a, it's a scary thing for somebody to tell you I'm hurting myself or for you to discover that somebody's hurting themselves. And I think there's that panic sort of knee jerk reaction of what's going on. I need all of the information right now and I need to be, get in there and really fix it and make sure this isn't going to happen ever, ever, ever again. And really that's very, a very overwhelming response. I think that it's much kinder to sort of come in more gently and just ask some really open ended questions and make it clear that you're a person, whether you're the parent or a youth minister or a friend or a therapist or you know, whoever, make it really clear that you're going to be somebody safe for them to share with. And I think the, the easiest way to do that is to just be compassionate and, and curious in a very kind sort of way. Ask open that aren't accusatory, that don't assume motivation or try to prescribe some sort of larger meaning on the whole situation and just listen to what they have to say. And they might not know why they're doing it, but they might, and they might have something really valid and worthwhile to share that would then help you help them later on down the road. You don't have to solve it all in the first 30 seconds that you learn about it, which I think is what a lot of us naturally want to do. But if you can resist that urge, I think it actually strengthens that relationship and creates an environment where there can be a lot more help and healing. as, as time goes on.

Brittany made a disclosure to a youth leader about self injury

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, let's talk about how your disclosure happened because you made a disclosure, as you said, to a young youth leader and I see this happen all the time. And I just want to say really clearly up front that anytime any child or teenager discloses or you discover self injury, that is something that is out of the scope of what you can deal with on your own. You will need some professional help that might be primary care, that might be mental health professionals, but you're, you can't handle that on your own. It always needs some sort of connection because there's some underlying pain there and there are things there that, that need to be handled by, by a professional. And I'm just going to say that that's my view on that really clearly up front. But we have a culture, Brittany, that is very much, accountability, like you said, is a buzzword in church youth groups and teenagers. And there's a great place for that. I absolutely believe that's a great spiritual discipline. But there's always a pendulum. But there's also this culture of, hey, what happens in life group stays in life group. I know I had that with my own kids, like talking to them about, hey, you tell them you can't keep a secret from your parent that you are going. If they say, don't tell your parents this, you say, then I need to leave or be excused from that because I can't not tell a trusted adult. Because what we see in this increased conversation about things like mental health and suicide and self injury is trauma dumping. That happens. And sometimes, you know, if a kid comes to life group and they say all of this and maybe another kid has never had any exposure, they don't know what to do about it. So let's talk about some, some good principles for setting boundaries in those kinds of environments for what's going to be disclosed, what isn't, and how we make a connection to a trusted resource and connection to more help.

Brittany Tinsley : Yeah, I think that it's a good thing that we've created these environments where kids come in and they feel comfortable sharing really hard things. But to your point, that's not always the time or the place or the final step in the process. And so I think that if somebody comes in and shares something really difficult like that, that it's, it's totally appropriate to, to say, you know, thank you so much for sharing. That was a really hard thing, a really brave thing that you just did and I really appreciate that. And to say either I'm going to find some more resources so that we can figure this out together, or to say we're, we need to tell your parent. And I know that you're not going to want to do that. I know that that feels really scary. How can we make that as, as easy and pain free as possible? What would you like for that to look like? I'll go with you. I'll do it with you. That was something I so appreciated, was that this, this young youth worker that I told came with me to make additional disclosures and she didn't say anything. She sat there and she put her hand on my knee and that was it. But out of all of the disclosures that I made that was the easiest one because I had somebody there who I knew and felt like was on my side already. And so I think that if we can. If you can take the trust that's been established that, that let that person make the disclosure initially anyway, and sort of extend that as you broaden the circle of people who need to be involved in who you're telling, that hopefully it creates a container that feels as safe as possible while also keeping everybody involved safe. The, you know, who the person who was who made the disclosure, the person being disclosed to. Because you do have a liability factor if you're working with Menkay and things like that that you have to think through. And so I, think just really being cognizant of the fact that, that you are stepping into an arena where you have asked for vulnerability. But that vulnerability sometimes comes with additional steps that need to be taken and being sure that you're willing and ready to take those steps if you need to when the time comes.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Oh, Brittany, I'm sure you were so afraid when you had to tell your parents, and that was my question that I. We, had even talked about a little bit during the break, is when and how did your parents enter this journey and what was your perception of, of their reaction and their response as your journey unfolded?

Brittany Tinsley : So I shared with my church that I was struggling before my parents knew and they did not tell my parents. My parents found out, after the fact, they found out, actually. I had tried to send an email to a friend because that back then, you know, we weren't texting because text costs money. So I remember those days back in the olden days, right? So I had sent an email to a friend, that I had listened to this particular song that I liked to listen to to try to help me not hurt myself, like a hundred and something times. Like itunes kept account and. And so I sent this email to her. I accidentally sent it to my sister, my younger sister instead. And my younger sister took that email and took it to my parents and was like, I have no idea what this is, but this is the email I just got from Brittany. And my parents found out that way. I think they had suspected something before then. they had seen some cuts and things like that. But I always had a really good excuse and had lied about what was going on. And what were they going to say? Like, cutting wasn't a thing then. It wasn't something that people really knew about. And so then when they had this email, it was like, okay, now we have proof of what's going on. And so they also immediately called my church, who at that point already knew because I had disclosed to them there was sort of an intervention meeting that happened, that did not go particularly well. And my parents told me immediately they were taking me to therapy and that I could either agree to go to therapy or not get a driver's license. And as an almost 16 year old, not getting a driver's license was like the ultimate consequence. And so I went to therapy, for about six weeks before my move and did not say a single word to that therapist until the very end, of our time together, our last session. And at that point I pulled my sleeve up, I showed her my arm, and I was like, why did you never ask me about this? And she was like, well, I didn't know it was a big deal. And I just, I walked out and that was sort of it. And when we moved, my parents, I think, assumed it was sort of taken care of and we never spoke about it again. That was the end of it. And so really from, from then until present day, it's not something that we have had conversations about. It's something that they're aware of now because obviously I talk about this and have written about this publicly at this point, and so they're aware, but it's, it's still a topic that within our family, like, we don't, we don't talk about. It's not discussed. There was never any secondary, follow up beyond that sort of initial therapy push in California before our move. And so it's been interesting with them. But, I felt very attacked when they found out and like, everything was very unfair. I didn't, you know, no, I had a hard time seeing that they were trying to help and not just trying to make my world implode even further.

Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, Brittany, I feel like in those teen years, if things are perfect, if your family has no money struggles and no relationship struggles and you're not moving and you know, you have everything going great, it's still hard navigating that relationship and you throw in some of the things that you experienced. It is really hard. And I, you know, I feel for your parents and really probably feeling very ill equipped as I see many parents, like, they, their heart is to do the right thing. But it's so complex, Brittany. There is so much guilt and shame and isolation that goes along with this. Plus really complex layers of, of implications of your faith. Like, what does this mean? Like, where did we fail? Or how did we not do our job as parents or you know, what, what do we do? Do we take the tough approach or do we take the really compassionate approach? And then like you said, especially when you were going through this, not hardly any resources. Even now we still have way not enough resources to deal with it. What would you say to now knowing what you know and knowing how times have changed and how you know, we talk about this a little more, There are a few more resources.

Brittany: I think the right move is to get some professional help involved

What encouragement would you give to parents who may just feel very intense fear followed by guilt and shame and just be just frozen or m immobilized? What would be helpful resources for them or perspective that would help them when they feel blindsided by this? As I see parents often are, it's

Brittany Tinsley : so difficult and I have two daughters of my own and so they're getting older and I'm thinking about this in terms of them from a parent's perspective now. And it's so hard. I think that, that the right move is to get some professional help involved because at the end of the day a parent is probably not equipped to handle it on their own. And I think a lot of kids are going to be resistant to that because who wants to get dragged to therapy if they're not interested in therapy? but I think that again just having some open lines of communication are really helpful. and one thing that I've suggested to parents before is if you know that your kid is struggling with this, put together a care basket for them of things that will help them take care of wounds. They're probably not going to stop self injuring immediately. Even if you do all the right things, they're not going to stop immediately. And so if you offer them something that's really practical, it's like here, I know you're struggling with this, let's take care of this together on a physical, like tangible, practical level. Then I think it helps remove some of the shame potentially from, from that kid being able to go to the parent again and saying, listen, I'm still really struggling with this. I still really need some help. And so I think anything that a parent can do to say like I'm in this with you, I'm in the weeds here with you. I don't know all the right answers but we're going to figure it out together. let's, let's take these steps, let's, let's do these things that we need to do, but in the meantime let's make sure you're practically safe in the here and now. I think is something that, that's helpful and maybe not advice that's given super often.

Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, that's such a hard thing to do. Brittany. And again, I will echo what you said and reiterate what I said earlier. This is a case where professional help is really needed because I've seen so many times where I'm just doing a, routine exam for an earache or a, well, child check or whatever it is, and you go to look at an arm and they're protective of that, and you see scars everywhere. And just even asking about that, just breaking it feels like this little barrier. Yeah, not even a little barrier. It feels like a big barrier. And then once you say something, it's like this glass shatters, you know, and they just look at you like, wait, did you just break the wall that I built up? Like, are we actually going to talk about this? And I think that's the first moment and just showing some compassion and saying things like, hey, I'm really sorry that you're struggling. I'm sorry that you're hurting. I'm sorry that you're experiencing pain. Those are things that are just human, compassionate responses. And yes, you can deal with all of the things you know, and that, that's going to involve a lot more help. But it's just about breaking that wall that they build around themselves. This is my view from looking in the outside and just having the courage to actually talk about it and say, I see this, this is a problem, and we need some help.

Brittany Tinsley : Help.

Dr. Jessica Peck: That's where it's going to go. Well, when we come back from our break, we'll talk some more about some practical helps that might be, and we'll talk about faith in all of this, because many kids who struggle with self injury feel like if their faith was just a little stronger, maybe they could overcome this. We'll talk about that complex interaction there and give more help and hope. The book is called Stories Our Scars Tell. Hope, Healing and Honesty about the wounds we carry. We'll be right back with more from Brittany Tinsley

 : A, discipleship minute with Joseph Parker.

There is a place of safety in this world, and it's found in God

Joseph Parker: He who dwells in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, My God, in Him I will trust. Psalm 91, verses 1 and 2. In a perilous world, so many people are afraid. They're fearful. In a world where inner cities and many other communities are just simply dangerous places to be. We see the drug trafficking, human trafficking, Muggings, murders, physical and sexual abuse. There is a place of safety in this world, and it's found in God. It's found in that secret place, that intimate relationship with God. No one can protect you like God can. But it's important for us to do our part to appropriate, to place ourselves in that secret place. Praying Psalm 91. Every day is a very wise thing for all believers to do. No one can protect you like God can.

What A God You Are by Andrea Olson: Through the darkest night, in the hardest time, through the valley, the Lord held on to me When I'd had enough, almost given up, in my weakness, the Lord held on to me. What a God you you are. You are strong and true. There is none more faithful and there is none like you. What a God you are. Your presence is secure. nothing is for certain. Your promises are sure. What a God you you are. What a God you are.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is what a God you are by Andrea Olson.

Non suicidal self injury is more common than you think

And that's what we're talking about, how God is for us. God is good even when our circumstances seem like they are not good. And healing begins not when your circumstances change. So many people think that if my circumstances would change, if I could just stop this behavior, if this pain would just stop, then maybe I could heal. But really healing begins when the lies that we believe begin to lose their power. That healing is possible no matter our circumstances. And that is something that we're talking about today. We're talking about non suicidal self injury. You may hear it referred to as nssi. It's also commonly referred to as cutting or other forms of physically harming yourself as a means of relief from emotional or psychological pain. It is more common than you think and we're talking about it pretty candidly today. So I want to give a content advisory and advise you to listen with caution. But this is something that we need to be talking about because kids everywhere are struggling. Church does not make them. Church attendance doesn't make them immune. Having a strong faith or a strong family doesn't make them immune. Any kid can experience this. And I'm talking to Brittany Tinsley, who's an author who has personal lived experience. She's now an advocate and she's written a book called Stories Our scars Tell. Hope, healing and honesty about the wounds we carry.

Many Christians believe that they have somehow disappointed God if they struggle emotionally

And Brittany, one of the things that we have talked about a little bit is the intersection of faith and all of this. And I know that many Christians believe that, you know, they have somehow disappointed God if they struggle emotionally. And it's always interesting to me because I feel like, you know, if, if a Christian was diagnosed with cancer or even the flu, they wouldn't say, oh, the Lord must be very disappointed in me. I can't believe that I'm struggling with this. And yet if we struggle with a mental health issue with some sort of, you know, we put that in some sort of different bucket and sometimes really well meaning Christians and unintentionally reinforce the fear that there's something wrong with your faith or that maybe if your faith would be stronger, you could overcome this. And we know that Scripture paints a very different picture. We see David and the in the depths of despair lamenting, Elijah despaired to the point of death even after a tremendous victory. And we see Jeremiah wept and Paul described overwhelming affliction and asked God three times to take away the thorn in his flesh. And even Jesus experienced profound sorrow. And faith and suffering are not mutually exclusive. So what would you say to families who are walking through that and think that this struggle that they may have with self injury means that something's wrong with their faith

Brittany Tinsley : that's incorrect, like just point blank, it's just flat out wrong. I maybe should be more gentle about that, but I don't know how many times I have heard some version of if you just prayed harder, if you just read your Bible more, if you just believed more, if you just worshiped with a pure heart, if you just fill in the blank, something faithy, you wouldn't struggle like this. And there's nothing scripturally that tells us that's true. There's nothing scripturally that says you're not going to struggle, you're not going to have mental health struggle, you're not going to, you're not going to have physical struggle of any kind, just because you believe in God or have a faith that it's strong or, or anything like that. And so I think that it is frankly irresponsible for other Christians to, to put some sort of like moral, spiritual overlay onto a mental health struggle and say the only reason that you're struggling is because your faith isn't right. at its worst, I've heard you're demon possessed or this is a form of idolatry, or you don't believe in God at all because if you did you would have joy. And you don't have joy if you're dealing with a mental health struggle. And so, I think that, you know, it runs the game up from like well intentioned people saying sort of the wrong thing to people who really Truly, like, have it wrong. But. But either way, there's. There's no correlation between having a strong faith, and. And having a mental health struggle or not having a mental health struggle. It just. We're human and we live in a fallen world. And. And part of that is that some of us have brains that work differently and that suggest things that are harmful. And. And to act on those or to struggle with some of those things does not inherently mean that you don't have a faith that is true or right or real.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, Brittany, I want to know what role hope plays in all of this, because, as you said, I mean, this is often not something that's stopped really quickly. Now, early intervention is best. So the earlier that you find it one of the. And respond to it in a healthy way. One of the reasons that's so important, as I said earlier, is because we want to prevent that preferred neural pathway from really becoming entrenched. And that's a much harder thing to break. That's why it's. Early intervention for everything. For teens, especially when their brains are neuroplastic, is really key. But many times this doesn't just come out of the blue. There's grief that underlies this. There's other coping mechanisms that may have been tried that are healthy but maybe weren't effective. This usually tends to be a long and kind of messy road, and maybe you do really well for a while, then you, you know, you fall back into it.

What role does hope play, knowing now that you know in recovery that recovery isn't easy or a quick fix?

What role does hope play, knowing now that you know in your recovery that recovery isn't easy or a quick fix?

Brittany Tinsley : I don't know how people do it without hope. I mean, I. I honestly don't. I think that hope is so important, and it can be really difficult. at one point, I thought that hope was. Was dangerous and that I didn't want to have hope because if I had hope that things would get better and then they didn't, that was somehow worse than, like, having never had hope to be. And so I sort of resisted the idea of hope. And what I learned very quickly is if we as people exist without hope, that's a really dark, slippery slope to be on. And so for me, my hope comes from my faith. And I do have this hope that no matter what exists in the here and now, that God can and will use it for good. That just because something is hard and difficult and I wish didn't exist in my life, doesn't mean that there can't be something good that comes from it. And so I think that whatever hope you can hold on to is key and critical for healing. And also I can acknowledge and have been in places where it is really, really difficult to hold on to any shred of hope. And I think that's where community is so vital, because that's when those people who do know what's going on, who are close with you, who are those safe people, can come in and say, I know you don't have any hope right now, but I have hope on your behalf. And so here, borrow some of mine and hold you up sort of until you can find that, your own hope, hope again. And, and sort of pick yourself back up and keep moving forward. Because without that, we have nothing. And ultimately Jesus is who gives us that. And so as long as we can hold on to, to some knowledge of that, whether we really feel it or not, then I think we. There's. There's hope for us for healing. And I think that that hope often for me is a choice more than it is an actual feeling. And so I have to make the choice to be hopeful, even on the days when I don't particularly feel hopeful. and I think that's a discipline thing more than anything else. And any of us can do that.

Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, I think about the story of Joseph in, in the Bible, in the Old Testament, and one of the things that he says in, in his story is, you know, what Satan intended for evil, God intended for good, and the saving of many lives. And looking back on your story, Brittany, I'm just wondering if you can look back and if you can see God at specific points in your story, redeeming your story, making beauty from the ashes of the grief that you experienced and, and the hard things that you experienced. Where have you seen God to be present in. In your story and, and being close to you?

Brittany Tinsley : I think that there are specific instances I can think of when I was just really, really in the depths of it where I felt closer to God than I probably ever had before. I think he met me in a way that I didn't necessarily know was even possible. Because when you're in such a dark place, it really sort of takes an act of God to, To move you out of it. And so I think back to those nights just, I mean, literally on the floor, crying, bleeding in some cases, and, and just crying out to God for Him to be present in my life, for me to feel him, for me to feel his power and his strength, to, for him to give me some of his when I didn't have my own, and, and he did, and he met me there. But also in like a more sort of hopeful, practical level, you know, I had this really hard, awful experience at a church involving, and I mean, several of them, not just the one. There have been many, many really hard experiences in churches involving my self injury and my faith. And now, looking back at that, I'm like, yeah, that was really hard and difficult, but God is redeeming that like presently, like literally in a week, I'm going to speak at my church in front of 800 to a thousand women and share. And I would never in a million years have said God is going to take the person who's being told that she's demon possessed and put her on the stage at the church to talk about hope. And so I think there's just been this sort of redemption that's happening really present day in my life where he's going. These really hard things you experienced 20 years ago, 15 years ago, let's redeem those and bring some beauty back into that and sort of restore what was broken back then, in this really powerful sort of above and beyond kind of way now. And I think that's sort of what God's in the business of doing, is restoring an above and beyond kind of way. And so that's been a really fun thing to sort of live out and

Dr. Jessica Peck: watch happen exceedingly, abundantly, more than we could ask or imagine. And, and I do see that in your life, Brittany. I appreciate your transparency and your courage because I'm sure that it's difficult, and it's difficult when you can't present something that has a nice little bow, like, okay, here's the, you know, made for TV movie ending. It all ended up great. It's like, no, there's still pain, there's still hur, there's still struggle. as you said, you know, you've shared in some parts of your story. There's no perfect, happy, you know, storybook ending on some of those things. But you being able to share transparently doesn't say, okay, hey, I figured it all out. Here's, here's how you do it. That's like self help. But you said, hey, I haven't figured everything out, but I found the courage to share the ways that I've struggled and the ways that God has been real to me. That is a really beautiful thing.

 How can you encourage people that they aren't alone in their struggle?

And so, Brittany, as we're ending our time together, I want to recap for our, listeners some, some practical takeaways. Like, listen before you try to Fix it. Don't. Don't try to all of a sudden give the right spiritual answer. Just listen, express empathy, stay calm. Try not to react with shock or anger or anger. And take those disclosures seriously without responding with panic. Like, just say, okay, this is a big deal, but we're going to find the way forward together. Seek that professional mental health evaluation. If you don't know where to go or what to do, you can start through primary care They can help with you. And I did a show earlier this year on how to find a primary care provider and remind people that they are never alone. They're loved, and they're never alone. And I know that is the heartbeat of your message, Brittany, and I would love for you to end with that. An encouragement that people are never, ever alone. We know God never leaves us or forsake us, but how can you encourage people that they aren't alone in their struggle?

Brittany Tinsley : Yeah, I think there's this really. It's really tempting to think you're the only one struggling. You're the only one who's ever walked this path, the only one who's ever been this low or dealt with this thing or, you know, whatever it is. And the reality is we're all. We're all dealing with hard things, and you're not as alone as you think you are. There are people out there who are dealing with the same thing as you, who are ready to help, who are ready to listen, who want to be there. and you just. You have to be brave enough to take that first step. And it's. It's scary and terrifying and overwhelming and all of the things. But if you can. If you can find just a little bit of courage to share with somebody who's safe, then I think that to be surrounded by people who love you, who support you, and who can tell you that is just really such a powerful thing. And so I think just knowing and really feeling like deep in your soul that you're not on your own, that you don't have to figure it out on your own is just so powerful. So this is me telling you, you are not alone. You're not the only one. You're not crazy. there are people out there who love you. You are loved. And, I think that's just the most important thing to remember.

Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, Brittany, I really appreciate you, again, being so transparent with your story, with just sharing what happened. And scars do tell stories. Anytime we see a scar, there's a story behind that scar. And sometimes they tell stories of pain. Or loss or fear or regret or sometimes, as in your case, self injury that happened as a result of pain. But in Christ, they can also become stories of redemption and perseverance and hope. And I'm so glad that we have a God who is bigger than us, that we don't have to rely on ourselves to find the hope for our stories. That that hope is from our Creator who loves us, who made us, who knows us and our prayer today. My prayer today is that if you or someone you love is carrying hidden wounds, that you would know this simple but life changing truth. That your scars are not your identity. They are not the end of your story. Healing is slow. It rarely is in a straight line. It's a looping, messy, back and forth sort of journey. It's almost never perfect. But with compassionate support, with evidence based care from professionals who are equipped to meet you in the moment with authentic community and the steadfast love of Christ, hope is always worth holding. And Brittany's book again is called Stories our Scars. Tell Hope, Healing and honesty about the wounds we carry. I really hope that if you are a teacher, if you work with youth in any way, if you are a coach, that you will find resources, that you will educate yourself on this issue, that you will go to the leaders who are around you and say what do we do if we discover or kid discloses that they're struggling with this? So that you're not reacting in the moment because it's not an, it's often not a if issue, it's a when issue. And you can be prepared to meet the them in that moment with that help and hope that they need. And wherever you are in that, I pray, as I always do, that the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you, be gracious to you and give you peace. I'll see you tomorrow.

American Family Association thanks Preborn for rescuing over 400,000 babies from abortion

We'd like to thank our sponsors including PreBorn. PreBorn has rescued over 400,000 babies from abortion and every day their network clinics rescue 200 babies lives. Will you join PreBorn in loving and supporting young moms in crisis? Save a life today. Go to preborn.com/AFR the views and

Jeff Chamblee: opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.

Author and Speaker Brittany Tinsley talks with Jessica about her deeply personal journey from self-harm to healing.

https://www.brittanytinsley.com/

Chapters:

(00:00) American Family Radio thanks sponsor Preborn for supporting pro life advocacy

(00:50) Non suicidal self injury is a coping mechanism intended to overcome emotional pain

(04:40) Our guest today is Brittany Tinsley. She's a writer, a speaker and an advocate

(05:37) Brittany became a Christian at a very young age

(12:46) In a landscape where we talk more openly about mental health, self injury remains taboo

(20:28) Step into that moment when you discover someone is self injuring

(22:07) Brittany made a disclosure to a youth leader about self injury

(29:50) Brittany: I think the right move is to get some professional help involved

(33:26) There is a place of safety in this world, and it's found in God

(35:45) Non suicidal self injury is more common than you think

(37:11) Many Christians believe that they have somehow disappointed God if they struggle emotionally

(41:08) What role does hope play, knowing now that you know in recovery that recovery isn't easy or a quick fix?

(46:20) How can you encourage people that they aren't alone in their struggle?

(50:28) American Family Association thanks Preborn for rescuing over 400,000 babies from abortion

Sponsors:

https://preborn.com