I was thirteen, and before MySpace was filled with user names like "Taylor likes Facebook better," my Top Friends was dominated by "Katie! at the Disco" and "My Chemical Megan" (after popular bands of the time).
Yep, 2005 was when emo went mainstream—when the local mall rats traded in their black leather boots, fishnet stockings, and spiked mohawks for purple Converse shoes, skinny jeans, and side-swept bangs.
That was six years ago and a lot has changed since then: the polish of Facebook has overtaken the creative mess of MySpace, and snapbacks and leggings have reopened the gender gap that emo's androgynous style once tried to close.
But some things have remained popular: long, dyed side bangs, Converse shoes, bands like Paramore . . . and cutting.
I was not familiar with "intentional self-inflected injury" until my early teens, when some of the kids at my Christian school were struggling with it. I began to notice how certain classmates only wore long-sleeve shirts, even when it was 90 degrees outside, and I'd catch glimpses of the cuts on girls' wrists when their bracelets slid down their arms.
I didn't understand why anyone would ever try to hurt themselves; I mean, I cry for hours when I get a splinter or stub my toe.
But then some of my friends began to open up to me and I realized that, in a way, the physical sensation dulled them to the much more potent sting of emotional pain. Like most teenage girls, they were self-conscious. They thought they were fat, ugly, and worthless.
The weirdest part is that from my objective view, all of these girls were fantastic: they were smart, athletic, pretty, and had family and friends who loved them. They had everything going for them, but they couldn't see it. And the songs they were listening to didn't help.
See, in the same way that teen suicide rates skyrocketed in the 1990s after Kurt Cobain killed himself, cutting gained popularity in the 2000s after bands like Dashboard Confessional scored a younger, more mainstream fan base.One of my favorite songs, "Ohio is for Lovers," contains the following chorus: "So cut my wrists and black my eyes, so I can fall asleep tonight." In "Black Dahlia," Hollywood Undead screams, "Pull up my sleeves and see the pattern of my cuts."
I'm not saying that emo music is the sole reason for the spike in cutting, but its lyrics certainly glorify the masochistic behavior. For kids dealing with abuse, divorce, or other stress, cutting can be one of the only ways they find relief. They're searching for help and this is the answer they're getting.
The emo subculture is just one example of a generation starving for meaning.
The truth is, our youth culture is depressing. A lot of us grew up in broken families that didn't provide the security and affirmation that we so desperately craved, so we looked for it in other places. We turned to drugs, alcohol, sex, cutting . . . anything that could numb the pain, at least for a little while.
Recent studies show that 15-24 year-olds account for over 9 million new STD cases each year and that 7.2% of all babies are born to teenage mothers. 72% of teens admit to drinking alcohol by high school graduation, 37% by the time they finish middle school. In 2009, over 46% of high school seniors and 15% of 8th-graders answered that they had smoked weed before, and 24% of seniors had tried a drug other than marijuana.
A 2010 study estimated that up to 37% of high schoolers have intentionally injured themselves, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that 18% of high school girls had considered suicide and 9.3% had tried, while 9.2% of guys had considered it and 4.6% had tried. Suicide is the third-leading cause of death among adolescents.
I'm sorry to bore you with all these numbers, but I'm trying show you that I'm not making this stuff up; clearly, teens are looking for ways to escape, whether it's cutting, drinking, or downing pills. It has me wondering: where is the joy?
Broken people from broken homes are living in a broken world. As Christians, why aren't we showing them the only way to truly escape the anguish of the world? Why aren't we showing them love, hope, and joy?
For many of us, it's because we aren't experiencing that joy ourselves. About a quarter of Americans will suffer from depression at some point in their lives, and the statistics are virtually the same for Evangelicals. It's hard to help others when we're hurting, too.
I understand that depression is more than just a thought pattern and that it is an actual medical condition. For many people, it is a genetic trait that they cannot simply ignore or pray away.
But I'm not actually talking about those Christians who are clinically depressed. I'm talking about the rest of us. I'm talking about the 75% who won't ever suffer from the condition but are still bereft of joy on a daily basis. In John 15:11, we are promised, "Your joy will overflow!" So why isn't it?
Trust me, I struggle heavily with both of those. I'm kind of a control freak and I hate the thought of failure or letting someone down. This mindset helped me earn a good score on the SATs, but too often it has kept me from enjoying life.
For example, in high school I used to spend New Year's Eve skiing with my friends. After dozens of times down the slopes, I have never fallen, not once. I also haven't made it over 3 m.p.h. and I also haven't had any fun. Sometimes I get so worried about falling down that I can't even enjoy myself.
I never liked how much I worried, but I didn't understand it was sinful until I read a section on it from Francis Chan's Crazy Love. Chan states,
"Worry implies that we don't quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what is happening in our lives. Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace towards others, or our tight grip of control."
When I worry and stress, I'm acting selfishly. I want to change that, so one of my New Year's resolutions this year is to stop worrying and stressing so much, because nothing I'm going through—no matter how horrible—should keep me from being filled with God's peace and joy.
The world is depressing, but we don't have to buried alive by the mire that it's shoveling onto us. We have a way out, not when we get to heaven, but right here, right now, while we're still on earth. We shouldn't continually lose battles when Christ has already won the war. God, the only true panacea for our pain, has already made us victorious over everything that the world throws our way, and no amount of sickness, stress, or financial woes can take away the joy that He has given us.
So while we spend January guilting ourselves into going to the gym more and drinking less coffee, remember that Philippians 4 implores us, "Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice!"
Find things that fill you up with joy. If you like to paint, set aside time for that. If exercising puts you in a good mood, go for a jog every day. Don't become so overbooked that you have no time to enjoy yourself. God doesn't want us to be stressed-out, joyless, just-make-it-through-the-day worriers. He wants us to be happy!Enjoy the little things in life that are often forgotten and overlooked. Smile when you see a toddler running through the aisles at the supermarket, when a car flashes you to tell you that a cop car is waiting for you up ahead, and when you step outside in March for the first real day of spring.
Find the joy that God has promised you and share it with others.
Go out and provide healing to the people in your community who need it. Don't write them off as "troubled," but see them as God's creations who are dying for something, anything, that can give them relief. Love them, spend time with them, show them the joy of Jesus Christ.
Back in 2005, when I was only 13 myself, I learned that I wanted to work with teenagers for the rest of my life. I realized that God gave me a passion for young girls who are desperate to find love, peace, and joy in a culture that provides minimal lasting support.
What gifts has God blessed you with? How can you use them to bring joy to a dark and desolate cultural landscape? Look for ways every day to share the love of Christ with the people in your community who so desperately need victory over the battles they are facing every day. Sometimes the best way to get out of a slump is to help someone else.
Our lives will never be perfect, and sometimes they will seem downright horrible, but we have hope in Jesus Christ. Let's not forget that.
If Tom Cruise can be filled with so much happiness that he slides to his knees, fist-pumps, and jumps on a couch on national television, then there's no reason that those of us who have been filled up with Christ's love can't also be joyful every day.
2 Corinthians 6: 4-10
Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
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