one year clean

I am writing this and i am not sure how i really feel about it.  It is a huge step since i had never been able to make it past 3 or 4 months..before I would give in to the urges, to need an escape or a way to hide from the emotions that I did not want to feel.  I realized this earlier today..what the date was..and I cried.  It was as if I was saying goodbye to an old friend all over again.  Love and hate all at once. I have bared my scars for the past couple days, without fear, without hiding.  The scars will not fade anymore.  They are there to stay, to show that I am still alive.  Maybe I cant see the achievement in this yet, but one day I will.  It was not easy, it was a struggle, a daily struggle to be safe, to be calm. to think and not just react.  Through everything that has happened in the past year..I did not try to solve it with a razor. i have cried, screamed, cried some more, thought, overthought..did i mention crying?  It has been different..it has been hard..and scary not being able to go and use the immediate calming technigue that had worked for years..to not revert back to old habits..to understand that it is ok to be sad or hurt or angry or well anything..its ok to feel..and now I know that it is okay to say that I am not okay.  It is still hard admitting it at times, but my cicle of support is growing and filling in.
I guess the main thing I am trying to keep understanding, is that no matter how upset, sad, scared, angry, or hurt I became, that cutting did not make it better.  I was hurting myself and had convinced myself otherwise.  The truth is though, that I was hurting myself, on purpose, I deserved it, I needed it..I wanted it..
Now I understand that I can live without.  That there are other ways to express how I am feeling.  I am still learning to use my words..but I am no longer in the same place that I was a year ago. I will never go back to that place. Yes it lasted for a lot of years, but that is now the past.  There is no need to revisit that past anymore.
-jaded