DOOR of HOPE

TheHopeLine spoke with Debra Cornacchia, founder of Door of Hope, about their mission and how they provide hope for those struggling with Self-Harm.

If you struggle with self-harm, be encouraged by this word from Debra that you can recover!

We want to encourage teens and young adults that help is available. Recovery is definitely possible. The main thing is getting yourself free and discovering new ways to handle your emotions because cutting is a destructive secret. Most people don’t share it and that’s why our texting hotline is popular because they can be anonymous and text how they feel.  We find by the time someone is 18, they're so tired of cutting since the age of 12 or 13, and here they are getting ready for college or getting ready for a job and they have scars and they think about cutting and they realize it’s like a drug.

One girl explains it great, she said she felt like a monster and cutting was like a monster. It just troubled her day and night. It was all she thought about.... where is she going to self-harm next. And that’s what addiction is and cutting is an addiction.  It's a dark cycle. You do it a little bit, and then you do it more the next day, perhaps the next day, and before you know it you’re cutting two or three years.

I used to self-harm from the age of 12 to 25 years old and that’s how Door of Hope was birthed...out of my own emotional pain and my struggle because back then there was nobody that you could tell. I wanted to give back what I never had. Give back that hope to someone who is struggling give back that hope to someone who feels my life is a train-wreck. Thinking I'll never get better.

Door of Hope started out of that need that I felt so many people had, and I understood that need because I was able to recover. I want to give them the message that if I can recover, they can recover. They most certainly can. It takes a lot of work and it’s a journey, but they can definitely recover from cutting.

You can connect with Door of Hope by:

• Visit their website – Door of Hope
• Call or text – 803.570.2061 or 914.393.1904
• Email – doorofhope4teens@gmail.com
• Set up one-on-one personal recovery coaching – call or text Debra at 914.393.1904