PHP error checking

Hi all,
I have a form that once submitted, will check a text area to see if it is less than 190 characters. That works fine,

but within my results page (the submitted results will display in the results page) I have a large text area that holds all the information.

How can I get the str_len function to work so that it will not display any other information within the text area, except for an error mess. if the limit was exceeded?

As you can see…I added it in a couple different spots to see if it changed nething
I hope that makes sense…
thanks