Regression

I feel as though I am being regressed back in to a teenager. And the reason for this is my father. He is driving me insane. Well, more insane. His whole attitude and the way he is with me is really getting to me. He is condescending towards me, expects me to run around after him, tells me what to do and mimics me. It is seriously driving me insane. I try and avoid it by staying in my room but even still I am on edge all the time he is home as I am just waiting for him to start. I need to move out and as soon as possible.

I saw the psychologist today and talked to him about it. He said he didn't like hearing me talk about what was going on as it seemed as though my father was being cruel. I said it wasn't intentional and I don't think he knows he is doing it. He said I should talk to him about it but I don't see a lot of point. It won't change anything so why have a difficult conversation I don't want to have for nothing. There was a point last week where I was on the sofa and he came in and just told me to move. And then mimicked me when I replied that I was sitting there, what I was watching was nearly over and I would be going to my room when it was. I didn't get all teenagery on him but I did snap a bit and say that he was driving me mad with his constant digs and what he was doing and he was like "well I am not doing anything, stop being so sensitive".

I told the psychologist that all of this no matter how small was adding to my anxiety and I spend the whole time he is in on edge just waiting for it. He said he could see how this would be the case. And, because of the anxiety the strength of the urges to self harm were becoming stronger. I have not self harmed at all in the last 2 weeks since coming out of hospital. The urges haven't been that strong but they are getting stronger each day. I said I had been trying out the DBT stuff and what I felt comfortable with and he said it's important I stick with it and keep practising it even when I don't have urges so that it becomes second nature to me. I said it all felt like just sticking a plaster on it and not getting to the route cause of things and he said sometimes you need a plaster as will stop other things and the self harm from getting worse as in the past I have done some pretty serious life endangering shit and nearly died when I had a bowl perforation last year that required emergency surgery. The DBT stuff, if I practise it enough should stop me getting back to that stage again.

He asked me if I wanted to die. I said I did think about it still. That there is only so much I can cope with before it gets to that stage where I start to make attempts and that I feel that there is only so far I will go with trying before I think it's not going to work and can not see a point any more. He said I was talking like it was inevitable that that was going to happen. I said I wasn't sure. I know it comes in cycles for me. So maybe it is. At the moment I do have some energy to put into all of this but there will probably come a point where I lose that and lose all hope. I've re read my blog recently and have seen that there is the cycles that come around quite often.

I don't want to be the person who self-harms. I don't want to rely on it. I don't want to have the urges. It's one thing learning how to cope with the urges but I don't want them there at all. And that is one of the things that makes me feel suicidal. I have been told the urges may never go away but I may be able to learn how to cope with them. I don't want to be just able to cope with them. I don't want them. Am I seriously going to have to live my whole life like this? I don't want a life like that. A life of struggling. A life of anxiety. Learning how to cope with them is just like sticking a plaster on a gaping wound that needs to be sutured. I need suturing. Psychologist thinks it's about control and living at home is not doing me any favours. We talked a bit about when I lived on my own in the past and I said I was self harming more. So moving out, although it will solve some problems is not going to make everything all hunky dory again.

He is only going to see me until March so I will probably only have 4-5 more appointments with him. I don't know if anything will be put in place after. But I am feeling quite anxious about losing him already. I do find talking to him useful as I don't talk to anyone else about the things I talk to him about. He said this needs to change as will not do me any good bottling it up and like a pressure cooker I may explode. I don't really have long to work on that really. But on the other hand I when I go to the appointments I never know what I want to talk about. Maybe I should write down things through the week leading up to the appointment so I have got a list of things to talk about with him.

Does anyone else have the same problem that I do?

Confidence

Since leaving hospital I have had low confidence. It really knocked my confidence being in so long, so much so I struggled to make phone calls to people I didn't know. I have OT coming round tomorrow and she has asked me to look at the Recovery Colleges courses and there is one on confidence building but I am not sure if I want to do a course like that. I question my own needs and wonder if I need to do one?

But on the other hand, this is going to sound really slaggy, but here I go anyway... I went out on Saturday night. Before I went out I was feeling really shit about myself. I kept looking in the mirror and just feeling massive. More massive than usual. I felt so bad about myself I didn't really want to go out and was feeling quite anxious. I even started doing my usual drink to forget/fall in to oblivion which usually has disastrous consequences. We were meeting people I didn't know which didn't help either as I had not met them before and wondered what they had been told about me. And on the way into town my friends new boyfriend was making jokes about self harm and saying how he has an alter ego on facebook who he makes say things like "my life is going shit so I'm going to put broken glass in my shoes and walk around". Basically just making me feel really shit about it. In one way though I suppose I should have realised that this meant that my friend hadn't told him about me and why or if I was in hospital for so long. But either way, not good for confidence.

I was pleasantly surprised by the guys we met up with. If they noticed I wasn't talking to anyone they made an effort to bring me in to the conversation and I got on really well with them. I was actually starting to have a good time. Then we were in a bar and I got talking to a random guy and we ended up kissing. Then in another bar there was another guy. Then in the club there was about 2 guys. I'm not actually sure as I was very drunk. Very drunk. And while I can't really condone this type of behaviour from myself as it is kind of slaggy, I woke up in a great mood and it did give me a confidence boost as these guys were attracted to me. To start the night feeling so shit about myself and not really wanting to go and very anxious it finished being one of the best nights out I have had in a long time. I woke up with 2 random numbers in my phone and then last night a text from another of them.

Although I was in a good mood yesterday as of the previous night I was hanging and had the red bull shakes. I try and avoid vodka usually as it usually gets me into trouble but I didn't really know what to drink and didn't fancy anything else. So I was drinking double vodka red bulls and a lot of them, and jagerbombs too. No wonder I felt rough until about 7pm last night.

Also, this is my 300th post. Wow. I re read all my blog not so long back and it makes some interesting reading. I can't see any patterns but have seen at times when I have been ill. I think at the moment I am not quite there but I am in recovery. I am trying. I am even trying this DBT stuff which Psychologist is now sneaking in to our sessions. I worry that I will never stop being a self harmer. That when the going gets tough I will look to take an easy way out by trying to kill myself. That this disease is always going to be with me and is me. I feel I am defined by it at the moment and it is what I am.

I am trying to make positive, sensible plans and to move forward.
I am just not sure if I have the capabilities to do so.

Finding The Words To Say

I realise I've not posted in a while. It's not because nothing has happened but because I have struggled to put it in to words. I have had two psychology sessions since I last wrote and I have no chance of remembering details.

Well to start off with I am now out of hospital, as of today. It was a planned admission (kind of, in the way that once I agreed to go in we planned it) of three weeks. If I am honest I didn't want to come out. I told them this also. I said I don't feel any better than when I came in and I am still having the same suicidal thoughts and urges to self-harm as I was when I was admitted and I don't feel as though I am any better equipped to deal with them. Whilst in hospital I self harmed seriously twice. Once which I wrote about before which was swallowing the battery and the second time I cut up quite badly, blood let, swallowed the needle and razor and popped a load of paracetamol but I was found before I took the paracetamol. I'm not proud of myself. I feel so let down with myself. I had tried so hard to keep on top of the urges and not do anything. It also pissed the staff off as I had spent some time talking in detail and getting stuff sorted out the same day and she said she felt as though she had wasted her time.

She did lend me this really good book about self-harm and the reasons behind why people do it and I was able to identify with a lot of the reasons and although I found the beginning bit really triggering it also made me feel as though I wasn't alone and helped me understand myself a bit more. The book is Freedom from Self-Harm: Overcoming Self-Injury with Skills from Dbt and Other Treatments. I only read the first 6 chapters and didn't actually get on to the overcoming it and skills part but I have brought my own copy off Amazon for £10 so if you self harm it may be worth giving it a look.

So if I go back to two weeks ago the session with the psychologist. He said it was really good to see me. Even though it was only a few days after a massive OD and the 136. Just going off tangent a little the AMHP called psychologist to get his advice about me. Thought that was weird that's all. Anyway. I told him how I had been giving this mindfulness stuff more of a go and had been using YouTube for guided stuff and he became really smug. Bastard. Nah, only joking, but he did get quite smug and I told you so.

This week we talked a lot about DBT techniques. I think he's secretly giving me DBT now. And I've got a load of exercises to do and rate them all every day before next week. I'll probably just end up making most of it up. I am not very good with "homework". I use the sessions to spill my guts out and then forget about them. I don't tend to take much from them. I know if I am going to get better then I need to take more from them. He did most the talking today though. I told him my worries about going home and even before I am at home I find myself making plans to kill myself and he seemed to think all this DBT stuff was the answer. That and filling my time. There's probably a reason why as a psychologist he's probably on around £50k a year, and maybe, just maybe he has some method behind what he is saying. And me being me refuses as usual to listen. Maybe I should actually give the stuff a go.

I've also decided I am moving out as living with my parents is just toxic for me. I am constantly on edge, tis not a good place to be. I was assessed by tenancy support workers from Rethink today to see if they will take me on. I suppose I will find out next week at some point. My CPN is going to try and get me in supported living and what the TSW is try and get me higher priority on council listings so I am given a better chance when I bid for properties. I don't know what it means for uni though as I won't be given housing benefit if I am a student. I really don't want to give up the course. It is something I am really worrying about. I will speak to my CPN when I see her next week.

I'm having massive urges right now and am reluctant to sign off because this is keeping me occupied, but I have run out of things to say.

Thanks
xxx