Goals for this week:
1. I will not hurt myself.
2. I will destroy my midterm tomorrow.
3. I will spend 28 hours in the lab, being productive and maybe making something cool.
4. I will get at least 7 hours of sleep every night. 8 would be better, but I'll start with 7, it's better than my usual.
5. I will not throw up. It might mean I spend an hour at the gym every day and stick mainly to eating vegetables, but I will not throw up.
6. I will give myself a pedicure, because I like the number 6 better than 5, and I want something relaxing to look forward to.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
still hidden
Crisis averted. I made it through the weekend boyfriend visit without him noticing what I'd done. It's easier to hide it from him during the week, and it'll be healed over by next weekend. He'll never have to know. I'll never have to explain.
Part of me wonders if I should be hiding this at all. The rest of me is sure I can somehow stop doing this on my own, without anyone's knowledge or help, and then I'll never have to hurt anyone by telling them about it.
And now off to studying. I have a midterm tomorrow, I have no idea what to expect from it in terms of difficulty, no idea what I should focus on while I'm studying. At least this will keep me busy for the rest of today.
This week will go better. I'll make sure of it.
Part of me wonders if I should be hiding this at all. The rest of me is sure I can somehow stop doing this on my own, without anyone's knowledge or help, and then I'll never have to hurt anyone by telling them about it.
And now off to studying. I have a midterm tomorrow, I have no idea what to expect from it in terms of difficulty, no idea what I should focus on while I'm studying. At least this will keep me busy for the rest of today.
This week will go better. I'll make sure of it.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
hide
I don't know how to hide my wrist.
It's mostly him that I want to hide it from. When his wrist is sore, he wraps a bandanna around it, so I did that. I figured it was a plausible explanation for why it was covered.
Then my brother saw it.
"What happened to your wrist?" "I hurt it." "Hurt it how?" "Sprain."
At this point, he raises his eyebrow. "Are you lying?"
I look away. He caught me off-guard, I don't know what to do, I hesitate, and then he picks up on it and he knows.
Well that stayed hidden about all of 5 seconds from my brother. I wonder how long it will hold up against him?
Please, please, please let him think my wrist is sore, in a muscular-ache kind of way...
It's mostly him that I want to hide it from. When his wrist is sore, he wraps a bandanna around it, so I did that. I figured it was a plausible explanation for why it was covered.
Then my brother saw it.
"What happened to your wrist?" "I hurt it." "Hurt it how?" "Sprain."
At this point, he raises his eyebrow. "Are you lying?"
I look away. He caught me off-guard, I don't know what to do, I hesitate, and then he picks up on it and he knows.
Well that stayed hidden about all of 5 seconds from my brother. I wonder how long it will hold up against him?
Please, please, please let him think my wrist is sore, in a muscular-ache kind of way...
Friday, February 26, 2010
perception
I've realized some things.
1. I'm afraid to be too honest with people. I'm afraid to let them know when they've hurt me, afraid my speaking up will make them feel badly. I would rather be the one feeling badly, and the more I care about someone, the more effort I will put into keeping them from ever feeling bad.
2. I don't react well to people being upset or angry or sad because of something I did (or didn't do). It means I've failed to keep them happy, that I'm useless, that I'm not good enough for them. If I were better, then I could keep them happy all the time.
3. I don't think much of myself. I sort of treat myself as expendable. I think that's why I have problems expressing negative emotions. If I feel sad or angry or upset in any way, most people around me would never know it - I'll pretend, I'll lie, I'll hide. I won't express it, not in front of someone; their happiness is worth more than mine and I don't want to upset them. If I do express anything negative, I seem to only be able to do it in self-destructive ways. I'll starve myself, or purge, or hurt myself. And then I'll feel better. Problem solved - it's a way of getting rid of something really negative without hurting anyone I care about.
Now that I re-read those three things, there's actually a lot of overlap between them. I'm only just starting to sort these things out. But the overlap's not important here.
What's important, is what these things mean. I think this explains my tendency to freak out and hurt myself.
Going back to what happened on Tuesday.... My boyfriend was angry (or strongly annoyed, as he rephrased more recently) about something I did. I felt horrible for doing something that made him unhappy. I didn't want to express that I was feeling horrible, because I was worried that would make him feel bad for being angry, and that would be counter-productive to my goal of making him happy again. So I kept it inside, went to the pub, laughed, pretended I was ok. When I was alone again, I still felt bad, and didn't know what to do with those emotions. So I hurt myself, stopped eating properly, and just generally did not take care of my body until I was feeling better again.
Normally, that would have been the end of it. Everything back to normal, no harm done to anyone I consider important. Except that the cuts on my wrist are still there, and are obviously self-inflicted. They won't leave scars - I never go deep enough for that - but I'm worried that he'll see them, guess at the cause of them, and feel bad about that. Luckily it's winter and I can keep them covered most of the time by wearing long sleeves, but because of our relationship, I can't hide them forever without it becoming suspicious. I'm just hoping they'll heal before he does notice.
Obviously, his being upset at my self-harm is not good, especially because of how much I want to keep the people I love happy at all costs. I've been trying to figure out why I reacted the way I did, and how I might have been able to do things differently, more 'healthily.' I think the healthy way to deal with it, would have been to simply ask him why he was angry. Then I'd understand what happened and maybe be able to prevent it from happening in the future. I was afraid to talk about it because I was afraid of upsetting him.
And here's the point where my psychiatrist's influence has started to help me make changes. I asked myself why I was afraid of upsetting him. When I'm afraid of doing something, she suggested I ask myself, "what's the worst thing that could happen?" And I realized I was actually afraid that he would react the way I reacted - that he would blame himself, get angry at himself, possibly hurt himself. But most people don't react that way. I do sometimes, and my ex would have sometimes, but despite me knowing two people that react that way, I realize that most people don't. On the other hand, if I had just talked to him about the whole situation, then there's the possibility of actually resolving it and even preventing it from happening again.
It took me until last night to figure all of that out. I took a deep breath, called him, and asked him what I'd done to make him angry. That wasn't the first thing I said when he picked up the phone, since I didn't want to jump right into that, but eventually I worked it into the conversation.
And you know what?
It wasn't so bad.
He said he didn't mind spending time with me, but that it annoyed him when I tried to plan our days out (or parts of them anyway) just to spend a couple extra minutes together. That if I want to spend time with him, just tell him, and he'll come over for an hour or an evening or whatever.
Then he asked if it had upset me. I knew he would figure that part out - otherwise why would I ask about it two days later? So I said yes, a little. He said sorry for that. He also said he over-reacted, that he wasn't really angry at me, more so annoyed at the time, and he didn't realize it would affect me so much.
I even asked if he thought I was too needy, and we talked about that too. He said he didn't think I was too needy, and that it was ok for me to want to spend time with him when I'm feeling down, but that I need to tell him that's why I want to spend the extra few minutes with him, otherwise he doesn't realize that on his own.
I'm kind of proud that I got up the courage to talk to him about that. We're getting along fine today. We saw each other this morning, and we're going out for dinner tonight. I'm even going to eat normal amounts of food.
I'm still going to try to keep him from seeing my wrist until it's healed though.
1. I'm afraid to be too honest with people. I'm afraid to let them know when they've hurt me, afraid my speaking up will make them feel badly. I would rather be the one feeling badly, and the more I care about someone, the more effort I will put into keeping them from ever feeling bad.
2. I don't react well to people being upset or angry or sad because of something I did (or didn't do). It means I've failed to keep them happy, that I'm useless, that I'm not good enough for them. If I were better, then I could keep them happy all the time.
3. I don't think much of myself. I sort of treat myself as expendable. I think that's why I have problems expressing negative emotions. If I feel sad or angry or upset in any way, most people around me would never know it - I'll pretend, I'll lie, I'll hide. I won't express it, not in front of someone; their happiness is worth more than mine and I don't want to upset them. If I do express anything negative, I seem to only be able to do it in self-destructive ways. I'll starve myself, or purge, or hurt myself. And then I'll feel better. Problem solved - it's a way of getting rid of something really negative without hurting anyone I care about.
Now that I re-read those three things, there's actually a lot of overlap between them. I'm only just starting to sort these things out. But the overlap's not important here.
What's important, is what these things mean. I think this explains my tendency to freak out and hurt myself.
Going back to what happened on Tuesday.... My boyfriend was angry (or strongly annoyed, as he rephrased more recently) about something I did. I felt horrible for doing something that made him unhappy. I didn't want to express that I was feeling horrible, because I was worried that would make him feel bad for being angry, and that would be counter-productive to my goal of making him happy again. So I kept it inside, went to the pub, laughed, pretended I was ok. When I was alone again, I still felt bad, and didn't know what to do with those emotions. So I hurt myself, stopped eating properly, and just generally did not take care of my body until I was feeling better again.
Normally, that would have been the end of it. Everything back to normal, no harm done to anyone I consider important. Except that the cuts on my wrist are still there, and are obviously self-inflicted. They won't leave scars - I never go deep enough for that - but I'm worried that he'll see them, guess at the cause of them, and feel bad about that. Luckily it's winter and I can keep them covered most of the time by wearing long sleeves, but because of our relationship, I can't hide them forever without it becoming suspicious. I'm just hoping they'll heal before he does notice.
Obviously, his being upset at my self-harm is not good, especially because of how much I want to keep the people I love happy at all costs. I've been trying to figure out why I reacted the way I did, and how I might have been able to do things differently, more 'healthily.' I think the healthy way to deal with it, would have been to simply ask him why he was angry. Then I'd understand what happened and maybe be able to prevent it from happening in the future. I was afraid to talk about it because I was afraid of upsetting him.
And here's the point where my psychiatrist's influence has started to help me make changes. I asked myself why I was afraid of upsetting him. When I'm afraid of doing something, she suggested I ask myself, "what's the worst thing that could happen?" And I realized I was actually afraid that he would react the way I reacted - that he would blame himself, get angry at himself, possibly hurt himself. But most people don't react that way. I do sometimes, and my ex would have sometimes, but despite me knowing two people that react that way, I realize that most people don't. On the other hand, if I had just talked to him about the whole situation, then there's the possibility of actually resolving it and even preventing it from happening again.
It took me until last night to figure all of that out. I took a deep breath, called him, and asked him what I'd done to make him angry. That wasn't the first thing I said when he picked up the phone, since I didn't want to jump right into that, but eventually I worked it into the conversation.
And you know what?
It wasn't so bad.
He said he didn't mind spending time with me, but that it annoyed him when I tried to plan our days out (or parts of them anyway) just to spend a couple extra minutes together. That if I want to spend time with him, just tell him, and he'll come over for an hour or an evening or whatever.
Then he asked if it had upset me. I knew he would figure that part out - otherwise why would I ask about it two days later? So I said yes, a little. He said sorry for that. He also said he over-reacted, that he wasn't really angry at me, more so annoyed at the time, and he didn't realize it would affect me so much.
I even asked if he thought I was too needy, and we talked about that too. He said he didn't think I was too needy, and that it was ok for me to want to spend time with him when I'm feeling down, but that I need to tell him that's why I want to spend the extra few minutes with him, otherwise he doesn't realize that on his own.
I'm kind of proud that I got up the courage to talk to him about that. We're getting along fine today. We saw each other this morning, and we're going out for dinner tonight. I'm even going to eat normal amounts of food.
I'm still going to try to keep him from seeing my wrist until it's healed though.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
still too
I'm feeling somewhat better today (then again I am also drunk as I type this, at 6 in the morning, as I struggle with my insomnia).
I still think I'm too needy and dependent. I treasure my time with him and will go out of my way to plan my day around catching a few moments with him, even if it's just walking him to class. But he will not do the same for me. That much has become clear. I don't know whether I've suddenly become better at reading his negative emotions lately, or if he's just becoming more annoyed by my neediness lately. It doesn't really matter I guess; either way, it means I have to stop being so pathetically dependent on those moments.
There was a time when I wasn't dependent on anyone for anything. Now I'm wishing I'd stayed that way.
I still think I'm too needy and dependent. I treasure my time with him and will go out of my way to plan my day around catching a few moments with him, even if it's just walking him to class. But he will not do the same for me. That much has become clear. I don't know whether I've suddenly become better at reading his negative emotions lately, or if he's just becoming more annoyed by my neediness lately. It doesn't really matter I guess; either way, it means I have to stop being so pathetically dependent on those moments.
There was a time when I wasn't dependent on anyone for anything. Now I'm wishing I'd stayed that way.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
inconsistency is...
using vitamin E gel on my face to heal scars, less than 30 minutes after making new ones on my arm
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