Author: me

by

Your Goals

Many of my goals were and are related to OCD and my health.  I didn’t make a lot of other goals because I didn’t see myself being able to achieve them.  I thought that “normal” people had the privilege to dream and I simply did not get that luxury because I had so much work to do just to be “normal” and do simple things most people took for granted like turn a light switch off once.  

I kept telling myself that if one day I could get to a good place with my OCD, I would push forward with what I really wanted to do, practice medicine.  As some of you know, my OCD is mostly in “remission”, though I still feel like the “OCD” girl sometimes, like the scars still just stare at me.  And when my OCD went away, I was so angry at myself for not taking advantage of this and pursuing my big dreams right away.  I felt behind and that I had so far to go.

But, I realized it’s never to late to start dreaming!  I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when I was a kid.  When in first grade, sitting in a circle, kids shared what they wanted to be; a fireman, a school teacher…I said “I want to be a super star!”  My teacher said I couldn’t be that.  I saw a crest toothpaste commercial with the blue sparkly toothpaste star dancing and saying ‘you can be a super star too!”  I thought that sounded good to me, so that’s what I said.  After that bitch crushed my dreams, I didn’t pick up any new ones.

Until now!  I had so much determination to get my health in order, and though there’s only so much I can do, I did everything I could because it was my ultimate goal to be as healthy as I could be.  Sometimes, a lot of times, I felt like quitting, but that little voice inside me kept pushing me. Sometimes it’s hard to hear that voice, but we all have it.

And finally, this leads me to how important it is to have faith in yourself and pursue your goals.  If you don’t have any yet, start simple and small.  That’s ok 🙂 Some of my goals are tiny, like “eat”. Some of them are big, like “become a doctor”.

This week in therapy we discussed self-limiting thoughts. Things like “I’m not enough” or “I’m a loser”. Stuff that gets in the way of me pushing forward towards my goals and sometimes leads me into the realm of self punishment. I’m trying to figure out where I learned mine and why it’s so hard for me to let go of them. So, I decided to try an exercise. I took a photo I liked from a recent photoshoot and I looked at me in the picture, and thought about all the self-limiting statements I believe about myself. Thoughts that no matter how many people tell me are untrue, I simply cannot change my mind. I wrote these thoughts on the photo, trying to look at it objectively, wondering if it’s possible other people might not believe what I believe; that maybe I’m wrong and that these beliefs are just untrue statements taught to me during my early life.

Image

As much as I did not want to, I did this exercise again.  Even if I don’t believe it right now, I realize a lot of my emotional pain stems from my thoughts and I have got to start showing myself more compassion.  Maybe I’ll believe it someday.  That’s a goal of mine!

Image

 

Like, I’ve said from the beginning…stay strong.  This means, don’t quit and remember that strength sometimes looks like tears.

by

Cutting Revisited

The “want” to stop cutting that walked me into my therapist’s office was gone.  I no longer had the conviction needed to help me win this fight to stop cutting, so I just stop caring.  I started cutting again after months of not when I got deeply depressed a couple months ago.  After I slid into old maladaptive habits, I felt hopeless that I could ever really change.  What was the point?  And that’s the thing, to stop cutting, the person has to want to stop. My last therapy session helped bring me back and I want to share the change that took place.

I explained to my therapist how I was struggling to feel emotions.  I was once such an empathic person and now, even in the direct presence of someone’s intense pain, I felt nothing.  Times when I was aware I should be feeling something, there was nothing.  Completely numb, not even a hint of anything.  Even cutting did not give me the same relief it once did.  Not all the time, but it was becoming more frequent and it was bothering me because although I do not like feeling stressed or depressed, I missed feeling passion and zest.  My therapist said:

“If you numb yourself out to pain, you also numb yourself out to passion.  It is no coincidence that since you have started cutting again and with more frequency that you are starting to feel numb.  If you keep cutting, you can expect to feel less and less”.

I cried because I started to see the desire I had lost.  I wanted to feel.  I think I could not keep it going before because my reasons for quitting were dependent on external factors.  This time, I was quitting for me.  As much as I do not enjoy feeling certain things, I want to enjoy life and feel passion for it.  I want to feel and I want to stop self harm.

by

When the Urge to Cut Becomes a Memory

I cried in therapy today discussing how I wished I didn’t still get the urge to cut.  I wanted it to be a distant part of my past, like the days when my OCD was at its worst.  He asked if my OCD was gone and I said it was mostly, but not entirely.  He told me:

“It will always be a part of you.”

I feel like for the first time I can accept who I am now, but my history of OCD and self harm and all that…that’s a different story.  I  wish I could extract it from my life like it never happened.  My therapist said

 “How could you cut off a limb and not expect that to still affect you in some way?”

His point being that my past is not some attacker that I managed to destroy and walk away from, but rather its a set of experiences that lead me to who I am now, a person I am happy to be.  And, wether I like it or not, the OCD is always going to be a part of me.

I have managed to employ strategies that are very helpful in keeping me from cutting.  One thing I do is write a word (“Strength”) on my arm. It helps me to feel like I’m marking my body in some way and the word is a mantra for me when I start to feel wilted.  I am so glad I have been doing so well not cutting, but I am upset the urge keeps bugging me.  My therapist addressed this too, saying how practicing self harm for so many years, how could I expect everything to change overnight and isn’t the self anger what provoked my self harm anyways?

yeah…

I am continuing to practice abstaining from harming myself and this week, the new thing I am working at is accepting my past as well as accepting that the urge to cut is going to be around for a while and me getting angry at myself for that is not going to help.  One day at a time.

by

Shorts in Public

My therapist asked me why I cut myself.  What did I get out of it?  I came up with 4 reasons.

  1. Self punishment – I wanted to atone; to hurt myself because I was angry for the feelings I had.
  2. Control – I felt I couldn’t control my emotional pain, but I could control my physical pain.
  3. Emotional relief – The endorphin rush
  4. Distraction – The physical pain distracted me from my emotional pain.

My therapist told me that the first one I listed, self punishment, was the odd one on my list.  This was so because I could find healthy alternatives to achieve 2, 3 and 4, but not 1.

“If you had a daughter would you slash her legs, throw her in a closet and tell her to shut-up?”

O my god!!  Of course I wouldn’t!  He then asked why I felt ok doing that to myself.

I tried to look back to my past and think of what started it all, this idea that I needed to punish myself.  I felt so bad for all my shameful obsessions.  My brain tried to find a reason why the thought looped.  I hated my brain.  I hated myself.  Part of me felt I must have done something to deserve OCD.  I felt broken and so full of hate, that I wanted to hurt myself.

I haven’t cut myself in over a month and a half, so what sparked this conversation in therapy today was my fear about the future and what if I start cutting again.  I’m terrified of that.  I explained how I felt like I had been doing ok because there hasn’t been too much I couldn’t handle in my life lately.  He pointed out that perhaps I was attracting less drama because I was showing myself more love.  This actually made a lot of sense to me.  I have not cut because I have started to love myself and I am showing myself more love because I am not cutting.  I believe that I cannot have a healthy lifestyle with successful relationships and a career while practicing self harm, at least I could not find a way to have both in the past.

I wore shorts in public today for the first time in a year.  I have been wanting to do that for so long.  It’s this type of thing that reminds me that things are improving.  I am learning to show myself compassion.

I am still afraid of the future, but each time I get the urge to cut and decide not to, it gets easier and easier.  I am incorporating things I have learned in therapy to cope with these situations in ways that are not self-destructive.  I am happier than I have been in a long time.