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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.

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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.

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Sick Days Test Me

Up until a few months ago, getting sick really tested me and I usually lost so to speak. I would fly into a blind panic, worried that my organs were failing as if the delirium triggered by my illness was just too hard not to drink. I have taken alcohol out of my life and have not cut myself in over month. This is the longest I have gone without causing harm to myself in some form and when the urges come up to cut, it is getting easier to get through it unmarked. So, back to the sick thing…this particular area is still quite a challenge for me. When you get sleep deprived, or really, deprived of anything, you start to get a little bit desperate in some way. Being sick brings out that desperation in me. The insecurities pop up, the sleep is weird and the worry about my health kicks in and combining this all the with the general feeling of being sorta out of it, makes for what feels like a test to me. I am incredibly uncomfortable right now mentally, but what is different now than a year ago is that I am recognizing that I am in a way being tested. This is all temporary and I must accept that being sick is not fun and that these looming emotions are just here for a while. Panicking will not help me, so I am keeping up on my nutrition and water intake, sleeping when I need to, NOT self-diagnosing on the internet, and allowing my mind to get a little mad right now.

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the road to good health

It is not easy, nor is it free.

I do not believe there is a finish line one crosses to move from being an unhealthy person to a healthy one.  It is a never stagnate scale in which our daily choices bring us closer to one side or the other.  For much of my life, I felt like to get rid of my OCD and things about myself I didn’t like, I needed to punish myself and dismantle my emotions.  I hid from the world because I didn’t believe I could handle it, but all the while, there was a spark in me that kept me fighting.  I will never stop trying to move toward a place of good health.  I believe to do this, I must honor myself, instead of punishing myself.  Expressing my emotions, especially the unpleasant ones, takes some practice, but it’s getting much easier.  Some days are not as easy, and I have learned that this is normal and to be expected.  I do not like these days, but I feel like they are getting less common and I am indeed reminded that most days I am very lucky.

Besides battling OCD, stopping myself from self harm is the hardest thing I have experienced.  Some nights, I simple cannot trust any thought that comes into my head and I am reminded of how OCD robbed my intuition from me.  Therapy has taught me to recognize the cognitive distortions when they arise which has helped me tremendously, and just like I fought OCD, I will continue to fight the urge to hurt myself.  I feel like my intuition is healing.

My chiropractor today asked me what motivates me to getup in the morning.  I had no desire to have a real conversation with him about it, so I said “work”.  I thought it was a funny answer.  Throughout the day I thought about this question and I think it’s actually a good one to ask yourself.

That spark that keeps me fighting is more real to me now than ever and as the denial fades, so does the confusion. I am following my heart and thus honoring my spirit.  I feel that although it will take time to work through my self-destructive habits, I have to focus on the the light which guides me ahead.  Long term goals highly motivate me to treat myself with compassion.  I want to go back to school to pursue naturopathic medicine, I want to travel, I want to nurture my relationships, and I want to surpass my supposed limitations.  Additionally, short term goals, like daily decisions move me in the direction of good health.

One day at a time.

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Dissociation and Depersonalization

I have had occasional occurrences of disassociation in my life, but it was not until the most recent and scary one that I felt prompted to ask my therapist about what was happening to my consciousness.

Disassociation describes an interrupted state of consciousness usually accompanied with a feeling of being detached from one’s emotions, body and/or immediate surroundings.  This is often a coping mechanism to deal with overwhelming experiences and is often seen in people responding to trauma, but sometimes it just happens.  A dissociative experience could be as common and casual as driving on auto-pilot.  You know, when you drive from point A to B and you really don’t remember the drive at all.  A more severe form of disassociation might involve fragmented emotions, multiple identities and a loss of the sense of self.

I remember day dreaming a whole lot as a kid.  I remember looking in the mirror on occasion and not recognizing myself or walking down the street feeling as though I was walking on the set of a movie in a haze.   I used to say I responded poorly in emergencies like when I started a small kitchen fire; I just stared blankly, completely frozen.  Really, I wasn’t dumb or responding poorly, I was checking out because it was too overwhelming for me.

Most recently I went to a yoga class.  I do not meditate as I would like to because it actually really stresses me out so yoga sounded nice, but I was nervous.  I breathed deeply during the class as instructed and felt incredibly irritated.  I do not know why, but when trying to relax in this capacity was making me upset.  Toward the end of class, I was exhausted and we laid on the floor in “corpse” pose.  I began to feel “out of it” and then my thoughts turned very dark, including suicide ideation.  I cried quietly and felt as though some other voice was talking in my head. I knew it was my brain, but I felt no sense of control.  I just listened to my cruel thoughts.

Class ended and I walked out in a daze, seeing the world in a fog.  I walked around passing people, staring them down because I thought I was invisible.  I got home and slowly came out back to my normal conciousness.

My therapist told me I had experienced depersonalization which is a type of dissociation with symptoms like what I had described.

As you might guess, I have been instructed by my therapist to avoid yoga and similar mindfulness based activities for now.  We are working on me becoming more comfortable with my mind so I can handle feeling emotions without “checking out”.  And that’s kinda how treatment works for this.  Treatment is dependent on the underlying condition so the therapist will decide the best course of action.

Disassociation can be a one-time occurrence or once in a while thing or its own disorder.  It can also be a prominent symptom in other non-dissacociative disorders like OCD, Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder and Depression.

 

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Update: What a mess

It’s been a while and I keep thinking of reasons why I’d write later, but there is no good time like the present!  A lot has been going on.  In a future post I will write about how my OCD has mostly cleared up.  I thought this was impossible.  With such severe OCD, I really thought it could be managed, but not cured.  I am unbelievably grateful for this.

I have recently moved out on my own.  I have never lived on my own so it’s quite exciting, but lonely at times.  My husband and I broke up, so hence the move.  He is a person with many lovely qualities, but also some destructive and incompatible issues so, it was time.

I started self harm again and couldnt be more upset about it.  I also have a new therapist and therapy is very difficult, but very helpful in that I feel a strong connection with my therapist.  He challenges me to question that which I’d rather not.  It’s going well.

I have been quite depressed lately, and my self esteem has gone from ok-ish to non-existant.  I know it will take some time for things to get better, I just hope and will strive to not make as many stupid decisions until then.  I am hoping though, that without the OCD, my options are now more available to me like going to school or traveling.  One thing that my last therapist had me do was to think of all the things OCD took from me.  I listed off things like being in school, traveling, visiting my family… It wasn’t until I thought about it that I got the motivation to really change my life.  It made me upset to think of what I was missing out on, but I also knew it didn’t have to be that way.

A lot of people ask me what else they can do besides therapy, either due to finances or a lack of trust for therapy.  Therapy helped me greatly, but it’t not the only option.  Not one thing works for everyone.  And, that’s what my blog is about…trying stuff and seeing what works.

So, at this moment I am sitting here with strep throat (ow), but am excited to share my story of how I got my OCD under control.  Till then, take care.

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OCD on Glee

Ever see Glee?  I was excited to see it when it first came out since I had heard there would be a character with OCD on the show.  Unfortunately I am mostly disspointed with how they have chosen to portray OCD.

For those who don’t watch or who haven’t seen it, that character is Emma, and her OCD mostly manifests in mysophobia (more commonly known as germaphobia).  The pilot showed Emma getting quite anxious after stepping on a piece of gum.  Many episodes show her cleaning fruit with moist towel-ettes and gloves.

Most recently aired season three: episode three, where Emma’s parents come over for dinner which stresses out Emma to the point of compulsively arranging and rearranging her silverware.  Her parents are mean and make fun of her.  A flashback scene then shows Emma as a child sitting at the table of a restaurant.  Her parents hand her the familiar moist towel-ette and she begins cleaning her cup as her parents do; implying that Emma developed OCD because of the way she was raised by her parents.  I did not appreciate this as it sends a strong message that OCD is someone’s fault, when it is not.  Later in the episode, Emma is seen compulsively rubbing her hands together, before she kneels to the ground to pray.  Will is with her, and says “I wish I could make things better for you”, not knowing what to do.

I thought that scene was sweet and probably the closest the show has come to portraying OCD in a realistic way, but overall Emma falls short.  She is often seen cleaning or compulsing, but she always seems quite calm performing her rituals, and I think most of us don’t really recognize that feeling while compulsing.  Thus, further supporting the false idea the OCD is about perfectionism, cleanliness and anal retentiveness rather than anxiety.  At the heart of it, OCD is about trying to make the anxiety go away.  When an obsession or intrusive thought pops into the mind, the person becomes anxious and tries to get rid of the feeling with compulsive behavior.  Emma rarely seems anxious, as most of the time during her cleaning, she is chatting with great ease.  After a while you don’t even notice her cleaning because it comes across like she is simply overdoing it.

Without too many shows highlighting OCD (besides some exploitative reality show garbage), I am less than impressed, and I really don’t relate to the character.

You ever watch Scrubs?  That scene with Michael J Fox was what helped me realize I had OCD. It was a very realistic representation as he showed anxiety, stress, frustration, shame and strength.  Emma is pretty flat as a character and while I think it’s nice they have an OCD character…yawn.

Here’s the clip from from Scrubs that really changed my life.