Renaissance Faire

All right, so this is interesting. Nightengale is a big RenFaire fan, she loves those things. There's a faire coming up in autumn that she wants to attend, and I with her. She's been trying to get me to a faire for years, so I figured why not?

"Oh and you have to dress up!" She tells me. Woah, me? Dress in medieval garb? I can speak the lingo (thank you, Shakespeare), but I was really unsure of going. What good am I going to be at a ren faire? But then I thought that it might actually be fun to do something so out of my comfort zone.

"What kind of costume will you wear? I'll help you make it!" She is an incredible seamstress. But who or what would I be? I don't really care for the long skirts and layers that are required of women, I prefer the clothing that men get to wear. Its simpler. But wait! An idea came to me. I could dress as Arwen. The first time we see her in Lord Of The Rings, she's wearing a riding outfit. Pants with a flowing top that extends to the knees. Its lovely and something I could wear all the time if I wanted.

This isn't something I'm comfortable doing, but I suppose it would be good for me to go out of that zone I'm forcing myself into.

Long Battles

Today was a bit harder in therapy. Doc is always gentle, though today she was firm as well, like a parent teaching their child to swim or ride a bike. They have to push a little before the child will have success. That was today.

Last week, I gave her permission to be more direct, that she could ask or steer the conversation to places where I normally do not go. I feel that I am my own worst enemy because I'll divert the conversation or beat about the bush, as they say. This afternoon, Doc took advantage of that and said she was thinking about something I'd said last week.

"You said that sometimes you miss self harm, what did you mean by that?"

I must admit I was very close to telling her to back off, but in all honesty, its not the worst question she could ask and it was one that desperately needed answering... for myself. All of my siblings are addicts. One's an alcoholic, another is a drug addict, two are addicted to their own misery. Me? I worked very hard to not be a junkie, not be an alcoholic. Look at me now. Addicted to self harm.

I know a few out there ( okay... probably more than a few) will disagree with me, and that's fine. That's you. For me, injuring is an addiction. When you're stressed out, pissed off, in emotional pain, or feeling numb, do you have something you say you need? "I need a cigarette, I need a hit, I need a beer". I tell myself, "I need a tool." I hate thinking that I'm an addict, I hate it! But there is no getting around that fact. It is what it is, I am what I am.

Hells bells, I talked more about self harm today alone than I have in the whole of the time I've been seeing Doc. This tells me one thing that I hadn't really wanted to think about: Its going to be a very long time before I am no longer seeing her. It took years for me to get this bad, years to go from one method of injury to another, years.... Its going to take a while, maybe even years, to get myself "normal", or at the very least to conquer my addiction.

Am I up for that challenge? A few months ago, maybe a year ago, I would have answered "I don't know." But right now? I've fought all my life to survive. Its what I do, its how I function in this big, bad world. Its all I've ever known, and its exhausting.

I'll tell you this... I Want To Live. There are so many times when I should have died, when I could have died. Yes, that implies I had a choice and made the right one.

So here we go, its going to be one hell of a long battle, but I've fought this long. I'm worth it.

Not So Great Morning

Its been a week since the last post. Today, I'm feeling pretty much the same. I'm exhausted after falling asleep after midnight and waking at 5.30am this morning. My tummy is rumbling, but I have zero desire to eat. I have to copy all my music to my computer again. I tried doing it a fast way, using the flash drive to transfer the music. But guess who didn't know that you need to save this to a separate file as well? Yep... me!

Now I'm pissed at myself for being stupid. I'm also mad at Mum for giving me step by freaking step instructions on how to make spaghetti sauce! I've only been making the same recipe for about 20 years.

I have therapy in a couple hours and just want to scream. I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin, I need to harm. Its like a damned drug in my veins. I just really want to injure... I'll try to hold off for a while. Talk to Doc.

Get To The Point

Had a session with Doc today. I think we may do things a little differently for a bit. I don't really go into things that matter for about half the session, then we have to cram. I told her that she may start asking more direct questions. I need to get things off my chest and take too long to get to the point. I've decided that to make the progress I feel that I should, I'll let her direct more.

For instance: Today we were about half way through the session when self harm came up. I know that I need to get going on this and I think allowing Doc to ask more direct questions should help. I'm not going to do the whole med thing, so its either talk it out or not at all. And that isn't an option.