Hurting Myself

** This post is about self harm! If this post may trigger you, please skip this one. **

Most days my depression is concocting ways that I can hurt myself without resorting to cutting. Recently I can’t get those thoughts out of my head.

Yesterday I almost caved. I unintentionally distracted myself by cooking and watching YouTube so that worked out. But today I can’t shake the desire to hurt myself.

This past week I forced myself to eat shitty food because I know I shouldn’t. So. Much. Ice cream. Beyond that I have thought about doing things to myself that make me feel like I’m absolutely fucking insane.

Today I can’t stop thinking about drinking myself into a state tonight. I don’t even like drinking very much and getting drunk isn’t something I enjoy either. It usually makes me feel uncomfortable. But today the thought of drowning my destructive thoughts in a destructive way sounds great.

Would these thoughts ease up if I gave in to my desire to cut? Or would they get worse? Is it worth throwing away my clean streak of almost 2 years to find a few moments of relief?

Don’t worry, I’m seeing my therapist on Wednesday.

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All My Molehills Are Mountains

There is some saying somewhere about not making mountains out of molehills. I think that’s supposed to mean that we shouldn’t turn small things into big ones.

It’s this desire to be perfect that makes me so hard on myself about every little thing that I do. In my previous post about perfectionism I talk about how I want to be perfect in my character and the general things that I do each day. I don’t want to misspeak, make errors or make somebody upset with me.

The main goal is to never disappoint or upset anybody. Especially the people I care about the most, my family, boyfriend and friends.

Early this morning I heard my cat get sick (yuck) but I really didn’t want to get up to clean it. My mom ended up being the one to clean it since she’s the first up most mornings. I felt so guilty all morning that I didn’t just get up to clean it so she didn’t have one more thing on her plate today.

As a good person I should have got up! I should have been a compassionate daughter who got up to clean the throw up so she didn’t have to. It was totally selfish of me.

I was raised in the Christian faith where I had it drilled into my head that everyone else was more important than me. That doing selfish things wasn’t what Jesus would have done. That Jesus would have cleaned up the puke for Mary instead of going back to sleep.

I was taught to always be nice to people, to make others happy even if you’re not. That helping others made God happy which is what my life was supposed to revolve around.

I lost my faith in late 2012 and tried for many years to believe in Christianity again. I couldn’t do it. Now I identify as a skeptic. I’m open to the possibility that there is a greater being making the world work but I’m also open to there not being anybody out there at all.

This post is giving me a lot of insight into my own psyche. I think the perfection comes from the unattainable standards that Christianity set for me. Even in church and college (I went to a Christian university), people told me that we would never measure up to those standards but that we should try to anyway.

I think my anxiety clings on to the idea that I should serve myself last so that I can put God and others before me.  My anxiety says that any time I upset someone or act selfishly that I am a failure because it goes against how I was trained to think.

If there’s any other formerly religious people (of any religion, there’s a lot of similar teachings in a lot of them) reading this, what are your thoughts? What was your experiencing as you had to rewire your thought process after dismissing religion?

I plan to make a separate blog post detailing about losing my faith and the journey that I went through to try and find it again.

Anxiety Levels on High

Overthinking every little thing is one of the things my brain does best. The best thing my brain does is make sure that my body is functioning properly. For that I thank my brain!

Lately I have been over analyzing a lot. I’ll be sitting in my office at work then read into every little pause and word in a conversation I’m having with somebody.

My mind immediately goes to, “They’re not texting me back because they’re sick of me” or “They don’t want to talk to me because they think I’m annoying and stupid.” Those thoughts have been spinning so fast that my stomach hurts.

These thoughts have been constant. I keep thinking that I’m not good enough which is why nobody actually loves me. It’s all pretend because people feel bad for me.

I’m at the point where I want to curl up in my bed and sleep for the rest of the day.

When I’m super anxious or in a deep depressive episode my automatic reaction is to hide. My fight or flight response is saying to flee this anxiety by hiding.

In these moments I forget all of my coping mechanisms. Do you ever have that experience? I’ve learnt all of these ways to help but then I get into the thick of it and my anxiety coping skills are gone.

I hope that you’re getting through an anxious moments that you’re having with finesse.

Perfection

Something I’ve struggled with for a long time is wanting to be perfect.

I think a lot of us think that wanting to be perfect is the same as a perfectionist but it’s not in my case. I’m definitely not a perfectionist in most aspects of my life.

In school I never tried to be the best at everything or even to get straight As. It goes the same for any activity I’ve ever done, like music or sports, I knew being perfect in those areas wasn’t attainable and I was fine with it.

In every day life is where I struggle with the fact that I am not perfect.

When I make a mistake or say the wrong thing, I beat the shit out of myself for it. I ruminate on whatever error I made, replaying it over until it makes me sick. I ask myself why I did whatever I did and why I wasn’t smart/good enough to evade this error in the first place. It makes me ask myself why I was even put on this planet if I’m going to be such a failure.

Today I’m struggling because I’m not perfect. So often I wish that I was so I wouldn’t go through this process of being sad and mad at myself.

Failure makes me want to hide from the world and from myself. Sadly, it’s really hard to escape yourself. I can’t leave my body or my brain!

Do you ever struggle with the fact that nobody is perfect?

How My Physical Health Impacts My Mental Health

If I’m not feeling good physically, I’m often not feeling good mentally either. There is some sort of correlation between the two, at least in my experience.

For about 3 weeks I have been really struggling with my asthma. I’ve had asthma since I was a kid but have never experienced what I’m going through right now.

I’m taking multiple medicines to help me breathe. Every 4 hours I have to use a nebulizer to relieve the tightness in my chest. Sure it is a nice way to take a break from my day to breathe into a smokey plastic cup but I’m mentally tired of it.

Because this is not my usual life, I’m growing frustrated with each passing day. It makes me feel hopeless, that I am going to have to live this way for the rest of my life.

My depression takes over and tells me that my worry is true. That I will have to take medicine this heavily for a long time.

I’m not sure what is causing my asthma issues because nothing has changed in my life. I’m living in the same house, working in the same office and I don’t surround myself with my usual triggers (smoke, highly fragranced shit).

I have cleaned everything and have kept up with it. I started cleaning my blankets on the weekends and mid-week to cut down on the cat dander from my long-haired fluffs. I even clean with a freaking mask on to prevent me from breathing in any dust particles or fumes from cleaning supplies (which I have changed to more natural options). Lysol makes me die.

I won’t find out what more I can do until the end of January when I see my asthma doctor. I feel hopeless that he won’t even know what to do. He will tell me that this is my life and I have to live my life in a certain way now.

Feeling this way makes me want to curl up in my bed and never leave.

I hope everyone else is having a fantastic New Year! May this year be one where we can all survive and thrive through our mental illnesses.

I love all of you who regularly read, like, comment or have subscribed. I seriously appreciate you all so so so much!