h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've not self-harmed since January...
I still get this sensation in my limbs, it used to be like a scream from my veins demanding to be cut... My blood screaming at me to be let out... My skin craving the Exquisite liberating pain of a burning cigarette end being gently pressed to the flesh…
I can feel it now, telling me I should cut myself, to get relief from what these days is more like chronic apathy and unease, rather than an overwhelming urge to die and escape the pain of existing...
I have BPD.
But I won't cut, I won't burn, it's a tool that I chosing not to employ, don't want it, I don't need it.

Has something triggered this?

Good job! s Things will one day get better.... at least that's what people keep telling me... just hang in there!

Yes, good job.

I wasn't trying to therap you in my last post: it's just that I've been taking a similar stance with certain OCD-type habits. I saw this documentary the other day about three obsessive-compulsives who all got put in a house together, with a therapist, as a last-ditch attempt to cure themselves. The way they were tackling the problem (CBT) was really inspiring, so I've been going around trying their techniques. It's working well so far. Cringeworthy, but interesting.

You are strong! I'm proud of your choice not to harm yourself!

Milla

It's all rather difficult to express...
I have been thinking - no, I've been desperately trying to avoid doing any concious thinking - about "Her". I've been getting headaches cause by the sheer effort of avoidance and burrying it, keeping down in my subconcious and hammering back down everytime it tried to creep into my mind...
Because I was scared that if I started thinking about Her, and the break-up and where She is today, that would be overwhelmed by all the emotions and pain and tears and rhumination.

I'm out of time... I'll try explaining again later...

Have your counsellors offered any advice?

I came across a sentence in a book once, which really struck me. I'm sure you can identify with it: "she carried her grief carefully, lest it spill."

It can be hard to imagine how on Earth we can survive some levels of emotional pain. How are we not torn limb from limb by it? And yet, we do: we remain in one piece, and alive, as though nothing has happened. Our bodies just weather the storms.

If your postings are anything to go by, there are times when She affects you more profoundly than at other times--i.e. like the grief of bereavement, it comes in waves. So perhaps each upsurge wouldn't last as long as you expect, if you allow yourself to be overwhelmed. And then you'd be out the other side and in a state of reprieve until the next one.

Easy for me to say, I know....

I notice you said "Cringeworthy" up there... Methink it's the first time I've encountered the word outside of my own idiolect.

'I came across a sentence in a book once, which really struck me. I'm sure you can identify with it: "she carried her grief carefully, lest it spill."'

I grieve for the loss of Suz as though she were dead. There was a time when my subconcious perhaps did not want to let that grief go...
Recently it has been one of those time when the grief comes back echoing through the calender to punch one in the stomach...
I was afraid of being overwhelmed because there was a time I'd cry twelve hours out of my day, when I slash at my arms to let the pain out of me and burn my skin so the physical pain canceled out the emotional pain... I did not want to return to obsession and multilation.

Yes, I see that.

...


I use 'cringeworthy' a lot but, now you mention it, I don't recall having heard other people using it. I've just checked the dictionary to see if it's a real word. Apparently, it is.

I missed your posts for a while, good that you're back.

I hope each time the grief comes back to visit your soul, it will be less stinging, and after a while, you can look at it and say: "That was really sad, but it is over now". Or something. I suppose I am trying to say that the pain will lessen, eventually. Don't be afraid, dear.

Milla

"Yes, I see that."

I get the feeling you are dissatisfied with what I said.

"If your postings are anything to go by, there are times when She affects you more profoundly than at other times"

Yes there are.

“like the grief of bereavement, it comes in waves."

I have grieved. And perhaps not waves, but ripples if either one is appropriate.

"So perhaps each upsurge wouldn't last as long as you expect, if you allow yourself to be overwhelmed."

Being overwhelmed wouldn't be a good, but avoidance isn't much better... What has to be looked for is a path of acceptance in-between.

"I get the feeling you are dissatisfied with what I said."

No, I was just being sympathetic. You're in a difficult situation.

Ah, right.... my misunderstanding.

You've just reminded me: I've been meaning to explain the context of that quote I gave you: "she carried her grief carefully, lest it spill."

Out of context, I see that it looks as though she's clinging onto it for comfort or something. In the book, she's on her way home after having been informed of the death of her husband. She's the sort of character who's not good at big displays of emotion, and there's this sense that, if her grief starts to spill over, it will consume her. That's why I thought you might identify with it. It struck me as a powerful sentence when I read it, but it's probably better in context.

There are other things that I've carried in that sense... The grief of losing Suz I think spilled out all over the place but there was never any less of it in the jar.

How have you been today?

Today four days ago would have been Saturday. Saturday I was feeling fairly exhausted? And, I did a spot of painting, which although slightly more satisfying than it's felt in the past was still a mundane task and one that gave me a headache the moment I took the lid off the tin o' paint and wasn’t the least bit therapeutic.

Today, I feel discontented neigh disgruntled with myself because I’ve managed to gain 3.5 kilos in the last month. Which wasn’t huge surprise to me at least, even though people kept saying how I look as though I’d lost weight. Bah.

Not as bothered by my approaching birthday right now as I have been in he past several weeks. But that could change sharply and without much warning.

"Which wasn’t huge surprise to me at least, even though people kept saying how I look as though I’d lost weight."

Might you have put on muscle instead of fat, then?

I guess, for you, disgruntlement is one of the more positive emotions. Yay. Glad to hear you're not so down about your birthday at the mo. Here's hoping this continues.

I'm currently trying to find a dentist, because my teeth have finally packed in. Only, Wales doesn't seem to have any.

'Might you have put on muscle instead of fat, then?'

I doubt it would account for very much of the 3.5 kilos if I had... No, I put the weight gain down to not enforcing the restriction on my sugar intake as well as I should have done.

I'm considerably more down about my birhday at this precise moment than I'd been most of this past week, but not so down as I usual am on a birthday... I'm going to the Engineroom tomorrow, I will make some small effort to look like a zombie.
I'm going out tomorrow not to celebrate my birthday but give me another event in my life that will distract me from the fact that I'm having a birthday... And it's more or less working.

I keep meaning to make some space for seeing a dentist and getting myself an NHS one... Spent far too much on private ones over the years.
Bon chance m'dear.

Hi, petal. Sorry about bringing up the subject on the other thread, if you're trying to forget about it. But I am relieved to hear that you're not exactly at rock bottom today.

What's the Engineroom?

I saw a private dentist today, several towns away. He decided I needed root canal surgery. Unfortunately, the anaesthetic didn't work. Since it almost never works on me, I told him to go ahead anyway: I'm used to having fillings done without the injection. But this was a whole new level of pain. He managed to scrape half the nerve out of my root before I had to stop him. I totally lost control, sobbing and shaking and flapping about. It quite took me by surprise. I'm going back in a week or so for him to finish the job!