impy, you are like the recognising cognitive distortions poster child . as always, am delighted.

your question is a good one. i struggle a lot with when it's acceptable (for me) to have sui- thoughts. you know i was there in a big way at the beginning of the year, but it was "ok" then, because i had been in such a low depression-funk for all that time.

but having those thoughts because i can't see how to manage my time effectively enough to submit uni assessments on time? i think it's the impulsivity that scares me. i'm not an impulsive person - i consider everything in painstaking detail, and then comb over it again. i'm not allowed to have automatic sui- thoughts over something i haven't yet explored all options to. the uni/time management thing is a big deal, i guess, but in another way it... is a bit trivial and small scale. it hasn't stopped me from going well in the past, so it probably won't interfere too much in the future. i could conceivably carry on without ever fixing it .

but it would be nice to be less stressed about it all. i dont know. not so charmed that you ask the difficult questions now .

! i need my therapy mask!!!

but yes... i think (for me) therapy mask = not showing emotions. it's ok to discuss them in a clinical, detached way - but not to actually feel them at the same time.

so far, i havent even discussed them with Austin-T in my "oh look, there's an emotion" type of way, so maybe this would be a good first step. he keeps encouraging me to name my feelings for him, but eventually i just refused. not allowing anyone in.

so maybe this isn't quite an unmasking (definitely not going there!), but a peeking out of sorts...

with pdoc i am getting better (he would probably be wondering where monster-deli has suddenly appeared from!). most of last week was spent with me ranting about Austin-T. but he's good with picking up on where im at, so we got into the discussion of hopelessness and he helped a lot in that regard. so maybe there are benefits (small ones!) to getting some of those rough feelings out. ick.

good luck with your T tomorrow, sweetie .