Working really hard, fighting a really strong urge tonight.
I'm just picturing my pack of safety pins I have sitting maybe six feet from me on my bookshelf in my brain. It's like it's just floating around in my head waiting for me to grab it.
The lines on the backs of my forearms and hands look like little scars just waiting to be accentuated by a couple dozen strokes.
I'm not upset or sad. I had a good day. I had a good day. I want to power through this and not have to do it but I don't know if I'll make it through the night without doing something about it.

Now for some ladytalk:
A couple years ago my physician gave me a BS diagnosis of PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, essentially just a blown-up version of PMS). By BS I mean she kind of mentioned it in passing and prescribed me some birth control that was supposed to help with that. I was on that for like eight months but noticed no real improvement, so I quit taking it because it pretty much just made me sick and made my period longer instead of shorter like it was supposed to (also, I'm really kind of anti-pills, not because I don't think they work for some people, I just don't like the idea of medicating something like this, personally). But now that I really think about it, these depressions and episodes really do seem to coincide with when my PMS hormones would be at the peak of their raging-ness. I mean I guess it's good to recognize that, but until I can open myself up to other coping mechanisms, and other things to do besides what I really WANT to do, I don't really see how it's going to help.
I feel like I become a completely different person during these times. Not a different person exactly, but it feels like the real me leaves this body and goes somewhere else, and my body just does without me really being there. Every once in a while maybe my real self will come check in my body, but just for a minute or two and then go away again. I'll feel like this for days at a time, even up to a week, and then one day I'm all back together and life is peachy. It's weird and a little frightening.

Talking it out helps, I think the urge has subsided at least a bit while writing this. I'm going to try really hard tonight, curl up with the cats, watch a movie and try to let that be enough. Thanks for reading.