PC, I am *well* familiar with the forward and backward motion of progress. My pdoc's best soapbox speech (after, "if you had bronchitis you wouldn't think twice about medicating it -- this is a disease too") is "Progress is never a straight line, and if you look back over your history, you're actually doing quite well compared to where you started from." I laughingly call him Pollyanna because even if there are 14 pitch-black rainclouds overhead, he'll find the one beam of sunlight! :-) -- but I've come to learn that he does have a point.

I'm a self-injurer, and after several overwhelming stresses around Mother's Day (my mother was my abuser, and I gave a child up for adoption, both guaranteeing that Mother's Day will suck for me forevermore) I cut for the first time in a year. I was FURIOUS with myself. My pdoc and my T just shrugged and said that it was normal to revert to old coping patterns that had worked before in times of stress.

It sounds to me like you're doing very well! Hang in there.

Candy