[gostryter]

<font color="red"> might be some TRIGGERS in here....SI mentioned!!!! </font>

help...

so i went to my therapy session - yeah me!!

the therapist was nice - she was kinda like a friend's mom back when you were a kid? that was kinda the feel i got. she's WAY to laid back for me though. and i hated the office building - it's a concrete block building facing a busy street - which is not comforting when leaving. the rooms are TINY like a bunch of walk in closets and cluttered!

but i did go! and i talked!

i only talked about the situation at work of course... unfortunately she completely agrees with my assesment of the situation!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my boss is an agressive lunatic!!

ok so on the one hand it was nice hearing her understand my explaination of the situation (yeah me good explaining) and it was nice to have someone understand and tell me that my boss is way to aggressive, etc.

HOWEVER, her ideas for me were to (1) look around for another job, which of course could take months if not years (2) learn to be more assertive.

Well crap - I came up with all that on my own!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was hoping (kinda) to have my eyes opened to a new way of looking at the situation....

she gave me a pamphlet worksheet thingy on assertiveness and made another appt in two weeks

so here i am....back at home....

what do i do?? since the work situation has thrown me back into a therapists office my anxiety is through the roof!! before my appt i scratched the heck outta my stomach...in the past two weeks scratched my arm six times, cut with a razor twice and burned my other arm. i wasn't doing this stuff (definitely not to this extent) in over a decade!!!!!

the odd thing is right at this second i don't FEEL that bad? i don't know if i'm in a crisis or not???? i don't know if i should go to my regular doctor and show him SI? or would i just be doing that so i wouldn't have to go to work and deal with that abusive situation!!???!!!

i dont think i'd do anything that would really harm me? i mean i really don't think i would.

what's going on?? any body have any advice??? i don't know what's going on???

Good for you for going to your 1st session!

I SI, too. Sometimes I do it when I'm feeling horrible... but other times, I do it when I don't feel that bad at all.

What I have found out is that I think I SI when I feel okay, in an attempt to connect with my former self. Because feeling bad is pretty much all I know. It's my identity. So when I break away from that, who am I? It's unfamiliar territory to feel alright. So I do things that are familiar. Even if they are destructive.

I don't know if this resonates with your situation at all, but it's just something to think about.

Also you are dealing with something difficult-- your job. It is making you anxious. In the past, you have dealt with severe anxiety by the release of self-injury. So just because you are feeling better emotionally right now, you might not have the coping mechansims, behaviorally speaking, to deal with the return of extreme anxiety. So you reach for what you know. What works for you.

I am the same way. I know no other release.

[gostryter]

thanks for the post pinksoil. great thoughts.

i kinda feel a little more like the lack of coping mechanisms thing you mentioned applies right now. my problem is the degree to which it's kicked in. in the past two weeks it's become an everyday thing - from almost outta no where.

and it hurts physically - once in a while to relieve stress is one thing. but if i keep this up i'm gonna run outta room!! it's like a switch has been thrown - and now i can't stop.

i do feel better mentally than i used to - zoloft has worked great for me over the past several years. but the feelings i'm feeling now....i'm not....i'm not feeling anything! that kinda creeps me out!!

my cat died last week & of course i cried several times. when i picked him up from the vet. looking at his body in a box. burying him. but now that he's out of my sight - i feel very little. that is COMPLETELY NOT me!!!! people at worked asked how my cat was - dead, i said matter of factly. ?????? huh????

my dog just had a seizure tonight - usually i coddle her and comfort her. i did that to some degree tonight....but not like i normally do??

the feeling is just not there. where'd it go?? i've delt with depression forever and i know how i feel then and i know i will get through those bad times....but this is different....it's only been like this for the past two weeks....

take care!

[Hopefull]

Devoid of emotion is a very creepy feeling. I have only felt devoid of emotion a few times. I am glad that you know that you will live through this. Feel free to post any time that you need to.
I have to start getting ready for bed. So, good night. I hate working early morning shifts.

[RiverX]

Hi Gostryter,
The T you went to see sounds like she didnt have a clue or any real sense of what your experiences were like, as if a pamph on assertiveness would fix it.
From what you've said, its not, just something thats going to be fixed so easily.
Going by my own experiences, I think that, - as she minimised your situation, that is so crazymaking, then you know something has been denied that is important, so you need to get it out, but you had the trust to tell the T, but then she acted like its nothing, so, to get at those feelings you need to make them physical,
- I sort of do something simlar and that's how I'd describe it for me. If you would like to talk more about it, I have some experinces on abstinence because I have been in addiction recovery.
I was very intersested in what you said about this pinksoil too. I think I relate.

warm regards,
River.