18 months well spent…

SO! After a long 18 months I have finally completed DBT! It has been a full on 18 months, I started off really struggling to complete homework and found it near impossible to open up fully in sessions. I didn’t talk about all of my problem behaviours- just the ones that I felt were ‘big’ enough to warrant support with. 18 months later I am so much more self aware, I consistently complete homework, I look up DBT skills in my own time and can handle a crisis so much better. I had my final group session last week and my final individual session yesterday. I am going to continue working with my current therapist while doing trauma work so it wasn’t really a ‘goodbye’ session but more of a round up of the work we have done for the past 18 months. Trauma work is something I am looking forward to but also dreading massively. I hope to update my blog as I start this new bit of work because I have found the online DBT community really helpful throughout this treatment and maybe if I talk about my experience with trauma therapy it might open up a new community that I wasn’t aware. DBT has changed things so much for me. It has helped me in areas I didn’t think it would, not just self harming behaviours but eating disorder behaviours, trauma symptoms, relationships and so much more that I can’t fit into this blog post right now. It has shown me the importance of self care- and not just the bath bombs and face masks kind of self care that you see a lot of online. I am talking about- going to bed on time with a good sleep routine, going to the doctors if you need it, looking after self harm wounds, making sure you shower, brush your teeth and drink enough water. All of these things are for me so much harder than the more ‘seen’ self care activities because it isn’t widely talked about that people with mental health issues can struggle with the absolute basic levels of self care like brushing your teeth. People don’t like to hear about that. @makedaisychains over on instagram has a series called ‘boring self care’ which has been so refreshing to read through out this bit of treatment. Hearing people talk so candidly about the less talked about areas of mental health is really nice (for want of a better word). Like I said trauma work is feeling very daunting but I need to remind myself that DBT seemed very daunting to start with as well and now 18 months later I am in a position I never thought I would reach. Things are not where I want them to be and don’t want to make DBT sound like a miracle cure because it definitely isn’t. It has taken so much work and effort, I have wanted to quit so many times, it has felt scary and unachievable at times and I am sure it isn’t going to suit everyone but for me after two rounds with support from family, friends, my mental health team I’m getting so much closer to the life I want to lead. I am getting closer to achieving goals that felt so far away and I think it has been an 18 months well spent.  

The mental and the physical…

Things are bloody tough right now. I never thought I would be in the position that food is the thing that is getting in the way of me doing trauma therapy. My eating disorder has always been quietly in the background. It has been there for years helping me cope with things. Every so often it will raise its head and take the front seat. When that happens I need intervention medically and through mental health services to help things to become more manageable. I have never seen my eating disorder as a huge issue as for the most part my blood tests, ECG’s and other test all come back normal and the biggest thing that makes me think that I don’t need to be concerned is that I’m overweight (I know eating disorders come in any shape and size, this is just my mental hang up. You can still be ill with an eating disorder when overweight). Ever since I started reducing self harm my eating disorder has become more prominent. My blood tests are no longer coming back ok and my weight is dropping. It’s hard to decipher things because I have also been physically unwell. I am having investigations to see if I have inflammatory bowel disease which can cause weight loss, loss of appetite, altered blood test results amongst other things. However I am very aware that the eating disorder voice is very loud at the moment. It is getting its grubby little hands in and messing up the lines between physical health and mental health. I haven’t been able to eat properly for several months because of the pain I’m in and my intake is somewhat limited due to what causes digestive flare ups. I also have diabetes so my blood sugars have been somewhat shaky over the past few weeks. My body is just struggling and I am finding it so hard to look after it and give it what it needs especially when there is a lot of pain involved when I eat. My therapist has said that if I continue this way trauma therapy isn’t going to be able to go ahead as you need to be fully aware of your surroundings and able to do the processing that is involved in trauma work. I’m so scared. This feels like so much to get my head around and what I am doing isn’t enough so I need to do more but honestly doing more feels so out of reach. As always I am trying to focus on the here and now and just take baby steps forwards. I’m definitely not just standing by letting myself get more unwell but this is clearly going to take a lot of work.