It’s happening now…

Life stuff has been very full on recently. I am having trauma therapy which is a very big deal, I am going to college and keeping up with work there and a very big thing in my life at the moment is- I have applied to university. I have interviews coming up for that and it’s all quite intense. This is happening all at once and it is so much. Weirdly most of the time it feels manageable and ok, I feel able to think rationally in the moment manage my time and get the things done that need to be done. Other times I just cry and think “I have no idea how I can do all of these thing let alone do them to the standard that I am happy with”. All of these things are so important and have a big impact on my life moving forward so I want to do them all well. I’m trying to pace myself, be understanding and kind to myself when some days, I just can’t do it all. I’m not taking any medication for my mental health right now and I haven’t done for several months. It’s been a very interesting experience living life un-medicated. I am so much more awake, alert and have a clearer mind but I have also realised that I am a hugely anxious person, I was very anxious before I went on medication and I’m now realising how much my medication dulled that anxiety. I know that I have so much going on at the moment that even the most relaxed person would feel anxious at these things. This is real, it’s scary and it’s a huge amount of change. Applying to university feels absolutely wild. It’s strange to me that the process of even writing my personal statement felt so far fetched and when I think back to things I have done to my body when self harming that are so much more extreme to most other people it just doesn’t come close to how unbelievable sending off my uni application felt. It felt so much bigger and crazier than anything else I have ever done. I never thought that I would get to this point. It doesn’t even really matter to me anymore that it’s taken longer than my peers. It used to upset me a lot, when my friends were in their first years at uni I was in hospital and it all felt so unfair I didn’t believe it would ever happen for me. But it’s happening now, I’m here, I’m alive. I am doing it now. 

Finding new ways to cope…

I didn’t realise how hard life would be without self harm. Life without self harm is brilliant and so much easier in so many ways but it is so painfully difficult to learn how to deal with distress and emotions in a healthy non destructive way. My life has been quite full on over the past few weeks and both the good and bad days have given me some very strong emotions to try and work through. And without my old trusty (or not so trusty) partner, self destruction I am not so sure how to deal with these feelings. I completed DBT a few months ago which has been completely life changing in the best way, I use the skills I learnt in that therapy multiple times a day and it has helped me navigate these new experiences and helps me manage my emotions. But I am only now just realising that I have spent so many years blocking out all of my emotions with negative coping mechanisms and now I’m not doing that anymore I’m going to have to learn how to cope with these things a different way. I am letting myself feel things to their full extent for the first time in years and its so hard. Emotions feel like they last so much longer when you aren’t numbing them with an eating disorder or self harm. I don’t want to walk around life being a ball of emotions which are always on the surface and because that’s not how I want to be I have learnt I need to give myself time to notice and feel these emotions but sometimes you designate time to be sad and it refuses to be confined to the time slot you allocate it and you have to go about your day just feeling sad and living with the knowledge that I could hurt myself and make it go away for a while. However that is not an option and I’m not giving into it and going back to harming myself to stop these feeling because I know they are always there ready to be felt again when I’ve stoped hurting myself and as well as the emotions all still be there you now have the guilt and shame of using a negative coping mechanism. It’s complicated, messy and so hard to navigate everyday but I have hope that in time this will get easier. 

A new part of the story…

I am currently in the process of getting a tattoo sleeve. My left arm is full of self harm scars and it had been a while since I last self harmed there and it felt like the time was right to start getting them covered. I am having them covered in stages for lots of reasons, scar cover ups are generally more painful than normal tattoos so having my whole arm done several long day sessions didn’t seem like a particularly great option for me, after my first cover up my arm became very swollen and the healing process took a fair amount longer than my other tattoos and there are some other practical reasons as well but a big reason is that it has been really emotional getting my scars covered. I love my new tattoos and it feels like they are now part of my journey. I also like that you can still see a lot of my scars and I can feel them there so its not like I’m hiding that part of my past it just isn’t the first thing I see when I look at my arm anymore. My arm is starting to fill up now which is very exciting and I’m looking forward to when my sleeve is finished. I am already planning my next tattoos and saving up so I can get them done. As I have been getting each tattoo I have realised that it isn’t getting any less special or meaningful as the time goes on. I remember the story, the night, the event behind each scar and now having those scars covered in art that I will have me forever is so meaningful. I had the option a while ago of having surgery to reduce the size of some of my scars but that just didn’t feel right for me at all. It felt too much like I was trying to erase that part of my life, I don’t want to get rid of the times that I did these things to myself. I am never going to forget those memories and they will always be part of my body. But by having these tattoos covering my scars I am reducing the chances of intrusive and sometimes upsetting conversations with strangers, I am boosting my confidence and I’m having a barrier between me and the times that I self harmed. I am already thinking forward to having my right arm tattooed and how momentous that is going to feel. Further in the future I plan on having my thighs tattooed as well. These tattoos are all so meaningful and will all have a lot of weight behind them all. My right arm has less scars so by getting it tattooed I will be eliminating the chance of making more on the clean skin that is left. I also have some very strong memories attached with some particular scars on my right arm which will make it emotional when the time comes and I feel ready to have them covered. I am in no rush to have these tattoos as I want to be completely ready even if I am clear on the designs in my head, that is not the point. I’m so happy to have these tattoos and I love them. Each piece of art that I have on my skin is so significant and they are now part of my story.

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.