Before

[t_k]

This is my first post in this forum, sorry if this isn't what i'm supposed to write.

Why do I feel I need to hurt myself? What has brought me to this point?
Because I hate being so out of control. I read Maria's LJ and she's so happy with Tim... Tim who I loved enough to give my virginity to, Tim who let me find out so much about myself. And I was talking to Chris and he's done with cutting. He still has scars and still thinks about it but it's been a year for him. He's gotte over his eating disorder, too. I keep hallucinating cuts... Yet, here I am, unhappy, insecure, unloved, fat, still cutting myself and still eating disordered.

Have I been here before? What did I do to deal with it? How did I feel then?
I've been here with the stuff about Maria... She is my biggest trigger in all meanings of the word. I've cut because of her dozens of times. She just makes me feel eevry emotion so harshly and vividly. Every thing she does or says rebounds off me and a bit of it is absorbed into me.
I've been avoiding going here with Chris for a year now.

What I have done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can I do that won't hurt me?
The Maria thing just hit me... I read her entry and started crying.
Chris left to go get stoned and so I went to read people's LJs to distract myself.
I have tried to do stuff to avoid the hallucinations. I have read, come online, talked to friends about other stuff and watched tv.
I don't know what else I can do... The imprint of Maria's happiness is just stuck there, in my mind. For now all I can really think to do is keep writing... When I'm done with this I'll write in some diaries, maybe go around some of the forums I post at. But I don't know how I can avoid these thoughts and feelings. they're just so THERE.

How do I feel right now?
Completly helpless. I feel like I have no control over what I think. I don't have any. Images of cuts and feelings of pain keep going through my brain at a 100 miles an hour. All of these memories about Chris last year; good times, bad times, his cuts, him losing weight, his OD, him telling me he was going to kill himself, him hugging me, him telling me he wished I was dead, his not caring and mocking me after I OD'd and then all of these memories and thoughts about Maria; her cutting herself and blaming me, her flying to me about being with Tim, Fiona telling me that Maria was crying because of feeling bad about betraying me with Tim, her hugging me, her kissing me... All of that just mixed in with the SI thoughts. All of it just blending together to make me feel so fucking out of control.

How will I feel when I am hurting myself?
I will feel like I have to do enough to satisfy the urge for a long long time, my mind will be weighted down with thinking about making what I hallucinated real, I will be over sensitive to all the sensations and sounds and smells around me. I will feel satisfied at the beginning of the session and then scared and annoyed and disappointed towards the end.

How will I feel after hurting myself? How will I feel tomorrow morning?
Like I didn't do enough... That feeling of having not done enough will always be there. I will think about Maria's scars and Chris' scars and my hallucinations and how what I did to myself this time was not enough, that's it's never enough.
Tomorrow morning I will feel sick about it, but maybe I will feel a little bit heartened by it... I don't know.

Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
Be in a safer place when I look at Maria's LJ. Next tiem I have a deep conversation with Chris I will be better prepared. this time, having not had a deep conversation with him for a long time, I had forgotten how intense he could be, had fogotten about the feelings he wa able to stir up in me.
I have no idea how I am going to deal with the hallucinations... I am yet to find a way to stop them coming so often other than SI'ing.

Do I need to hurt myself?
I think I do.


Thank you for letting me write this... If you read this then please comment in some way...
I needed to get all of that out...

[Guest]

I wanted to let you know I read and I am sorry you are going through all of that. I don't really know what else to tell you, but I wanted to let you know you are in my thoughts.

[t_k]

Thank you CK, it's really comforting to know that someone's read
Thank you.

[angelwithapintglass]

i wanted to let you know that i had read. email me if you need someone.

x

[ChaseThisLight]

It hurts really bad to see your ex with someone else and see how happy they are together. Someone you cared about deeping is now caring about someone else in that same manner...and it's tough. But you need to keep the power, and not let your ex and his gf have all the power...if you self injure...they have the power over you. Maybe you need to take a break from reading his gf's livejournal...wait until you have better come to grips with the fact that your ex is in a new relationship...or if you really want to read it, make sure you're in a very safe place. I hope you're doing alright....take care of yourself.

notmardy

[fire.bird]

How do I feel right now?
Completly helpless. I feel like I have no control over what I think. I don't have any. Images of cuts and feelings of pain keep going through my brain at a 100 miles an hour. All of these memories about Chris last year; good times, bad times, his cuts, him losing weight, his OD, him telling me he was going to kill himself, him hugging me, him telling me he wished I was dead, his not caring and mocking me after I OD'd and then all of these memories and thoughts about Maria; her cutting herself and blaming me, her flying to me about being with Tim, Fiona telling me that Maria was crying because of feeling bad about betraying me with Tim, her hugging me, her kissing me... All of that just mixed in with the SI thoughts. All of it just blending together to make me feel so fucking out of control.

Can I avoid this stressor, or deal with it better in the future?
Be in a safer place when I look at Maria's LJ. Next tiem I have a deep conversation with Chris I will be better prepared. this time, having not had a deep conversation with him for a long time, I had forgotten how intense he could be, had fogotten about the feelings he wa able to stir up in me.

reading your post, tk, it struck me how much your feelings were tied up in the feelings of your friends, thinking about your friends ... your relationships in general ... how those boundaries seem to be really unstable for you. and i can relate to that, quite a bit. that part about maria being your biggest trigger -- i had a friend like that. and for a long time, we just reacted and rebounded off of each other's intensity ... destabalized each other, made each other crazy ... EVEN THOUGH we loved each other, very much.

and what i thought when i got to the last part -- where you said maybe you should be in a better place next time you read Maria's livejournal -- was, "why read it at all?"

why wait to be in a better place to read it? why not just stop reading it? what are you gaining from reading her livejournal at all?

because the thing is -- you can't change people's behavior. you can only change your own. and if something you're doing isn't helping you, is actually hurting you -- it's probably time to think about giving it up. or at least taking a long look at what the behavior does for you that outweighs its negative effects.

i'm sorry you're having such a hard time right now. those hallucinations sound really terrifying -- i'm sorry you have to deal with that.


~b

[t_k]

thank you everyone who has replied.
i have taken what you said on board and it makes a lot of sense.
i keep thinking i'm all good with the maria/tim situation but then it seems i'm not.
time, i guess...

thank you