I can only get so close before I feel too close

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."
- Mark Twain

I am desperate to self-harm all the time again, not because I feel especially triggered but I’m just sick of having to keep myself accountable. It’s become so much more of an issue to me than it ever was since being in DBT. It’s completely changed my outlook on the whole thing, having to record going to A&E or how many stitches I’ve got, I just don’t see the point in that... and it’s meant to be this big BPD breakthrough therapy yet it completely fails to understand the condition, and the feelings of invalidation that come with it that are obviously reinforced by this idea that the amount of medical treatment you received is relative to the amount you’re struggling.

Before I started DBT I had never got stitches, I’d never been to the hospital, I’d never ‘rated’ my self-harm against my previous self-harm and I spent a lot less time thinking about it. I did it and it helped, or it didn’t help, and that was that.

Now I spend all my time thinking about the behaviour rather than the feelings behind them, and ending up in a flap like I am now, just because I know that if I cut it's going to be judged on how bad the result is, rather than how bad I was already feeling... And maybe that's the way 'it works', I wouldn't know, whether that's how it's meant to stop you from self-harming, but if that's the case than it really isn't what I signed up for. I want to *feel* better rather than just *behave* better, a million things may have happened during the week but the only thing they ever want to talk about is fucking self-harm, whether that was the day you felt the crappest or not.

I'm also fucking sick of their insistance that it's going to kill me. They completely fail to understand the concept of what I've always called 'damage limitation', which is self-harming instead of doing something worse when you feel suicidal and shit. Sure, it would be great not to feel like that in the first place, but sometimes that's not possible and you have to do whatever you can to be as safe as possible, until the moment passes. Which is the main reason why I self-harm these days, other than the flashback/dissociated times... It's not as if someone is nasty to me so I go hack at my arm. I can tolerate that kind of distress. I was triggered after all the cruel shit my parents said to me but I didn't cut, because that's not why I do it anymore.

I have a couple of appointments this week, going back to the CMHT and see what they've decided about whether they can help me or not, and then my first support session at the rape crisis centre.... Right now they're the most important things and I'd rather just concentrate and pour all my (not altogether huge amount of) energy into, because they might actually help me progress rather than spend endless hours going over specific details of self-harming.

DBT feels like going backwards and I don't know if I can stick it out for another six months. Yet I'm far too aware of my diagnosis, and the fact that if I just quit they will write me off as difficult and uncooperative and I will never be offered any kind of theraputic treatment again.

I'm not against trying anything, but I am against this fear of not being able to follow my instict and quit things that aren't good for me, after giving them a serious go at, without it having serious consequences on my treatment options.

I'm not self-harming at the minute, it's probably been over a month, but things are still shit. Actually, that's a bit of a lie, in the process of writing this up yesterday and coming back to it today I have cut, but I wasn't.. This anxiety is crippling me. I haven't been outside since I got back to the flat on Thursday, not even to smoke, I don't even like having the window open... I can't sleep, I cry over everything, I feel like some kind of vampire, I can't stand daylight. I've ran out of Seroquel and Lamictal which is probably not helping, I haven't had any in over a week, just ze ol' Mirtazapine, but I can't even get it together to get out of the fucking flat, let alone all the way to the doctors... The Lamictal absence I am definetely noticing, my impulse control has completely gone to shit, sensation seeking, spending hundreds of pounds of money I don't actually have in minutes, it's not good, but that thing that stopped me doing stupid shit like that seems to have failed, and then I get fucking furious that it takes a fucking pill to stop me acting like a reckless teenager... And the fucking constant mood swinging and tearfulness... I feel like an emotional wreck, ze fun time of ze borderline <_<>

I have both the appointments on Wednesday, so I'll have to go out then, and I'm dreading it already, all the possible things that could wrong, however far-fetched, like being in the middle of a terrorist attack or a car crash or a murderous rampage... I'm fustrated as Hell that I can't just stop.bloody.worrying. but I guess it's not as simple as that.

And then London at the weekend... but London will be okay because it's London, and I'm going to hang out at 221b Baker Street and generally geek out.