Today's Check-In (Friday)
Since I've only made this achievement metric and schedule today, there wasn't any way to complete all the tasks.
Comprehensive List of Tasks
Medication = yes
Sober (no drinking/drugs/cutting) = yes
Compulsions = no (considering I bought a bunch of books on addictive/compulsive behavior today... kinda defeats the point, eh?)
Extras = yes (made my new super duper schedule and metrics chart)
TOTAL SCORE = 8.5/14 = appx. 60% successful
(my goal is to be at least 80% successful on any given day)
Revelations Today
The acronym HALT. These are the main culprits that lead to relapse of addictive or compulsive behavior. (FYI - I suffer from a serious self-harm addiction which includes bad compulsive behavior, drinking/drugging, cutting, and impulsive recurring suicide attempts. We are talking PTSD extreme edition here.)
Hunger
Anger
Loneliness
Tiredness
"I'm still afraid." Fuck me, trauma. Who would have thought that, after all these years, I'd still be scared of my abusers... even the DEAD one. My heart still skips a beat when I see anyone who looks vaguely like him. I'm still unwilling to confront the ones I'm not physically scared of because I don't want to 'rock the boat' or 'hurt their feelings'? What. The. Fuck. Like, YOU MOLESTED ME AS A LITTLE KID, YOU FUCKING FUCK! Why should their feelings matter over mine? Something in me is really screwed up. And if I ever encounter the one abuser who I'm still rather scared of physically, the one I spent sixth months of near torture with, you'll know -- because I'll be hiding in the nearest restroom probably shaking or crying uncontrollably in a nasty flashback of epic proportions.
"I can't accomplish anything else until I accomplish my recovery." This is true of my PTSD (or PTSI if you prefer) as well as ANY addictive type behavior. You can't bring your 'A game' to a job or a relationship if you are having to also deal with wet baggage.
Regular addiction treatments don't work if you have a self-harm addiction. -- Stupid counselors and so-called professionals continue to say I can apply the same concepts and keep sending me to groups full of people I feel alienated from. What I need is either a self-harm specific group or an individual counselor who specializes in dual diagnosis patients and who can address the specifics of my behavior. The reason regular treatments don't work is they always fall back on the motto, "if you continue this behavior you are going to end up in bad straits or dead." This doesn't work when your entire goal is to hurt yourself in the worst way possible, including and up to suicide. When the whole point of the behavior is to punish, giving me a list of bad things that can happen to me actually encourages the behaviors I want to stop doing. Duh.
Comprehensive List of Tasks
- Stretch Class (failed to attend)
- grooming (success = bath, shaved legs, and did nails)
- meal prep (completed with help of AgtOrange -- thanks babe!)
- Spanish (failed)
- chore (success = 2 loads of laundry)
- coping skills (Read several chapters in workbook Stop the Chaos, which is what I was working on in group. It's a terrible book, truly useless, and I'm glad I'm not in that group anymore. Basically a rehash of every 12-step program dumbed down with childish cartoons and peppered with obviously fake example stories. My OCD is compelling me to finish reading it before I move on to more worthwhile literature.)
- Hug (YAY TROUBLE for giving great hugs! great success, I managed to talk, touch, and not freak out in public, something that has gotten hard to do since I've started therapy)
Medication = yes
Sober (no drinking/drugs/cutting) = yes
Compulsions = no (considering I bought a bunch of books on addictive/compulsive behavior today... kinda defeats the point, eh?)
Extras = yes (made my new super duper schedule and metrics chart)
TOTAL SCORE = 8.5/14 = appx. 60% successful
(my goal is to be at least 80% successful on any given day)
Revelations Today
The acronym HALT. These are the main culprits that lead to relapse of addictive or compulsive behavior. (FYI - I suffer from a serious self-harm addiction which includes bad compulsive behavior, drinking/drugging, cutting, and impulsive recurring suicide attempts. We are talking PTSD extreme edition here.)
Hunger
Anger
Loneliness
Tiredness
"I'm still afraid." Fuck me, trauma. Who would have thought that, after all these years, I'd still be scared of my abusers... even the DEAD one. My heart still skips a beat when I see anyone who looks vaguely like him. I'm still unwilling to confront the ones I'm not physically scared of because I don't want to 'rock the boat' or 'hurt their feelings'? What. The. Fuck. Like, YOU MOLESTED ME AS A LITTLE KID, YOU FUCKING FUCK! Why should their feelings matter over mine? Something in me is really screwed up. And if I ever encounter the one abuser who I'm still rather scared of physically, the one I spent sixth months of near torture with, you'll know -- because I'll be hiding in the nearest restroom probably shaking or crying uncontrollably in a nasty flashback of epic proportions.
"I can't accomplish anything else until I accomplish my recovery." This is true of my PTSD (or PTSI if you prefer) as well as ANY addictive type behavior. You can't bring your 'A game' to a job or a relationship if you are having to also deal with wet baggage.
Regular addiction treatments don't work if you have a self-harm addiction. -- Stupid counselors and so-called professionals continue to say I can apply the same concepts and keep sending me to groups full of people I feel alienated from. What I need is either a self-harm specific group or an individual counselor who specializes in dual diagnosis patients and who can address the specifics of my behavior. The reason regular treatments don't work is they always fall back on the motto, "if you continue this behavior you are going to end up in bad straits or dead." This doesn't work when your entire goal is to hurt yourself in the worst way possible, including and up to suicide. When the whole point of the behavior is to punish, giving me a list of bad things that can happen to me actually encourages the behaviors I want to stop doing. Duh.