Progress, relapse, and being an adult. (Trig in spots)

I had a relapse with my self harm a few days ago. I know what triggered it I think. I have healing cuts on my thigh now and one small one on my wrist that I can hopefully hide or pass off as a papercut. One of my good friends (let's call her K) who knows my story might have seen though. I'm not sure. We were in the bathroom and I was drying my hands after washing them so my sleeve was pushed up a little bit and I think she caught a glimpse and looked away. I think she knew but didn't ask, and that's okay.

K is apparently in a group therapy thing that I'm doing. It's on depression and anxiety. I walked by the room and I guess she called to me but I didn't hear her, and then she approached me and asked what I was here for, and I told her. She's there for the same thing. Nice to have a friend there.

We hung out after because we had free time. We went to the school store and I bought stuff. Then we saw another mutual friend of ours and the three of us went back to my dorm and hung out. That was fun.

Between the three of us, none of us could open the bottle of alcohol I have in my dorm. It's so hard to open. We weren't going to be getting drunk, we just wanted some. Heh.

But K apparently goes to the APRN I go to for meds as well. We both don't like her in a professional sense. We agree that she's nice, but...aloof. She's kind of childish and immature in a sense and the way she describes certain things is kind of immature. I guess she was asking K about self harm urges and the way she asked was kind of weird. I was also telling K about the time she kind of whispered a word instead of saying it out loud. I was like jesus christ, treat me like an adult. I also said how sometimes the APRN insults me and even though I KNOW it's nothing she means, they're just touchy things for me, and K agreed. So I kind of felt relieved that I wasn't the only one that felt this way.

This week was kind of stressful in a way. I felt really overwhelmed for a good portion of it and I didn't really know why. It was difficult and I had urges to cut more. I felt a lot of anxiety, depression, and stress in general, and it made it really difficult. It started to go away on Wednesday, so it was mainly Sunday-Tuesday that were hard. Wednesday I just was kind of exhausted. I was starting to get my period so that was why. Ugh. There were a few things I stressed about but they mainly involve classwork I'm nervous about, so that'll go away once I get my grades back. Or increase, if I do poorly.

On the bright side, I got a 90 on my statistics test! Whee! I thought I was going to fail. Apparently my Illness and Disease test is actually next week, not this week so even though I'm confident I'll do fine I'm happy I have extra study time.

I opened up to a few people about what is going on. There's a woman I volunteer with who also has the potential to be my professor sometime before I graduate if I register for her class instead of another professor's (The class is required). I don't remember how it started out but we started talking about stress in general and I mentioned that I'm on meds for that and my family doesn't know. She was really kind about that and mentioned how her kids struggled a bit in college. It also came up in conversation in a class of mine. I again forget how it came up but it came up in a reasonable way. I think it actually may have started with the fact that I asked if the reason why some people develop flu symptoms after getting the vaccine is psychological, and he said that yes, this is one of the reasons. It kind of built up from there. Class had ended early so a few of us stayed behind to chat with the professor and it came up. One of the women in my class is in her forties and she was mentioning how it cost a lot to put her son through lots of counselling so I brought up how I go through the center here and just have to pay for my meds. So at the very least she and the professor for that class know.

But that's the cool thing with public health people. They understand the need to reduce the stigma behind these sort of things and therefore aren't going to be as judgmental.

Only had one class yesterday then basically sat around after doing my homework. Today I had the day off because we have Friday through Monday off at my school for President's Weekend, so I'm sitting at home and I'm liking being at home. I have my period and feel kind of shitty, so it's nice to be here.

I gave my parents and niece shirts from the school. I didn't have tons of money or I'd have gotten my sister one too. They're Southern Mom and Southern Dad shirts, then my niece has one with SCSU on it and an owl. She hugged it.

My sister actually got me an Alex & Ani bracelet! It's a silver teddy bear, and some of the proceeds towards it go to children's mental health. She has a matching one in gold. It's her first Alex & Ani.

And I adulted today! I got a call from my doctor saying it was time for my physical. I didn't think I could have one this year because my insurance used to cover every other year. But my dad called the woman at his work who handles the insurance and she said I could have one.

So I made the appointment all by myself! Then I called my sister and she said that she can more than likely take me to it.

I'm a little nervous for it though. I'm an adult but my doctor said I could still go to her even though she's a pediatrician so this year and next year I'll still go to her, THEN find a new doctor. I don't want a new doctor, but that's not why I'm nervous.

I'm nervous because of the cuts and scars. I'm an adult, yes, but I don't know if she'll still have to report it to my parents or not because I'm going to a PEDIATRIC place. But maybe if I tell her that I AM in fact seeking help for it and am on meds, she'll be okay with not telling.

I do have things I need to bring up with her though so even if I didn't have a physical, I still would have had to make an appointment due to concerns I have. I have to see if the heart palpitations I get sometimes are normal. I also have to ask her why I get wrist pain, and let her know about some bruising I'm experiencing. I honestly don't know if my niece is bruising me or if I'm just, well, bruising.

Had to reschedule my appointment with my therapist because of the snow. Now I see her on the 23rd at 2 PM, hopefully.

But dammit, even though I have recently had a relapse and sometimes I still have days where things are shitty, I feel as if I made progress. Before my self harm relapse, I went the longest I'd ever been self harm free. I had a lot of days where I felt GOOD, or at least DECENT or OKAY. I had a lot of days where I felt USEFUL and felt like a genuinely productive person. I feel like I HAVE at the very least made tons of progress.