02 May 2017 - Shrubbery
Good evening from the village failure.
Day 68 on escitalopram. No benefits, no side effects, but I can't stop taking it just
Mood: 3.5. Things have gone wrong, I know that they have, but my head is just numb enough to my usual anxieties that I can't find the motivation to change.
Well, I stayed up til 3:30ish this morning, fighting off the very strong urge to cut by writing instead. I'm not sure if what I chose to write was healthy, because I have a three page suicide letter and a short will now, but it kept me from giving myself further superficial incisions. In an odd way, it was very calming and very grounding to get it down, what I'd want my final words to my family, my friends, and the various teams I'm a member of. I've scrawled down things before, but the suicide notes of the past were angry, and finger-pointy. This one was different in a lot of ways, full of apology and regret.
I'm going to keep the file, just in case, but I hope that it never needs to see the light of day.
I've decided that the urge to cut never really goes away, it just takes on different flavors, depending on how I'm feeling. On a good day, it's more of an artistic thing, a controlled scarification, decoration on my flesh. On a bad day, it's a desire to reenter the calm headspace cutting generates, to exert some degree of control over things.
Today was my last session with the counselor I've been seeing, and I'm frankly glad that it's over. I didn't have the heart to tell her today that any supposed improvement that she's noticed over time wasn't a result of me actually getting better, but of me gradually warming up to her and getting more comfortable. I'm not really a whole lot better now, two semesters of triweekly on average sessions under my belt, that I was before I started. I'll be able to get a fresh start in the fall with someone else, and hopefully I'll be able to make some real headway.
An intense need/desire/urge to cuddle and be cuddled when I first wake up is back, and I really, truly don't like it. I'm very aware that I've had absolutely no physical contact with anyone for a number of weeks now, but I don't need that bleeding out into my first waking moments. There's only so much that hugging and surrounding myself with and curling up around my stuffed animals can do, especially when I have no real means of engaging in what would slake my thirst here. Paradoxically, the times that my need to touch and be touched is the greatest are also the times that I'm most avoidant of contact. I don't understand why, and I can't suss out a real cause (it may be due to a fear that any contact I seek out will be asking for too much, but that explanation doesn't satisfy me).
I want to ask my friends to just be handsy, because I love that and I prefer much it when I'm not the one initiating contact, but I'm so, so self-conscious about requesting what I need. Until I can find a good way to meet my need, I'll just keep hugging my teddies until they're flat.
One of my lab mates texted me yesterday, following the completion of the lab meeting (we usually meet on Mondays at 1pm to discuss literature, methodology, stuff like that), since I hadn't been in the lab that day, and that was very much out of character for me. She just wanted to make sure that I was okay, and while I very much was not okay, I deeply appreciate her reaching out. Eventually, all of my labmates are going to need anonyms, because I'm going to talk about the lot of them a ton over the summer, since I'll be seeing them more or less every day. At any rate, the one that texted me has steadily become my favorite in the lab group, since I feel very much at ease with her, more so than I do with anyone else on the team. She also seems to make an effort to make sure that I'm included in discussions, and that my opinion/input is heard, which I greatly appreciate. That's not to say that the others exclude me, per se, but I sometimes feel a bit ignored.
Related, but I'm feeling a lot less useless in my lab now than I did before, since I'm realizing that I have a wealth of skills and knowledge that make me invaluable to the group. I know my bees, I know some plants, I know how to net, I know how to process specimens, I know how to pin and label. I may not have had much to say in the site selection and methodology phases, but here, now that things have gotten underway, now that we're out and collecting...I feel useful. I feel like I have something to offer.
I found a dead piece of bamboo by the trash can on my floor, and since I'm literally an open-world RPG gamer in real life, I grabbed it just because. It might come in handy some day. The random shrubbery made me happier than it really should have, but I'll take what I can get. Literally.
Well, this post is going up spectacularly late, since I forgot that I hadn't finished it before going to sleep last night, or this morning as it were.
Gonna try to get today's post up on time.
Until then.
[I don't feel like looking up a lyric.]
02 - 03 May 2017
Day 68 on escitalopram. No benefits, no side effects, but I can't stop taking it just
Mood: 3.5. Things have gone wrong, I know that they have, but my head is just numb enough to my usual anxieties that I can't find the motivation to change.
Well, I stayed up til 3:30ish this morning, fighting off the very strong urge to cut by writing instead. I'm not sure if what I chose to write was healthy, because I have a three page suicide letter and a short will now, but it kept me from giving myself further superficial incisions. In an odd way, it was very calming and very grounding to get it down, what I'd want my final words to my family, my friends, and the various teams I'm a member of. I've scrawled down things before, but the suicide notes of the past were angry, and finger-pointy. This one was different in a lot of ways, full of apology and regret.
I'm going to keep the file, just in case, but I hope that it never needs to see the light of day.
I've decided that the urge to cut never really goes away, it just takes on different flavors, depending on how I'm feeling. On a good day, it's more of an artistic thing, a controlled scarification, decoration on my flesh. On a bad day, it's a desire to reenter the calm headspace cutting generates, to exert some degree of control over things.
Today was my last session with the counselor I've been seeing, and I'm frankly glad that it's over. I didn't have the heart to tell her today that any supposed improvement that she's noticed over time wasn't a result of me actually getting better, but of me gradually warming up to her and getting more comfortable. I'm not really a whole lot better now, two semesters of triweekly on average sessions under my belt, that I was before I started. I'll be able to get a fresh start in the fall with someone else, and hopefully I'll be able to make some real headway.
An intense need/desire/urge to cuddle and be cuddled when I first wake up is back, and I really, truly don't like it. I'm very aware that I've had absolutely no physical contact with anyone for a number of weeks now, but I don't need that bleeding out into my first waking moments. There's only so much that hugging and surrounding myself with and curling up around my stuffed animals can do, especially when I have no real means of engaging in what would slake my thirst here. Paradoxically, the times that my need to touch and be touched is the greatest are also the times that I'm most avoidant of contact. I don't understand why, and I can't suss out a real cause (it may be due to a fear that any contact I seek out will be asking for too much, but that explanation doesn't satisfy me).
I want to ask my friends to just be handsy, because I love that and I prefer much it when I'm not the one initiating contact, but I'm so, so self-conscious about requesting what I need. Until I can find a good way to meet my need, I'll just keep hugging my teddies until they're flat.
One of my lab mates texted me yesterday, following the completion of the lab meeting (we usually meet on Mondays at 1pm to discuss literature, methodology, stuff like that), since I hadn't been in the lab that day, and that was very much out of character for me. She just wanted to make sure that I was okay, and while I very much was not okay, I deeply appreciate her reaching out. Eventually, all of my labmates are going to need anonyms, because I'm going to talk about the lot of them a ton over the summer, since I'll be seeing them more or less every day. At any rate, the one that texted me has steadily become my favorite in the lab group, since I feel very much at ease with her, more so than I do with anyone else on the team. She also seems to make an effort to make sure that I'm included in discussions, and that my opinion/input is heard, which I greatly appreciate. That's not to say that the others exclude me, per se, but I sometimes feel a bit ignored.
Related, but I'm feeling a lot less useless in my lab now than I did before, since I'm realizing that I have a wealth of skills and knowledge that make me invaluable to the group. I know my bees, I know some plants, I know how to net, I know how to process specimens, I know how to pin and label. I may not have had much to say in the site selection and methodology phases, but here, now that things have gotten underway, now that we're out and collecting...I feel useful. I feel like I have something to offer.
I found a dead piece of bamboo by the trash can on my floor, and since I'm literally an open-world RPG gamer in real life, I grabbed it just because. It might come in handy some day. The random shrubbery made me happier than it really should have, but I'll take what I can get. Literally.
Well, this post is going up spectacularly late, since I forgot that I hadn't finished it before going to sleep last night, or this morning as it were.
Gonna try to get today's post up on time.
Until then.
[I don't feel like looking up a lyric.]
02 - 03 May 2017
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