Hey I hope this will be my last post on Ryl and it seems appropriate that it's in this thread. So I won't go into the whys but I started self harming in 2003, but I'm now 3 years and a month free! I would say I'm recovered, though some days and some moments are still hard but I just won't let myself now, I've come too far to ever go back to that (I hope) getting my wrists tattooed with helpful song lyrics has helped, I couldn't destroy them by cutting there now. I don't really know what else has helped, I guess when I moved house I decided to start over and luckily I've been happier in general and just let a lot of stuff from the last go. I know that's a hard thing to do, but you get to the stage where you kind of have to if you want to be happy and healthy again. Also, I've had no hospital stays or suicide attempts since 2008 which is great. I hope I can stay well and self harm free forever. Good luck to you all, if I can stop anyone can!
Have some hugs and stay strong xx
For me, I never thought I'd be able to get out of the rut of binging and purging. I thought it was my life forever, and I would die soon. Indeed, the amount I was purging I was close to death. I felt trapped and alone and stuck with my disorder.
But I found with time, friends and sticker charts I could get out of it. I started spending more time with other people, particularly Jenna, and that helped immensely. She gave me hope, and sticker charts. She spent time with me when I would normally be purging. She helped me to realize I didn't need to spend every waking moment with my head in a toilet.
So I started to stop... I spent more time with people and less time eating. I spent my days happy rather than numb and out of it.
I really couldn't have done it alone, so anyone out there struggling, please I implore you to seek help and advice from either professionals, or those around you if you can. Spending time with people is really a great way to motivate you to not do the bad things anymore.
All these stories are really wonderful and inspiring to read :)
I have been meaning to write stuff here, and I have finally got round to it!
I am doing pretty well these days. Thinking back to several years ago, I was a bit of a mess. I have always had periods of being absolutely fine and extended periods of being very low, and for a long time I did not cope well at all with the lows. I'd feel terrible for no apparent reason, spend days in bed, go weeks without doing anything productive or attending to basic needs. And instead of being compassionate with myself, I'd absolutely berate myself for it, telling myself that I 'should' be functioning, I 'should' be okay. When I got stuck in the darkness, I'd find it impossible to believe that I would ever feel alright again. I couldn't see that it was 'worth it' to keep going through the same crap over and over. So, of course, I coped in unhealthy ways. I self-harmed a lot, and of course it was never 'enough' to make things okay, because it is the wrong kind of coping method altogether, but instead of realising that, I let it get worse and worse. And when it didn't help, I'd get suicidal and just want everything to be over, because it felt absolutely unbearable, and it hurt just to keep breathing, and it didn't seem possible to live like that. There were several hospital admissions.
The other day actually, I read something I wrote on here about five years ago. That was a horrendous time. Things have never been quite that bad again, and I hope they never will again. I was so, so low. I had to take time out of university because I just couldn't study, couldn't focus, couldn't function at all. I moved back in with my parents for a while, and tried unsuccessfully to pretend everything was fine. I genuinely didn't think I'd ever feel okay again. I was scared and on edge all the time. I was convinced that there were demons following me around waiting to possess me, and that they wanted me to kill myself. I find it kind of heartbreaking now, thinking back to that time.
A couple of months in hospital, the right antidepressants, and CBT, were all helpful, and things did get better and I got back to uni and I haven't struggled quite that much since. But recovery is a process and I still have really struggled. I have still had months and months of being low and feeling unable to cope, and it has taken me a very long time to get to the point where I no longer rely on unhealthy ways of coping.
You know that C.S. Lewis quote, "Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different." Recovery has been like that for me. It was long and slow and a lot of the time it seemed like nothing was changing. I'd have months and months of being fine and then bam, I was right in the middle of a 'low patch' again and I couldn't believe that anything had actually changed. It had, it was just hard to see. It eventually clicked into place when I realised that there are so, so many things I want out of life, and they just wouldn't be possible if I kept self-harming and such. And I want those things way more than I want a life that is filled with self harm and trips to A&E and hospital admissions.
Realising that didn't take away the mood issues. I still struggle with those. I still have times when I am very low and can't function at the level I usually would. I struggle far more than I used to with 'ups' as well now. But the difference now is that I know I can cope. I have survived everything up to now and I will continue surviving. Sometimes it still hurts to breathe and on a bad day, all I do is just focus on breathing and getting through all this time that seems to move at an unbearably slow pace. But that's okay. I'm much more able now to accept how I feel and treat myself with gentleness and compassion. I have a lot of positive things in my life. I got my degree. I have amazing people around me, and I am so grateful. I manage to work full time and even enjoy it sometimes! I have plans for the future.
I want to be able to say that everything is great now and I won't have low patches in the future. But that isn't the case. I am not 'recovered'. But I am recovering, and probably always will be. It's a work in progress. But that's kind of just how life is. And these days I'm okay with that. It's not a bad thing. It's wonderful and horrible and messy and painful and beautiful. And all of that, the whole lot of it, is just wonderful. I don't ask whether it's 'worth it' anymore. It doesn't work like that. It is what it is, and I do what I can to make each day the best it can be. I am continually grateful to be alive and to have so many positive things in my life. I'm even (sometimes!) grateful for my struggles because I can use them to work on being more self-aware, more compassionate, and more appreciative of the good times.
"I know you're sad, so I won't tell you to have a good day. Instead, I advise you to simply have a day.
Stay alive, feed yourself well, wear comfortable clothes, and don't give up on yourself just yet.
It'll get better. Until then, have a day."
A few lines really struck a chord with me and really summed up my recovery too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThePrincessOfDenial
I really couldn't have done it alone, so anyone out there struggling, please I implore you to seek help and advice from either professionals, or those around you if you can. Spending time with people is really a great way to motivate you to not do the bad things anymore.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Serendipity.
You know that C.S. Lewis quote, "Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different." Recovery has been like that for me. It was long and slow and a lot of the time it seemed like nothing was changing. I'd have months and months of being fine and then bam, I was right in the middle of a 'low patch' again and I couldn't believe that anything had actually changed.
I've had mental health issues since I was 12, in particular depression, social anxiety and hallucinations/delusions. I was suicidal and self destructive for most of my teenage years and self harmed everyday, which eventually became a coping mechanism for tactile hallucinations.
I told nobody what I was experiencing mostly due to the fact I was not close to anybody and this went on until my second year of uni when I had a complete relapse. I barely left my house for about 6 months not going to lectures as I was too paranoid thinking people were trying to control me and were plotting to kill me and eventually withdrew to get treatment.
I've been diagnosed with various illnesses since then including bipolar type 2, schizophrenia, complex PTSD and now BPD and Aspergers Syndrome. I knew I would never get better unless I worked hard so instead of believing my doctors who told me I was too complicated a case to get talking treatment and should just be left with medication (I've been on 13 different ones) I took steps to regain my independence in particular by volunteering then getting a job. Up until last year I was hallucinating at least 10-12 hours a day, however in order to reduce my medication by nearly 90% I changed my attitude towards what I was experiencing and also aspects of my personality became stronger and now I barely experience it. I'm no longer on antidepressants and am on the minimum dose of antipsychotic, which is basically a sleep aid.
It's been hard, I went through years of being suicidal every day believing I had no future, I lost my memory, my identity, my intelligence, my home, my friends, all my money, my career to illness, and I relearnt it and regained it all from scratch. I can say now that after 6 years since my mental breakdown I haven't taken time off work due to illness for well over a year, I am happy, normal, living in the city surrounded by good friends, have been living away from family support for nearly 3 years and applying to go back to university next year.
I still have residues of some issues, like social anxiety and flashbacks, and some external voices, my 6 years away from reality has slowed down my development and I can't always communicate properly with people but otherwise I am a functioning adult.
If there's one thing I can say about recovery from mental illness it's lay the foundations, one step at a time. At first I couldn't even wash my hair on my own, and I knew things would get better as long as I kept trying and moving forward. The main thing that got me through it all was kindness from others, patience, understanding, and acceptance. I am very honest about my mental health condition and that in itself has given me confidence. I'm not ashamed to have a disability and hope that it's made me into a more compassionate person.
Last edited by Dragon_Smoke : 09-12-2014 at 06:42 AM.
