My Mosaic

@Bow I'm glad it resonates with you hun. Like please remember you're allowed to take a break - even from therapy!! So long as you don't rob yourself of all support, sometimes it is needed!

Hahaha your D is gonna have a fun time whenever she lives alone for the first time!! I'm like her you see, I manage to leave stuff all over the floor - and now I live alone, no one is there to pick up after me or be impacted by my mess, and it can get very chaotic in here!!

Honestly I'm surprised she hasn't learned her lesson just from stepping on said floor-Lego 😅

Aww you could pop a lil flower in there! You seem like a floral kinda gal 😉

Yeah I definitely won't be going that big!! I think at the size I am now, my ears will never go back to 'normal' (i.e. be fully healed) but if I let em shrink I think the hole will be 'closed' as in like, not 'no more hole' but 'no more dangly hole'

omg lol I swear.... there's certain phrases from our convos tonight that if you took em out of context, you'd think we were talking about something VERY different 🤣😝

I'll be heading off soon so I should start saying my goodnights!! Do you have much on tomorrow?

Yes I have just crawled back into bed @Jynx sleepiness is starting to hit.

tomorrow I have a home visit from my SW and that’s about it. I will start this painting too.

thank you very much for chatting tonight. It has helped a lot to keep me distracted. Enjoy the rest of your evening 🤗🐈

Yo same to you hun my evening has flown past @Bow, such a lovely evening!! Rest well hun, catch ya tomorrow maybe 😊💜

What to do when nothing seems to help? Meds don’t really do much now days. I’ve recently had the damage increased but I don’t feel like it did much. Yeah I understand things a bit better since doing this schema group, but not much has changed. Therapy doesn’t do much.

im fed up being a burden to everyone. My SW has just been for a visit and she asked specific questions and I was not honest with her. I did fess up to recent SH to which she said that she thought I was keeping something from her. That was the least of it though.

im tired. I feel overwhelmed a lot of the time. Feel like there is so much to do and I stress about getting everything done. I started an art piece today. It’s an order. I have totally under charged this person. I sat there today while doing it thinking this is going to take ages…

I see the pdoc tomorrow after my art group. Do I take along what I wasn’t honest about to my SW and hand it over to her?

hey @Bow i hear how exhausted you're feeling right now. part of recovery, i think it's pretty normal to come to that point where you're not sure if much progress is being made and feeling like there's such a long way to go. from the few months i've known you, i've seen so much resilience in you and i've seen the way you've fought hard to make changes and move forward. it makes total sense that you're tired, that's okay and i'm glad you're able to admit that. being honest here about how you feel and what's working/not working is such a huge step and a progress in itself.

have you had a chance to speak to your psych/GP about adjusting the meds?

in terms of your SW, i can see that you tried to open up at the end which is great - it also seems like she's quite intuitive if she suspected something was up! if you're not comfy telling your SW the rest of the truth and would rather tell your pdoc, that's totally fine too. the important thing is that they know what's really going on for you so they can support you better.

i'm really sorry that you've been made to feel like a burden to others, but @Bow seeking support to be a better you is never a burden. asking for help, being honest about your feelings - you deserve to do these things without feeling like your burdening others. you matter 💗

Big exhaustion day today huh @Bow ?

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@Bow wrote:

I see the pdoc tomorrow after my art group. Do I take along what I wasn’t honest about to my SW and hand it over to her?

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Hmm I mean... couldn't hurt right? Maybe also have a think about what you'd like from the SW too, like do you wanna do safety planning, talk about how it's making you feel n get it off your chest, suss out some coping strategies to try to replace/reduce the need to turn to SH, stuff like that could all be helpful foci 😉

I'm glad that the schema group has given you these insights! I do think it's a totally normal part of recovery to become a bit frustrated when you gain new knowledge and insight into the how and the why behind your mental state, but then it's like "Okay so now I know why I feel this way, now what do I do about it?"

And the answer to that question is gonna vary a lot person to person but some of it does just come down to building up the skill of catching ourselves in the moment - the moment before we do the behaviour we know is no good, the one we're trying to alter (for me that was stuff like self-harm, sabotaging my relationships, etc... for you I imagine SH and ED behaviours ay), we have more of an opportunity to make a different choice; to be empowered to say "I know this behaviour is because of x reasons, as we explored in group... I can try this alternative, but I also don't need to shame myself for it if I do end up doing it".

What order you gotta do hun, an artpiece I'm guessing but what kind, how long you got? Is it someone with whom you could re-negotiate cost?

But I don’t feel like I’ve made changes @rav3n just feel like I am wasting everyone’s time.

I guess I will let my pdoc know tomorrow how I have been feeling. I don’t think it’s my usual pdoc. He is back sometime this month though. But this pdoc I am seeing tomorrow I have seen once before. My Support worker and case manager will be in my appointment with me.

id probably prefer to fess up to my SW tomorrow than with this pdoc I hardly know. I just know my SW will be really disappointed. I know I’d be disappointed. I am disappointed in myself. She asked me. But I lied. I hate lying.

Not really a big day @Jynx just groceries and SW visit. Just not doing ok.

I will try fess up. Maybe send a text prior. That way she will prompt me and it will be easier that way.

yeah…. Feel like I’ve got all this new insight, new skills, but it’s too hard to make changes, like I can’t even imagine doing it. Who am I with out my ED? And my body image stuff is still so huge that I hate my body so much that I can’t even grasp making other changes. Gotta change my body before I can even think about doing anything else. I am overweight. That has to change.

I know all these things in my head. But that is where it stays.

A guy from church ordered a paint by numbers portrait of his wife for her birthday. I have a set date that it needs to be done by. Can’t really tell him ‘hey I need to charge you more cause it’s actually going to take xxx hours’. And I have no passion or desire to paint at the moment 😩 but I made a start today.

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@Bow wrote:

Who am I with out my ED?

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I think you're potentially getting into the crux of something here hun. As in, what I'm sensing is that maybe part of the reason change has been so hard is not because you don't have the capability to change, but because you have no idea what you want to change into. And honestly it is very okay for that thought to be terrifying!!

I wonder if that is also something worth bringing up with your treating team? As far as goals go identity is a really big, really important one!! I cannot say for sure, this is obvs for you to work out with your team but just wondering if perhaps spending so much time focused on the ED and SH/SI stuff has been kinda like treating the flu with antihistamines? Like it is treating only the symptoms and not addressing underlying stuff. As far as therapeutic goals go, reconnecting with your inner child is a brilliant way to nurture our past, our roots, but a future focus is also needed at times! Hard to forge a path forward if we don't know where we're going.

Also... there's a possibility that in healing/working on your sense of self and identity, it will also help you to reduce/eliminate the body dysmorphia. I hope that one day, the decision to lose weight will be entirely health related for you, as it has become for me. And funnily enough it's a lot easier to lose weight when one is not as stressed....

As always, all of this is just food for thought - no one knows your mind like you do and no one gets to decide how recovery looks except you 💜

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@Bow wrote:

A guy from church ordered a paint by numbers portrait of his wife for her birthday. I have a set date that it needs to be done by. Can’t really tell him ‘hey I need to charge you more cause it’s actually going to take xxx hours’. And I have no passion or desire to paint at the moment 😩 but I made a start today.

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Psssst... you actually can!! Pretty sure any commission I've ever seen is that the cost is materials + labour, and is usually an estimate only. You can give an estimate of like 40 hours but then maybe it takes 50. If you're charging $10 an hour thats $100 difference! I think it would depend entirely on how you initially worded your deal and how you communicated the potential increase though... This why my dad told me to always get stuff in writing 😅

just out of curiosity, what makes you think you haven't made changes? @Bow

or maybe do you feel like you're not ready to make the change (like opening up the lid about your younger self)?

the SW's role is to support you on your journey, not to make judgements! whether she's disappointed or not (i actually think she'll appreciate your honesty) is not your responsibility either way - by telling her your helping her help you. it's about you remember!! it's hard to be honest, and we tend to lie at times to avoid that uncomfy feeling - but this doesn't define your worthiness for support.