April 20, 2013

So, my life has been incredibly insane lately. I could take a whole lot of time to explain it all, but I think i will give a few bullet points and a basic outline.

When I last posted I was trying to decide if I wanted to take a certain job, I didn't take it. I decided to stay with the job I have had for nearly 9 months now (I can't believe that it has been so long).

Since then I have:

  • Moved (to my second place of residence since moving away from home)
  • Bought a car
  • Had car for about a month
  • Crashed said car
  • Was given a one week notice to move out of my place of residence after having lived there for just over a month, due to absolutely nothing that I had done, but rather because the people I was renting from broke up.
  • Sold (now totaled) car
  • Moved (to my third place of residence)
(It should be noted that the above all took place within about a month and a half)

Now I am in a new (and hopefully semi-permanent) home and renting out a room again, but hopefully in a place where there is far less drama.

Anyways, the reason I wanted to write this blog post was because I just have been feeling the desire to make a post recently. Obviously a lot has gone on for my in the last few months of my life. There could even be another bullet point there saying that I have found a counselor and been to one counseling session. This counselor is a lot more promising that the first one I saw while at my current job. I feel a lot more comfortable with her right off the bat than I did with the last lady. At least this lady doesn't seem like she just wants to throw a bunch of diagnoses at me.The last counselor I saw told me I had low self-esteem, was codependent along with other things like that, and then kept telling me to buy this book or that CD in order to heal myself from these things (isn't that what she was supposed to be helping me with?). It was not a good counseling experience.

I have only been to one appointment with this lady, but she seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say and asked me about what brought me in and, although I didn't tell her everything right off the bat (of course) I was able to talk about some things. One thing she mentioned to me was that she thinks I have complicated grief (my friend Paige died when I was 16). I thought I had dealt with that and moved past it, but she said she noticed that my face looked really sad when I talked about her. She said that she thinks I might be a good candidate for EMDR (which apparently helps a person to separate the emotions from a memory, so that you don't automatically associate that memory with the emotions and they go  hand it hand, one example would be someone who was sexually abused as a child, EMDR would be used for the person to think about the things that happened and talk about them but through the EMDR process you are able to removed the fear or anger or sadness from that situation I guess.) Now I don't really know about anyone else, but I want the ability to be sad about my friend dying, so my one concern with this is that I don't want to go numb about it all.

One other big thing that has happened recently is that I opened up to a coworker/friend about my self-harm. I talked to her about my past struggle and how it was hard to hear a Foster Parent talk about their foster child who is struggling with self-harm. She basically kept making "cutting" movements with her arm and just was saying stuff that to me just made me anxious and not feel well. My coworker thinks I should talk to my supervisor so that I will not get put on any cases in which someone might struggle with self-harm. I don't know that this is a necessary step to take, I mean I want to be able to work with kids who also struggle with self-harm.

Anyways, back to the counselor. I sort of wonder if the EMDR thing would also help me to remove the emotional associations I have with self-harm and then help me to be more capable to work with clients who struggle with self-harm. I guess maybe it could give me a better overall perspective of the situation rather than just an emotional perspective.

I just read an article about EMDR treatment being used on a girl who then immediately stopped self-harming. I don't know if I am ready for that. Maybe I can mention it to the counselor (although just the thought makes me nervous).

And a final note to add to this crazy random blog post, I am currently not on any medications for my anxiety/depression or whatever. I took myself off the last one because it was causing me to have dizzy spells that were really messing with me. I tried about four different medications, not sure if these are the right ones, I would have to go look at my chart at the doctors office, but I think it was these. Most recently I was on Celexa (citalopram), but the side effect of dizziness caused me to take myself off of it. I believe I was on two different dosages. I am pretty sure the other three that I tried were Paxil (paroxetine), Prozac (fluoxetine), and Zoloft (sertraline). The sertraline side effect that got me was tenderness in my breasts. I work with kids in my day job and am around them a lot outside my work as well, and when you work with kids you get elbowed in the boobs often enough that breast tenderness is not a good thing. It was no fun! haha

Anyways, it is way past time for bed. Maybe I will post at some point in the near future (just trying to be honest!) (: