I wanted to give a quick update on meds as well. I saw a doctor out by my college because my anxiety has been particularly bad. She put me on Zoloft for my anxiety, which is technically an antidepressant, but also can help with anxiety. So hopefully that will help. She told me that I can still take my buspar as needed when the anxiety is bad, and I still have been taking that the same amount as before, but the Zoloft is supposed to take 4-6 weeks to kick in...
Gotta go!
Emmy R.
November 8, 2011
Dream...and a little bit of past and present...
I had a crazy dream this morning, just before I woke up. Somehow my mom had found out about my self-harm. Someone had told her about it. I only remember freaking out and bawling (which is crazy because I quite literally never cry), feeling so out of control. I was at my aunt's house and I ran down the hallway and into the bathroom She sent my sister after me and made her go into the bathroom with me. My sister was supposed to make sure I didn't cut myself. I wasn't planning on cutting myself, I just needed to be alone and they couldn't/wouldn't give me that.
It was horrible. I think the reason that I don't really tell anyone is because of the fact that I worry that they will freak out and think that I am going to cut myself all the time. The reaction of my mom in my dream is probably my second best guess as to how she would react, the way I could really see her reacting is by pretending the conversation never happened.
I think I wrote about that before. I don't remember though. My mom tends to react to hard situation by pretending that they don't exist. For example, when I tried to tell her that my best friend was doing drugs in middle school she told me my friend was probably lying to me and to just go to sleep. This is the reaction I would actually probably expect. However in high school when they (my parents) almost, sort-of-kind-of, found out via the school counselor and computer tech guys at school (long story short, I was posting on one of my blogs at school, and because of some research I was doing for a paper about eating disorders and pro-ana/mia websites it put up a red flag and they found my blog as well). Anyways, they took me out to get a smoothie and basically started yelling at me. That is why I could also see them to get into that place where they are angry at me and overreact.
Anywho, I need to start thinking about heading off to my internship now.
Oh wait, but I never told you that over the weekend I sort of told one of my friends about my self-harm, actually he sort of guessed. Yikes! I was a little bit tipsy and sort of lost my filter, whoops. Anyways, so now he knows, and I am mostly ok with that. I will add more detail at some point maybe if I decide to blog again soon.
Emmy R.
It was horrible. I think the reason that I don't really tell anyone is because of the fact that I worry that they will freak out and think that I am going to cut myself all the time. The reaction of my mom in my dream is probably my second best guess as to how she would react, the way I could really see her reacting is by pretending the conversation never happened.
I think I wrote about that before. I don't remember though. My mom tends to react to hard situation by pretending that they don't exist. For example, when I tried to tell her that my best friend was doing drugs in middle school she told me my friend was probably lying to me and to just go to sleep. This is the reaction I would actually probably expect. However in high school when they (my parents) almost, sort-of-kind-of, found out via the school counselor and computer tech guys at school (long story short, I was posting on one of my blogs at school, and because of some research I was doing for a paper about eating disorders and pro-ana/mia websites it put up a red flag and they found my blog as well). Anyways, they took me out to get a smoothie and basically started yelling at me. That is why I could also see them to get into that place where they are angry at me and overreact.
Anywho, I need to start thinking about heading off to my internship now.
Oh wait, but I never told you that over the weekend I sort of told one of my friends about my self-harm, actually he sort of guessed. Yikes! I was a little bit tipsy and sort of lost my filter, whoops. Anyways, so now he knows, and I am mostly ok with that. I will add more detail at some point maybe if I decide to blog again soon.
Emmy R.
November 6, 2011
I love you and miss you.
Today makes 5 years since my best friend Paige passed away from her battle with cancer. When she died my heart was ripped apart. I have healed in many ways, but there will always be a part missing. I love you and miss you so much Paige! March 4, 1990-November 6, 2006
November 5, 2011
Transtheoretical Model of Change
Developed by James O. Prochaska at the University of Rhode Island and his colleagues in 1977. From what I can tell, it was first used with smoking cessation, and later used with other behaviors viewed as negative, and now it can be applied to many areas where a person might want to change things in their life.
What is the Transtheoretical Model of Change?
It is a way to outline how ready a person is to end a negative behavior in their lives.
- Precontemplation – a stage where people are not planning on taking action to change things in their lives. Generally people are not aware that their behavior is a problem
- Personal: I don’t know that I have been in this stage, I think for the most part I knew from the beginning that what I was doing was not ok, hence trying to hide it from the very beginning, however I wasn’t planning on taking any steps to change my actions.
- Contemplation – a stage when people are sort of beginning to recognize that they have a problem, and that they need to change their behavior. The look at the pros and cons of continuing their behavior.
- Precontemplation to contemplation.
- Increasing knowledge about self and problem
- Beginning to express feelings about your problem
- Thinking about how your behavior impacts yourself and those around you
- I think that this stage for me was when I was a sophomore in high school, or year 10. I was realizing that I had an issue and considering the possibility of change.
- Preparation – a stage where people begin to have an intention to take action soon. May make some small steps.
- Contemplation to Preparation
- Thinking about yourself with regards to the behavior.
- This was probably also during year 10. I made personal steps and sought out help from people who also struggled with self-harm via the internet.
- Action – a stage where you make obvious changes in your life and positive change is visible.
- Preparation to action
- Thinking about freeing yourself from your behavior
- Committing yourself to taking action steps
- This was probably the summer after my sophomore year when I first made a step to ask for help with what I was doing. I talked to a youth leader and was not able to tell her everything, but I was seeking out help on a greater level than before.
- I might still be in this stage, or between this stage and the next.
- Maintenance – a stage where people are working on keeping from relapsing. A person could be in this stage for the rest of their lives.
- Action to maintenance
- Substituting thoughts, activities, places, people and things that could influence you to use the old behavior with new things
- Having someone who can help keep you accountable
- Remembering the positive benefits of change
- I could be considered to be in this stage, but not always, because I have relapsed in the recent past, but I am also working towards not relapsing again.
- Termination – This is a stage that some people add on to the model, where a person is no longer tempted to go back to their old behaviors. They are completely sure that they will not go back to their old way of coping.
- I am not sure how this stage fits in to my life. I would love it if I could be here someday, but a large part of me wonders if this is even possible for me.
- Relapse – some people also include relapse as a part of this model, it is not considered a “stage” but rather what happens when someone moves back to a previous stage.
October 16, 2011
Anxiety
Since I am on here, I also wanted to update anyone who reads this blog about my life in general. My anxiety has been really bad lately, especially when it comes to my internship. I actually felt not anxious today for the first time in a long while! It was wonderful to feel calm and not have this constant feeling of anxiety of having stuff to get done.
I take buspar (buspirone) for my anxiety. It is one of the few non-addictive anxiety medications, which I really like about it. My psychiatrist back home has me on 5mg of buspar up to three times per day (as needed). One unfortunate side effect for me with the buspar, is that I get really dizzy when I take it, particularly if I take the doses too close together (any less than 2 hours apart) which can happen if I am feeling particularly anxious and I don't remember the last time I took a dose. It might sound ridiculous but, sometimes one pill just doesn't help enough to bring my anxiety down. Like I said, buspar is non-addictive, so you don't build up a tolerance to it like you can with many other anxiety drugs, which is why it seems so weird to me that the buspar just will not kick in sometimes to help take the edge off the anxiety.
I know that medication for anxiety is not the only option and I have also been using techniques that I learned in counseling in order to help me calm down. Deep breathing is something I use every day, usually constantly during the day (the people I work with closely at my internship probably think I am crazy because they hear me breathing really deeply constantly...haha). I also use visualization exercises, or an exercise where I go through my whole body little by little relaxing the whole body (this one is harder to do, because I don't really have the time to sit down and do that, but if I can find the time then I do use it because it works better than just the deep breathing, though if anyone would walk in on me while I was doing it then they would probably think I was sleeping or something...and that is not good...haha). Anywho, I have been using alternate ways of getting myself to calm down, but at this point I think that I need to get on a new medication or something.
I made a doctors appointment for Tuesday the 25th of October, and I think that I should be able to get on a new medication hopefully for the anxiety. I will also keep you updated on how that all works out (:
Emmy R.
I take buspar (buspirone) for my anxiety. It is one of the few non-addictive anxiety medications, which I really like about it. My psychiatrist back home has me on 5mg of buspar up to three times per day (as needed). One unfortunate side effect for me with the buspar, is that I get really dizzy when I take it, particularly if I take the doses too close together (any less than 2 hours apart) which can happen if I am feeling particularly anxious and I don't remember the last time I took a dose. It might sound ridiculous but, sometimes one pill just doesn't help enough to bring my anxiety down. Like I said, buspar is non-addictive, so you don't build up a tolerance to it like you can with many other anxiety drugs, which is why it seems so weird to me that the buspar just will not kick in sometimes to help take the edge off the anxiety.
I know that medication for anxiety is not the only option and I have also been using techniques that I learned in counseling in order to help me calm down. Deep breathing is something I use every day, usually constantly during the day (the people I work with closely at my internship probably think I am crazy because they hear me breathing really deeply constantly...haha). I also use visualization exercises, or an exercise where I go through my whole body little by little relaxing the whole body (this one is harder to do, because I don't really have the time to sit down and do that, but if I can find the time then I do use it because it works better than just the deep breathing, though if anyone would walk in on me while I was doing it then they would probably think I was sleeping or something...and that is not good...haha). Anywho, I have been using alternate ways of getting myself to calm down, but at this point I think that I need to get on a new medication or something.
I made a doctors appointment for Tuesday the 25th of October, and I think that I should be able to get on a new medication hopefully for the anxiety. I will also keep you updated on how that all works out (:
Emmy R.
Monday, a discussion with C
So, I realized that I never updated about how my conversation with C went on Monday. It went ok. I arrived at my internship on Monday pretty freaked out about the whole thing, and as soon as I got there I was sort of put to work on a project. Once I was finished with that project and asked C if she had another one for me to work on. She started looking to see what she had but stopped short, and said "I almost forgot" and she shut the door. At this point I was reeling and totally freaked out about the prospect of talking about everything. She asked me how I was feeling about what we had talked about on Thursday. I basically told her that it was making me really anxious that she knew and the prospect of telling Sh had me totally freaked out. C asked me if I would be willing to tell Sh, like in a way that was just vague like I had originally tried to tell her. I told C that basically I had accidentally told her about everything, I told her how in a moment of panic I just sort of freaked out and because I was trying too hard not to tell her it just sort of spilled out. She sort of laughed a little and I just looked at her, thinking how it wasn't really funny, and she said that she laughed because it really sounded like something she would do. I told her that I was not really feeling comfortable with the idea of telling Sh about it because I was worried the same thing would happen as did with C. She said she understood that being scary. I asked C if she had ever told Sh about her own struggle with self-harm and C told me that she had not. I asked her why she thought it would be good for me to tell Sh and she told me that she thought it would be good to get more ideas on ways to learn to cope with the triggers that will undoubtedly come up in the Social Work field, for example, the fact that a client could struggle with self-harm. So eventually we settled on the idea that C would tell Sh very vaguely about the fact that I have something that triggers me, but she would not tell her what it was that triggered me.
So C wound up telling Sh in her supervision later that day. On Tuesday I asked C how that conversation had gone and she said that it was fine, and Sh didn't pry or anything and just told C some things that could be helpful for us to discuss together at our next supervision, which will be this coming Thursday.
I will keep you updated on the progress with that and how this coming Thursday goes. I am feeling a lot better about everything right now though, and starting to feel less anxious about the idea of C knowing about it, I mean it still bothers me, but less than it did right off the bat since I have had some time to get used to the idea.
So C wound up telling Sh in her supervision later that day. On Tuesday I asked C how that conversation had gone and she said that it was fine, and Sh didn't pry or anything and just told C some things that could be helpful for us to discuss together at our next supervision, which will be this coming Thursday.
I will keep you updated on the progress with that and how this coming Thursday goes. I am feeling a lot better about everything right now though, and starting to feel less anxious about the idea of C knowing about it, I mean it still bothers me, but less than it did right off the bat since I have had some time to get used to the idea.
October 9, 2011
One hell of a day...
I just recently posted a video to my youtube channel with me talking all about my day on Thursday. I just really need to process it some more before going back to my internship place on Monday.
Ok, so basically here is the background to the story, on my very first day at my internship, about four weeks or so ago, I was helping out with this program which is for first time shoplifters. (I was working with St**) The clients get referred to our program after they have been caught shoplifting and they can get it expunged from their record by attending a group and basically learning about some different things like peer pressure, self-esteem, etc. The goal is not to talk about the actual issue of shoplifting, but rather to help them with other areas of their lives which could have influenced them to make that decision to shoplift. Anywho, I was observing the group and it was cool to see the clients and to just interact with them a little bit. Afterward we had to do an "assessment" which basically is that we just ask some questions of the client, like medical history, any mental health issues, any drug/alcohol use, any family history of that sort of thing etc. Just a brief assessment of that because the program is considered "mental health treatment".
We started the two assessments with a male client and the assessment went well there wasn't much to say. Then we did an assessment with a girl. That one was a lot harder. We sat down and basically everyone was just talking about the basics (information about the program, dates and times, general feelings about the program, what had happened that had brought her there etc.) As we were having those discussions I noticed that she had scars all over one of her arms, it sort of messed with my head and I was feeling sort of dizzy and I was like sort of mentally checking out a little bit. I was worried that I was going to have to mention it to St, the girl I work with on Mondays. I was also feeling really triggered by it, which was strange because generally talking about self-harm or seeing images of self-harm is not something that really triggers me. Anyways, she had written down that she had a history of self-harm and several other mental health issues. St, noticed that she had written that down and was asking her questions about it. (i.e. was she seeking treatment, when was the last time, etc.) I was just internally freaking out, like a lot. It was pretty intense. After that was done I pretty much just headed back home, still feeling really triggered.
The next Sunday I went to church with a friend (I don't usually attend church, but he had an LGBT friendly church he wanted to check out, so I decided that I really had nothing else to do so why not? haha). The church had a really traditional feel (I am not a huge fan of traditional churches and like hymns and stuff) so I was a bit uncomfortable. We found a seat and the service started, we sang a few hymns and listened to doxologys and whatever else and then the sermon began. I don't really remember much about it except at the end the pastor started talking about self-harm (calling it self-mutilation which I HATE with a passion) and he was talking about anorexia and like saying how we need to give it all to God and that sort of stuff. Basically, I was just really uncomfortable with the whole thing. I didn't expect it to be talked about in church, let alone after I was still sort of shaken by what had happened on Monday. It pushed me over the edge and I did wind up self-harming later that week.
Ok, so back to Thursday. On Thursdays I have this thing called supervision where basically I meet with one of my two supervisors (C**, the one I spend the most time with, and Sh**, the one who is the one who is really in charge) to discuss what has happened in the past week. I wasn't exactly sure what I was supposed to talk about during supervision, so I asked C about it and she basically said, supervision is a time where you can bring up anything that you think is important, any progress you have made, anything that jarred you or any questions you may have since the last time we met. When she talked about stuff jarring me I automatically thought of the situation from my first day. I had already sort of been wondering if I should talk to her about it, and had discussed it with a friend of mine (an internet friend, Amy). Basically I wound up deciding to mention it in a very vague way, like "So what should you do if something you come across while working sort of messes with you because it might be something you struggle with personally".
I went into the meeting thinking that I would probably talk about it in the vague sense. Basically, when I did say it in the vague sense she didn't really understand what I was saying and just thought that it was like the fact that it is hard to see some things, like for example when she was younger C used to run away from home a lot because she didn't have a good home life, and the building we work in also houses a homeless youth shelter or another example she gave is that it is just hard for her to hear about kids who have been sexually abused because it just is not easy to hear about. Because she wasn't really getting my point I wanted to be clearer and basically everything just spilled out. I told her I struggled with self-harm and that there had been a client who had talked about it on my first day when I was with St. C told me that she had struggled with it too in the past and that it is something that will come across fairly often with the populations that we work with, so we sort of have to be able to handle it. She asked me how I felt about self-disclosure (using personal stories when talking with clients in order to be able to relate to them). I told her that I would probably not ever be able to talk to clients about it because it seems like the wrong kind of relationship to have with clients. She talked about how she might share her story with a kid from youth group, but not really with the clients at work. I agreed that the situations were very different from each other and that I wouldn't share with a client, but would be more likely to do so with a kid from youth group. She also mentioned how we just need to rely on God about stuff like this or something to that effect (the organization that I work for is not religious, however C is and because I go to a Christian University, she probably just assumes that I am as well) So basically we ended the discussion with that, and then moved on to discuss some paperwork that needed to get done.
After the paperwork was done I drove back to school to work at my on-campus job. I was still a little rattled from the conversation with C, but I sat down at the work computer and started working on stuff for work, but after a little while I was just really starting to freak, out my heart was beating fast, it was hard to breathe and my thoughts were out of control. I am pretty sure it was an anxiety attack, but I am not a doctor or anything. I was freaking out about it and so I decided to text C because I needed to find out if she was going to tell anyone about it. Below is what our texting conversation was.
First I think I will ask C why she thinks it would be good for me to talk to Sh about it. Like in what ways does she see it being beneficial to me? I also think that I am going to ask C if she ever told Sh about the fact that she struggles with self-harm. If she hasn't, then I want to know why she thinks I should if she has not. If she has told her I want to hear about how Sh reacted to C telling her and if it has really been beneficial for C that she told Sh.
At this point in time I am just feeling really anxious about the prospect of even talking to C about it tomorrow. I am also super anxious that I am going to be expected to tell Sh about it, not that they can force me to tell her, but something along the lines of C saying "you tell or I will" or something like that. *sigh*
Anyways, this post is getting long and rambly and I need to finish it. I will try to update tomorrow (or soon) as to how it goes with C and Sh, I hope it goes well.
Talk to you later!
Emmy R.
**initials used instead of their full names...just because I am paranoid...
Ok, so basically here is the background to the story, on my very first day at my internship, about four weeks or so ago, I was helping out with this program which is for first time shoplifters. (I was working with St**) The clients get referred to our program after they have been caught shoplifting and they can get it expunged from their record by attending a group and basically learning about some different things like peer pressure, self-esteem, etc. The goal is not to talk about the actual issue of shoplifting, but rather to help them with other areas of their lives which could have influenced them to make that decision to shoplift. Anywho, I was observing the group and it was cool to see the clients and to just interact with them a little bit. Afterward we had to do an "assessment" which basically is that we just ask some questions of the client, like medical history, any mental health issues, any drug/alcohol use, any family history of that sort of thing etc. Just a brief assessment of that because the program is considered "mental health treatment".
We started the two assessments with a male client and the assessment went well there wasn't much to say. Then we did an assessment with a girl. That one was a lot harder. We sat down and basically everyone was just talking about the basics (information about the program, dates and times, general feelings about the program, what had happened that had brought her there etc.) As we were having those discussions I noticed that she had scars all over one of her arms, it sort of messed with my head and I was feeling sort of dizzy and I was like sort of mentally checking out a little bit. I was worried that I was going to have to mention it to St, the girl I work with on Mondays. I was also feeling really triggered by it, which was strange because generally talking about self-harm or seeing images of self-harm is not something that really triggers me. Anyways, she had written down that she had a history of self-harm and several other mental health issues. St, noticed that she had written that down and was asking her questions about it. (i.e. was she seeking treatment, when was the last time, etc.) I was just internally freaking out, like a lot. It was pretty intense. After that was done I pretty much just headed back home, still feeling really triggered.
The next Sunday I went to church with a friend (I don't usually attend church, but he had an LGBT friendly church he wanted to check out, so I decided that I really had nothing else to do so why not? haha). The church had a really traditional feel (I am not a huge fan of traditional churches and like hymns and stuff) so I was a bit uncomfortable. We found a seat and the service started, we sang a few hymns and listened to doxologys and whatever else and then the sermon began. I don't really remember much about it except at the end the pastor started talking about self-harm (calling it self-mutilation which I HATE with a passion) and he was talking about anorexia and like saying how we need to give it all to God and that sort of stuff. Basically, I was just really uncomfortable with the whole thing. I didn't expect it to be talked about in church, let alone after I was still sort of shaken by what had happened on Monday. It pushed me over the edge and I did wind up self-harming later that week.
Ok, so back to Thursday. On Thursdays I have this thing called supervision where basically I meet with one of my two supervisors (C**, the one I spend the most time with, and Sh**, the one who is the one who is really in charge) to discuss what has happened in the past week. I wasn't exactly sure what I was supposed to talk about during supervision, so I asked C about it and she basically said, supervision is a time where you can bring up anything that you think is important, any progress you have made, anything that jarred you or any questions you may have since the last time we met. When she talked about stuff jarring me I automatically thought of the situation from my first day. I had already sort of been wondering if I should talk to her about it, and had discussed it with a friend of mine (an internet friend, Amy). Basically I wound up deciding to mention it in a very vague way, like "So what should you do if something you come across while working sort of messes with you because it might be something you struggle with personally".
I went into the meeting thinking that I would probably talk about it in the vague sense. Basically, when I did say it in the vague sense she didn't really understand what I was saying and just thought that it was like the fact that it is hard to see some things, like for example when she was younger C used to run away from home a lot because she didn't have a good home life, and the building we work in also houses a homeless youth shelter or another example she gave is that it is just hard for her to hear about kids who have been sexually abused because it just is not easy to hear about. Because she wasn't really getting my point I wanted to be clearer and basically everything just spilled out. I told her I struggled with self-harm and that there had been a client who had talked about it on my first day when I was with St. C told me that she had struggled with it too in the past and that it is something that will come across fairly often with the populations that we work with, so we sort of have to be able to handle it. She asked me how I felt about self-disclosure (using personal stories when talking with clients in order to be able to relate to them). I told her that I would probably not ever be able to talk to clients about it because it seems like the wrong kind of relationship to have with clients. She talked about how she might share her story with a kid from youth group, but not really with the clients at work. I agreed that the situations were very different from each other and that I wouldn't share with a client, but would be more likely to do so with a kid from youth group. She also mentioned how we just need to rely on God about stuff like this or something to that effect (the organization that I work for is not religious, however C is and because I go to a Christian University, she probably just assumes that I am as well) So basically we ended the discussion with that, and then moved on to discuss some paperwork that needed to get done.
After the paperwork was done I drove back to school to work at my on-campus job. I was still a little rattled from the conversation with C, but I sat down at the work computer and started working on stuff for work, but after a little while I was just really starting to freak, out my heart was beating fast, it was hard to breathe and my thoughts were out of control. I am pretty sure it was an anxiety attack, but I am not a doctor or anything. I was freaking out about it and so I decided to text C because I needed to find out if she was going to tell anyone about it. Below is what our texting conversation was.
Me --> C: "hey. i just wanted to ask you something real quick about supervision. are you going to need to talk to Sh about what we talked about?"I felt a little better afterwards about the fact that C was not going to just tell Sh about everything until after she talks to me. Now I am worried that C will really want me to tell Sh myself, and I just don't know if I want to tell her about it. I didn't want to tell C in the first place because I just don't really want the people I work with to know something so personal about me. C has mentioned to me on several occasions that their last intern was a "hot mess" and I don't want her to think of me that way, not that they will think that because of this but it is just awkward to have people know this huge secret about you (something that almost no one knows about you).
C --> Me: "Not necessarily, just only if i feel like i need direction, r u talking about the self harm stuff?"
Me --> C: "ya..."
C --> Me: "Well, wuld u rather tell her urself or do u not feel comfortable with her knowing period"
Me --> C: "if you think she needs to know i would rather tell her myself i think..."
C --> Me: "I agree, it wuld be helpful 4 u just 2 get more tools* but wuld it b ok 2 chat about it monday and decide the next step 2gether"
Me --> C: "ya. that would be good i think. thanks."
C --> Me: "Np lady!!!"
*side note: by tool she does not mean "tools" as in things used to self-harm, rather she means like ways to deal with triggers...
First I think I will ask C why she thinks it would be good for me to talk to Sh about it. Like in what ways does she see it being beneficial to me? I also think that I am going to ask C if she ever told Sh about the fact that she struggles with self-harm. If she hasn't, then I want to know why she thinks I should if she has not. If she has told her I want to hear about how Sh reacted to C telling her and if it has really been beneficial for C that she told Sh.
At this point in time I am just feeling really anxious about the prospect of even talking to C about it tomorrow. I am also super anxious that I am going to be expected to tell Sh about it, not that they can force me to tell her, but something along the lines of C saying "you tell or I will" or something like that. *sigh*
Anyways, this post is getting long and rambly and I need to finish it. I will try to update tomorrow (or soon) as to how it goes with C and Sh, I hope it goes well.
Talk to you later!
Emmy R.
**initials used instead of their full names...just because I am paranoid...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)