Sad Musings

I am who I am. I am what I was born as.

I have faced tough situations. I have seen things and felt things no human being should ever have to experience. But it has shaped who I am, and I would not give up who I am for anything in the world… I will certainly not reshape myself into a mould that I do not fit comfortably for the sake of another's opinion of me.

I know who loves me for me, I have made sure of it. And I love them in return, unconditionally. I am just like that. Someone who loves unconditionally. 

This is okay by me.

 I will return someone's love for me, tenfold, in my appreciation of them. Because I know it could be tough to love me sometimes. But not always. I try and make it worth it. This is okay by me.

So is being perceptive, intelligent, creative, caring, empathetic, open-minded… If I have to go through what I have gone through to reach these qualities in myself, I am okay with that. If I have to go through even more to further achieve wonderful qualities that I could not dream of at this time, so be it. I am okay with that.

I work incredibly hard in everything I do. I have a fantastic work incentive and I have recently discovered the surprising ability for leadership despite being of a quiet nature. I try to produce my best every time. I try to reach beyond the last time. I continue to reach. My art has flourished for it. And I have been told that, because of this, I inspire others to follow suit. This makes me feel warm and good. This is a good quality.

I am able to counsel others through their trauma and talk down someone who is having a violent fit of panic or suicidal thought or intention. I am able to devote myself to being there. 

I am only able to do this through the empathy that I have achieved by going through what I have gone through.

 In that, in making a difference to people who are troubled, just as I had people make a difference in my life throughout my troubles, I am DEFINITELY okay by that.

I still continue to have panic attacks. I still occasionally self-harm. 

Well, I am what I am. And those things alone do not define me.

They define me, along with everything else that I am. And I would not give up who I have become for the world. And I know that those closest to me would not wish me to give it up either.

What I struggle with deeply is the exhaustion of trying to prove these qualities of myself to others who close their minds to the concept. The doubt is tough sometimes.
Sometimes certain things that come so easily to most people is a legitimate struggle for me.
But in return, I excel in things that appear to be difficult to most. I find that it is an interesting reverse, and one that I enjoy, despite sometimes feeling inadequate with things that I've been told should just come easily. But then, in the end, it just wouldn't be me. I just wouldn't exist. I would be a different person entirely without the reverse.

And I am okay with who I am.
I am kind.

It's okay to get to know me a little better, though, to see for yourself.

Reasons For Why You Shouldn't Rape

STRONG TRIGGER WARNING AHEAD.

How do I start this?

How do I even begin to convey in words what I have recently been made to feel again, two weeks ago? I have found myself sitting here on occasion, these last couple of weeks, staring at this empty document. And today, I have found myself sitting here for hours now. I need to write this down. I don't really know how to begin. I'm just typing. Look, there we go, I have words now. Words are a start. This is a kind of in-the-moment, unplanned thing. I'm just typing. I guess that will suffice as a beginning.

Two weeks ago, my rapist sent me an email.

...

Where.. do I even begin? Truly? 

My rapist sent me an email.

My rapist.

The same rapist who raped me.

I was raped by a rapist and this was that rapist and he emailed me.

You know…? The same rapist who held me down while I cried that he was hurting me but he raped me anyway? That rapist. The rapist who raped me. Raped by a rapist. Violation. Rape. Betrayal. Rape. Abuse. Rape. Force. Rape. Trauma. Rape. Blood. Rape. Terror. Rape. Rape. Rape Rape Rape Rape Rape.

THAT rapist. The same one. That same rapist.

And he emailed me.

Can you just… take a second, and try to grasp what that.. is? What that means? To be raped? By a rapist?

The rapist who raped me. Held me down. Pulled down my pants. Raped me. I said it hurt. He kept on raping me anyway. And after I scrubbed myself so hard in the bathtub to get him off of me that I scraped the skin off and bled and the water turned pinkish but I still felt so dirty and then I dropped out of high school and tried to kill myself and became psychotically depressed with terror and wound up in a psychiatric ward and I bled and bled and bled and screamed and screamed and screamed daily. 

Yes. That rapist. The rapist who did that to me. 

The rapist who raped me.

Emailed me.

Can you just… imagine? Imagine what that would be like?

Can you imagine what he may say? My rapist? To his rape victim?

Take a moment. Take a brief moment.

What… would a rapist say, to his rape victim?

Three years after her rape? The rape that he committed?

Do you imagine that maybe

He would apologise? Maybe?

Maybe express regret?

Perhaps he was so guilty and tortured that he was trying to make amends before he did something awesome like end his pitiful and despicable fucking life or turn himself in? Maybe? God you would hope so, wouldn't you? I would certainly hope so.

Or maybe

He would say something along the lines of,

Hey (ex girlfriend that I abused and raped for three-four years)!,
Hey (ex girlfriend from a relationship that ended in incredible violence, that ended in the tragic death of inner-child)!,

How are you doing!? How has life been treating you these last few years?!

I've been good, myself. I've been doing pretty well in school and blahblahblah! I've actually been volunteering blahblah and working blahblah and I'm even on the student council at my college blahblahblahblah so I've been pretty busy. Still pretty quiet and shy though so it's hard to connect with people still lol (don't you remember? so funny). Anyway Tori (remember the cat we picked out together? Tori? Remember Tori? You remember Tori? Tori? The cat we picked out together? As a couple? Tori? We named her Tori.) is all grown up now and getting quite fat. She's definitely become a member of the family (remember my family? remember? when we were a couple? you came over all the time?).
Anyway I don't know if you will reply or not (because I raped you, remember? lol. Remember when I raped you? Ahh, the good old days, right? When I raped you? lol good times) but it would be great to hear from you again to see what you're up to! I'd love to catch up some time.
Anyway have a good one! (even though you won't now because I raped you and won't allow your terror to go away)

From,

Your Rapist.

..

No, never that.

You can't just…

lol you can't just

EMAIL the girl you raped after three years and go, HEY HOWS IT GOING REMEMBER OUR LIFE TOGETHER AND LOOK HOW WELL I'M DOING

he would never

he's not that INHUMAN right?

I mean sure he RAPED and that's just

an INHUMAN ACT to begin with but he just wouldn't

like

RUB IT IN like that, right?

Or forget it all happened or something?

Or just like,

Not… care?

Right?

Right?

So much normalcy...

I just…

For the last three years… I have been living in this delusional world where… He felt bad. That he had human in him. That the boy I dated for four years wasn't fully animal for our entire relationship. That I wasn't so naive. That I couldn't have known. That he had a moment of being inhuman but reverted back to being human and reflected on what he had done and what I had accused him of and was DESTROYED by what he had done to me, in destroying me. Wouldn't that be fair? He played so many mind tricks on me in our four year relationship that he had me protecting him to the very end, didn't he? I protected the shit out of that boy, when he raped me. I simply disappeared off the face of his world. I didn't go to the police. I didn't have him arrested. I didn't press charges. I didn't ruin his chances of getting into the university that I knew he worked so hard to get into. So it would only be fair that he took it upon himself, to punish himself, right? So tortured by what he had done that he would drop out of school, or fail, and need to quit his job, and perhaps get himself some help, because he realised that he has a monster in him that he needs to get under some fucking control.

Normalcy. So much normalcy. Like nothing happened. Like I didn't accuse him of rape.

I have been hoping for the last three years that he has been living in anguish over what he did to me. Because even though he was in denial at the time I accused, after reflecting back on it and wondering what had happened, what had gone WRONG?

ANYONE HUMAN COULD HAVE SEEN WHAT HE HAD DONE. I didn't press charges, but I had hoped that my accusation/declaration would have crushed him in the realisation of what he had done.

I have been living in this fantasy for the last three years that he was suffering.

And now reality has hit. No. He never emerged from the denial.

My rapist, the rapist who raped me, he's doing well. My rapist is doing better than I am.

I protected him to give him that.

I had hoped that I hadn't have been successful in giving that to him.

But I was successful..

I snapped. I fell so hard. I had never in my life of mental illness broken that fast and that completely in such a short amount of time. I went from smiling to confusion to screaming. So quickly. My post-traumatic stress disorder overcame me, overwhelmed me, crushed me before I even knew what had really hit me. (Please can't you see that this destroyed me. Someone?)

And so I re-lived, again, my rape through post-traumatic stress disorder flashbacks. I was raped again that night, in my mind, by him, so real. He pulled down my pants and held me down and I cried and he raped me again that night. I have fought so hard for so long to break free from his power over me and in ONE message all of that was reversed and I fell victim once again.

Fucking… hell and I was so powerless.

I didn't even stop to think I just deleted the email and messaged him without thinking that I should probably keep it as evidence god damn it and that I should have fought BACK. Because here is my CHANCE! To fight him back! Like I wasn't able to do physically, three years ago. All of those years with him.

But it didn't work out like that, did it.

God fucking damn it this post is full of melodramatic bullshit but fucking hell I want everyone to SEE WHAT HE DID. I feel increasing anxiety that I'm not conveying my emotions well enough. They are so intense that it's hard for that to come across in words but I WANT it to. I want someone to picture me legitimately laying on the floor screaming and crying with blood on my arms and be moved to tears and anger and a need to reach out to me through that image. I want someone to know, through my words, without experiencing the trauma themselves but KNOWING enough through my words, what I went through.

I just want someone to understand that I was RAPED.

Do you understand what rape IS!?

I want someone to look at me, 5'2", 115 lbs, talented, quick to smile, intelligent

And I want them to imagine my heart-shaped face being pressed into a pillow while my blue eyes cried as he forced 'himself' into me. INSIDE of me. INSIDE of ME. Of ME. ME, something that /I/ should have complete and utter control of. MYSELF. MY possession. MY body. And he forced something INSIDE of it over and OVER again against my will. It wasn't SEX, it had nothing to do with SEX, it was about taking away my CONTROL so that he could be POWERFUL. It was RAPE. I was RAPED.
And,
How does that make you feel!?
Can you imagine!?

How INVASIVE that was. How much of an understatement the word INVASIVE IS. The VIOLATION. The TRAUMA. The NiGHTMARES. How BETRAYED I was. I trusted him to NOT rape me. But he RAPED me.

And I do not want someone to go, "aww, I'm so sorry.."
I do not want someone to be silent,

but to be fucking MAD

Like, really fucking ANGRY on my behalf

Because this fucker RAPED me and had the GALL to fucking MESSAGE ME with his NORMALCY BULLSHIT LIKE NOTHING EVER FUCKING HAPPENED LIKE HE DIDN'T FUCK ME UP.

Because he did fuck me up.

So badly.

I just can't wrap my mind around how FUCKED UP he made me feel, how fucked up the situation is, how fucked up my life is, how raping me set me YEARS behind everyone else. It's on a COLOSSAL scale, how fucked up I have been, and how my life has been. ENORMOUS. Unmeasurable. So. much. destruction and chaos.

How have I been? HOW AM I?

I'll tell you how fucking well I have been since you RAPED me, RAPIST.

First of all I went from being a straight A student to a fucking high school DROP OUT who couldn't even leave her fucking house and flipped her shit over the locks on the doors because you tried to break in that one time after you raped me.

So thank you for making me the DISAPPOINTMENT of my family.

Yeah, there's the second thing.

Thanks for destroying MY FAMILY TOO.

Thanks for fracturing the tentative relationship with my mother, thanks for destroying my relationship with my sister, for OBLITERATING my relationship with my father. Severing me from my father's side of the family. The weddings and births I have missed because I am too GODDAMN AFRAID TO REACH OUT.

Thanks for the POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER and the SLEW OF OTHER MENTAL DISORDERS that I now have to fucking deal with. Thanks for triggering a PSYCHOTIC BREAKDOWN. How have I BEEN? Well, let's see, I've only tried and almost succeeded in killing myself a few times, that's all! I only succeeded in getting myself locked away against my will in a psychiatric ward, no big FUCKING DEAL OR ANYTHING.

How. Have. I. Been.

Well my skin is no longer beautiful on my legs because I've slashed my thighs open to bleed out the pain that you put me through. I only have scar tissue upon scar tissue upon scar tissue, no biggie. I only cried until I literally choked and dreamed of dying and had nightmares of living. I was only kicked out and pretty much homeless for a little while there because no one understood what the fuck I was on about and I wasn't healing fast enough for them so hit the road, rape victim! Get out of here! You're crying too much.

I only lost EVERYTHING that I held dear to me, most of my closest friends, any potential friendships that could have bloomed. You were only the cause of the disorders that were the reason for why I was threatened, and successfully threatened, into a surgery that I did not WANT.

Forced to get a job and move out on my own before I was ready for it. While I was still dealing with the trauma. Over 40 hours a week, minimum wage, while I cried most nights for being raped in my dreams over and over again.

I only look over my shoulder EVERY GOD DAMN TIME I AM OUTSIDE because I am TERRIFIED of seeing you. TERRIFIED of being chained to this area that I know is nearby YOU. I know you frequent HERE and I know that you know that I am HERE and so I am TERRIFIED of leaving my own god damn home. Not that my home would stop you, nothing could stop you, as is evident by you RAPING ME.

How have I been…?

Sad… and so very angry. And depressed and misunderstood and so very alone and disconnected and detached and feeling way too much.

I learned to mistrust and I learned suspicion and silence and literal insanity.

I learned to distance myself from everyone around me.

I learned to channel my sobs into convulsions so that my father wouldn't hear me in the other room. I would just convulse instead of scream.

I learned how to get bloodstains out of bedsheets and how to properly tend to wounds.

Once you have been raped it... changes you. You become mistrustful in the worst way possible. People who are not victims, who do not know victims, they go about their lives giving away trust to others. They simply trust. They trust that they will not be raped.

But the moment you become a rape victim... that disappears. Your entire outlook completely changes.

Now, people have to EARN your trust in them that they will not rape you.

As a rape victim, you live your life in fear of other people, in fear of rape. Mistrusting other people and mistrusting their control over themselves.

You never completely trust again.

Every new partner falls under your suspicion and scrutiny.

Are they displaying the signs?

How do I trust this person?

Do they have the potential to rape me?

So I have learned to mistrust people.

I have been taught, in such a brutal way, through such a brutal lesson, to not assume the trust.

To withhold it from others until they can PROVE to you that they will not hurt you in that way.

You have to EARN my trust to not rape me. Isn't that bizarre? Can you imagine that?

I wouldn't have been able to conceive of something like that, a mindset like this, pre-rape....

All on my own, through my own strength of will, I have climbed from the depths that you threw me down to. I earned my high school diploma two years after I dropped out. I  applied for and was accepted into college. I just received my grades and I achieved a 4.0 GPA in college. I've held my job for two years. I was promoted to supervisor a year ago. I started building up relationships again. Reaching out a little bit more. Almost enjoying myself. That was what /I/ did. That's MY strength. It took me THREE YEARS to even climb to the STARTING point of where you merrily are, rapist.

And then you just

thought you could just

message me.

And you destroyed all that. You messaged me the night before my biggest exam.

I am a straight-A student and that day, when I went in and wrote that exam, I received 55%.

That's just fucking… HIGH SCHOOL all over again, what you did to me.

FUCKED me over so that I went from fucking AMAZING to fucking

destroyed.
How fucking...

DARE YOU!?
HOW FUCKING DARE YOU EVEN THINK TO ENTER MY LIFE AGAIN AND CAUSE THE SAME FUCKING BULLSHIT THAT I SO PAINSTAKINGLY FOUGHT AND RECOVERED FROM, ALL THESE YEARS? ALL THESE YEARS SINCE YOU RAPED ME?

RAPIST?

HOW DARE YOU.
I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE YOU HAD
THE NERVE
to
message
me.

And no.

You didn't act the way I had been hoping, all of these years.

Tormented and anguished.

No. You didn't.

Because you're not a compassionate human being.

You're not a reasonable human being.

You don't care for me or for others.

I was merely a possession all along.

Something to control.

You objectified me. Stripped away my identity as a person.

I suppose doing that made it easier to rape me.

Because if I was a human being with thoughts and feelings it would be harder to rape me without feeling really bad about it, probably.

But I was just a woman. Your woman. A woman that you controlled. Right?

A possession.

Raping possessions isn't so bad, right?

It's like, it's not rape at all, and you can like, just… get on with your own life afterwards.

If I was just a possession and not a human being with thoughts and feelings.

Right?

I'm the one living in torment and in anguish.

That's just not fair.

It's just really not fair at all.

You should be the one living in torment and anguish.

But there you are.

With your normal life.

Your successful life.

Congratulations, rapist.

You represent rapists everywhere.

Silver Lines

WARNING: Mature, potentially triggering content. Reader discretion advised.

This friday, October 12, 2012, marks exactly three years since I was raped. October 5th has come and gone, but marks a full year since my surgery resulting in the loss of a small spark of life that I still grieve deeply for. With these two dates of such defining and traumatising significance to me so close together, it is perhaps understandable that I am prone to annual bouts of depressive episodes.

To debunk the common misconceptions of mental health in general is a feat that I will undertake another day. Instead, I'm honing in on one specific aspect that has never truly been respected for what it is and what it means. The majority of the people who have stood by me after what I have been through have enhanced their knowledge on mental health disorders and the stigmas surrounding them by leaps and bounds, but this particular subject stands out to me as something that is still misunderstood.

I am writing today to discuss self-harm/self-mutilation, and what it means to me.

Here we land on the taboo subject of self-injury/harm, in an attempt to debunk the common yet serious misconceptions about the motivations and state-of-mind of a self-harmer. This task may, in the end, be a futile one; to truly understand the motivations of a cutter, one must be a cutter. The majority, non-cutters, will likely always look upon the act of self-mutilation and harm with a sort of awful horror. It is a very personal thing that differs from person to person, with no two stories the same. However, this is a task that must be undertaken in order for the flow of this blog to continue. This is a really touchy subject for me, as a self-harmer, as I take the unpopular approach in defending a cutter's right to cut in peace. If this post allows a single fellow self-harmer a moment of rest in a situation brimming with guilt and blame, well, I will count this post a success.

The definition of self-harming/disfigurement/mutilation tendencies should, in my opinion, cover a broad range of definitions to suit the broad range of expression through self-harm. Not only should this blanket cover the traditional 'cutting', but burning, bruising, scratching, hair-cutting, and more should be considered as well. From my own observations and volunteer work with people seeking advice on their mental health issues, I have come to understand that self-harm tendencies are rampantly apparent in pre-teen youth. The 'official' average age that one starts self-harming has been stated to be between the ages of 14 and 16. However, in my own uncontrolled, unofficial, imprecise data, the numbers can appear to be quite a bit lower than even that. After combing through the emails of people I have helped with their self-harming habits and through observation of a mental health forum that I frequent, I have found that a staggering 73% of what I have observed admitted to starting self-harm between the ages of 10 to 13, with over half of that percentage specifically being the age of 11. While this data may not be by any means reliable, the pairing of these numbers with my own experience with self-harm may be alarming for some who are not familiar with the concept of child mental health. This data was important to me because, as someone who was once 11 years old, snipping my wrist with a pair of scissors, I have, after all of these years, felt incredibly alone in that. It is an observation of mine that I dearly wish had more awareness, for the sake of the other 11 year olds who are inevitably out there, hurting.

Misconceptions and stereotypes on the self-harmer stems from the misunderstanding of the why. One such misconception is that all self-harmers are seeking negative attention through their self-harm. While it is true that there are individuals who use self-harm as a method of seeking attention, rather than being the negative attention that is the misconception, it is, instead, often a cry for help. Yes, some of these harmers may be looking for your attention — they may be reaching out to you by displaying their harm to you in order to get the appropriate help for their inner turmoil. To dismiss a harmer who is reaching out for help can be a dangerous move, which makes this particular misconception in definite need of awareness.

While I was a very private individual at 11-years-old, my self-harm was a bit of a cry for help when I first began. I had been sexually molested at 8-years-old up until I turned 11 and have experienced anxiety since before I can remember, and depression since my early pubescent years. I began to have suicidal thoughts at 10-years-old. Being 11, I was overwhelmed by emotions that very few adults could cope with, let alone a child, and I turned towards self-harm as a method of expressing the pain within myself that I had troubles coming to terms with, even defining. Unfortunately, when my mother discovered that I had been cutting my wrists, she handled the situation quite poorly. The reason for why I was self-harming was demanded from me, not coached out of me gently. I was yelled at, and made to feel ashamed for what I had done, without any real regard for why I had done that in the first place. More importantly, I was simply told to stop, and I was dismissed as going through a phase that would eventually come to a close. Preferably right then and there.

This does not appear to be an isolated incident. Over and over again, I am seeing stories of sufferers who have been rejected and dismissed by family members for their chosen method of expression. The concept of teenager phases is a dangerous one — there is often a reason for perceived 'fads' within teens that stems from a serious underlying issue that should be addressed right away. Had I been coaxed gently into therapy at that tender age of 11, much of what I later go through may have been prevented. Instead, therapy was brought up and used as a threat, rather than a solution to the problem; in that heated moment where my mother lost her temper over what I had done to myself, she had me convinced that going to therapy would be a horrible and abnormal thing.

From my mother's reaction, a few things happened: 1. I internalised my depression completely. 2. I moved my self-harm to another, more private location. 3. I stopped reaching out for help altogether.

As one could probably discern from this situation, ignoring this cry for help can have dangerous consequences. I was no closer to developing the skills required in order to handle my traumas in a healthier way, and yet I felt impressionable as a child by my mother's reaction to hide all symptoms of having trauma in the first place. 

Self-harm is not the problem itself, and not a fad. Self-harm is the symptom of a deeper, more emotional problem; a problem waging a war of such violence within the individual that the individual expresses this internal violence on their self. Writing off self-harming tendencies as a phase is also a dangerous stereotype that will lead to more complicated problems later on in the sufferer's life. Consider just how disturbed a self-harmer must be feeling to not only have the urge to harm themselves, but to put themselves through an incredible amount of patience and resolve of inflicting that harm upon themselves. It is incredibly hard to purposely harm oneself. You feel the burning and the pain and your body will instinctively react by pulling you away, and sending signals for you to move away from the source of the pain. Self-harmers have an enormous amount of patience and will to dedicate themselves to actually harming their person. Self-harm is not a fad. It is not a phase. It is not something to turn your back on. As it is so difficult to harm oneself on a regular basis, for some people, self-harm may end up being the wrong option for them in being able to express their deeper hurts. Many people do walk away from self-harm after a while as they tire of the emotional toll that self-harming may inflict upon them, to discover other methods of coping — and then there are some who do not. It has nearly been 10 years since I first began cutting myself. 10 years is not a phase — it has become a primary coping strategy for me. It has become a last resort, after all these years of seeking other strategies that have helped me cope, but there are some feelings that artwork and breathing exercises cannot express.

Another misconception is the connection of self-harming tendencies with suicidal tendencies. It is the general belief that people who are self-harming are doing so as suicide attempts, or working their way up to attempting suicide. While the reason for self-harm differs from one individual to another, self-harm is almost never an actual suicide attempt. Consider this: probably one of the more common forms of self-harm is cutting. Individuals with a mental health illness that encourages suicide are usually victims of violence, and/or have a violent turbulence of emotion within them. There are many types of violence, and individuals who find the idea of suicide to be attractive have typically experienced some form or another of violence. For someone who is suicidal, the overwhelming emotions make suicide attractive in the hope that taking that way out would bring a peace upon the sufferer. Suicidal individuals are, for the most part, seeking peace and rest and relief, and it is important to them to shy away from such a violent end that wrist-cutting would involve. Let's be realistic: wrist-cutting is an extremely inefficient, painful, messy, and slow way to end one's life. Self-harm, on the other hand, is typically used as a coping method to prevent the individual from contemplating suicide. It is a method of survival. Self-harm and suicide attempts are two completely separate symptoms of a problem, where a sufferer may experience one symptom and not the other, or experience both, but with such difference that it makes the two symptoms simply incomparable. My self-harming habit was an act of survival, for me. When my suicidal thoughts overwhelmed me and I began to become terrified that my self-control was slipping in that regard, I would cut. Cutting myself when contemplating suicide allowed for me to lash out somewhere with the negative energy within me that was convincing myself to end my life. After cutting myself, I would experience a period of mournful peace, where the storm inside my head subsides into silence, and I could think and make decisions with some degree of rationality. Cutting helped ground me back into the world and allowed for me to drain my emotions into something less consuming and overwhelming. The mistake of my mother consistently trying to forcibly stop me from cutting myself throughout my teenaged years would have actually have ended tragically for me had she been able to succeed; without the extreme of cutting to balance my suicidal tendencies, I would not be here today. Indeed, when I finally began attending therapy sessions in Doctor Osuch's FEMAP program , the (wonderful) therapist that I was assigned to made it clear to me that she understood the dangers of forcing me to stop, and bade me to continue with the habit if that is the only coping strategy available to me. The contrast of my mother's overreaction and the understanding that I found with my professional therapist blew me away, and the latter helped me gain the footing that I had first began when I was 11 years old: asking for help.

Before going into my next point, I want to take this opportunity to explain my thought-process through self-harm throughout the years; more for my own benefit than anything else, though it certainly relates to the next bit. A warning that this paragraph will contain more gruesome and intimate details of my experience. As I stated before, I began cutting when I was 11 years old, shortly after the sexual abuse I had undergone that had started three years prior. Cutting began as a private thing (albeit a small reach towards help)  of just cutting small chunks of my skin out with scissors. This use of scissors lasted for about two years for me, and the scars still mark my wrist to this day due to the harsh nature of scissors as a tool. After two years and the confrontation with my mother, I began to internalise quite a bit more and moved to more private locations. My thighs became the target with a knife, and continued to be targeted later with a razor blade. Cutting continued throughout my teenaged years as I struggled with what had happened to me as a child, and with my struggle of being raped repeatedly by my high school partner over the course of 3-4 years. The relationship had felt wrong for a long time, without my realising that coercion is defined as rape. After the final and more violent rape that this person committed against me, where he didn't even bother with coercion, I fell into a psychotic depression. Psychotically depressed is depression pushed to the limit to the point where the sufferer is hearing voices and hallucinating, and are six times more likely to commit suicide. Coupled with the growing need to survive against the odds of me inevitably attempting suicide and with my hatred of myself 'for getting raped' (read: rape culture), my cutting spiralled to the point where the skin on my legs remains permanently scarred. Because I had been sexually abused for the majority of my life up until this point, I targeted areas that had to do with my womanhood and my hatred of my body for 'luring' my attackers. (read: psychotically depressed. minimal rational thought. not actual current belief.) The amount of blame and guilt and loathing that I rested at my own feet for being the victim made my cutting of what defined me physically as a woman a sort of symbolism. I cut my thighs, my hips, my stomach, and my breasts. I cut because I blamed myself, and these parts of me. I cut to make myself and those parts of me undesirable, so that it would never happen again. I wanted to repulse and withdraw. This became a core theme for my self-harm: blaming myself for appearing pretty to others, feeling that I did not deserve to look this way, feeling that I needed to repulse. When I had undergone my surgery last year, the guilt and blame shook my mental state to the core in a way that I had never experienced before. It still has not disappeared.. It was worse than my rape, and affects me to a greater extent still. I felt like a murderer and I mutilated myself to a horrible extent after that. The privacy that I had withdrawn into exploded into a need to convince others that I was deserving of punishment, and my cutting traveled from my thighs and back to my wrists again. I chopped off most of my hair and purposely cut it in an unappealing fashion, barely an inch long, because I felt like I didn't deserve to have pretty hair and perhaps being undesirable would make me less of a target for being victimised again. 

And so we move on to the next point of this subject: the problems with the available 'alternatives' for self-harmers. These methods send a pain sensor to the brain without the physical marks, and they are 'supposed' to give the same sense of satisfaction that would be experienced with actual self-harm attempts. These methods range from snapping an elastic band against your wrist to feel the sting without a physical cut, to holding a bag of ice against your wrist until you get a burning sensation upon the skin, also without leaving a mark. I feel that these methods were pushed on me too readily without the suggester taking the time to analyse my particular reason for self-harm in the first place. Consider that my particular relationship with self-harm was to mutilate myself and make myself repulsive. I actually did not like the pain. I hated it, did not want it, and tried to experiment with tools that would give the best mark with minimal burn. My goal was to make myself ugly, and undesirable; to punish myself with gaping and bleeding wounds that would leave permanent and raised scarring. These methods, though I did try them, did not imitate my intimate connection with self-harm and the intensive symbolism that I had invested in it. Without careful diagnosis and consideration for the many variants of self-harm that are out there, unique to each and every person who indulges in the habit, careless advice such as this without follow-up can also have dire consequences. Again, this misconception of a 'quick fix' stems from the belief that self-harm is the problem, not the symptom. Without delving into the reason for the self-harm and the unique symbolism that each person assigns the self-harm to represent, there is no generic 'fix' for the issue. These alternatives ARE proven to be successful to a point, but to generalise that it should work for all self-harmers is a statement that such an activity should be easy to stop, or ease out of.

In this case, I had to help myself, and personalise a method of easing my self-harming tendencies while also targeting the self-esteem and self-loathing issues that the self-harm stems from. I'm going into this detail on the off-chance that this may help someone down the line.

As my habit stemmed from self-loathing issues, I used it as a venting method to channel my frustrations with myself and my life into a physical wound. After doing this, and draining myself of that violent energy, I would be left with a.. sort of fuzzy, hazy feeling; a clarity in my mind that made me rather receptive to compassion and personal thought. Post-cutting would place me in a state of quiet exhaustion. I took advantage of this state of mind and took painstaking measures to truly take care of my wounds. I will dab at them gently with water to clean away the blood, and then dab gently with hydrogen peroxide to sterilise, and keep pressure and bind the wounds. While I did this, I would feel a rare tenderness for myself; almost like how a nurturing mother would clean and bandage the scraped knee of her young child. After venting the negative energy contained within me that I held against myself, I was then nurturing and caring for myself; I took the opportunity to pity me and what I had been through, to mourn my wounds, and most importantly, my sense of self-worth improved greatly.

I suppose it's getting late, so I'm going to wrap this up. Abrupt, I know. I suck at paragraph transitions.

I haven't picked up the razor since that horrible time a year ago, which was coupled with the two-year mark of having been raped. My description is gruesome, but I feel like I would probably be shouldering a lot more self-blame at present if I had not cut; the cutting allowed for me to vent quite a bit of those unjustified feelings that typically surface whenever a person is victimised. Cutting stopped me from suicide. It kept me alive. I was suicidal, definitely so; I have attempted suicide and I have been hospitalised for my urges, but cutting was such a release for me that I was able to mostly curb my desire for my own death. Had I not self-harmed, I fear that my self-blame would have festered to the point where I would have succeeded in ceasing to exist.

I sit here, a year later, and I contemplate my habit yet again. My regrets are beginning to overwhelm me once more. But I'll pull through again, probably, maybe. It would just be nice if I could get a bit of acceptance with that. I hate that I have been made to feel ashamed for so long, because of this habit that has saved my life, and the marks that it has left behind. As cheesy as this sounds, if you find the sight of my legs to be shocking, try and take a look into my soul. I am merely trying to copy the marks on that onto my body, as visual proof. The scar tissue on my legs is nothing compared to the marks that others have made on me, within.

Cutting is definitely not a healthy coping strategy by any means.

But it sure as hell beats dying.

Moving On From Unrequited Love

I'm not going to get into too much background detail here. We all have our own stories when it comes to unrequited love; mine, well, I will simply never be able to convey exactly what it means to me in writing. I'm great at conveying my feelings through my art and writing, but here is where I simply cannot do it any justice. I have been in love for the last three years. It may or may not have been returned at first; I guess I'll never know that for sure. What I do know is that, even if it ever did, his love no longer belongs to me. Quite frankly, I don't really deserve it, nor do I want it. We could never truly be compatible with one another; we simply want different things out of our lives.

But that doesn't stop me from feeling it, I suppose, because I have been hung up on this person for the last three years. I have actually tried to get over him. I've dated, but those relationships have failed. I am dedicated to this one person, only allowing my heart to be half-dedicated to the others. It wasn't fair to them, and it wasn't helping me move on. I've friended this person, I've cut them out for months at a time, I've distanced myself, and I've stepped closer.

At first, around the time that I may have lost him, I was preoccupied with the reason why. I kept trying to get inside of his head, see it his way, blame myself, try to fix myself. Much of my own personal growth over the last few years has been inspired by the loss of him, how keenly I felt it, and how eager I was to "fix" things to maybe gain it back. I don't regret the progress that I've made with myself, even if, in retrospect, it was all for the wrong reasons. I've grown quite a bit from the period of time that this boy entered my life, which was probably the worst possible time for him to do so. Looking back now, I can see that I was not merely depressed; I was at a point of a psychotic break. I had literally been driven crazy by trauma. I was depressed to the point of being delusional. It was messy.

Well, you can see how that may have caused a big problem with any relationships I had tried to maintain at the time. I fucked up. I lost a lot. From a psychiatric perspective, I suppose one could say that it wasn't my fault. But that still won't stop me from feeling that it was. Even now, when I recognise that I shouldn't feel that way, (after all, I've overcome the shame and guilt and blame I placed on myself when I was raped) I still do. It's something that I have yet to grow into. I did, after all, cause a lot of pain from my actions. I feel like I was not in complete control of myself then, but I also feel like I indulged in that behaviour a little too readily.

So, for a long time, I have been blaming myself and trying to fix the "reason" and the "problems". I suppose the more 'general' population can relate to this in that, well, things broke off before you were ready for them to go, for a rather vague reason, leaving one unsatisfied and unable to really move on with their life. Where the other person is grasping at straws trying to find any other excuse other than the unsatisfying, "I just don't feel the same", while you are looking for every hole in every excuse to try and argue your way back in.

I've come to realise that the reasons... they just do not matter. Now that I am healthier, I can see the situation more clearly now. It doesn't matter what his reasons were for not loving me, and it doesn't matter that I made any effort to fix that. However, that doesn't make it hurt any less for me... It's an unhealthy trend that I see in unrequited love; on the one hand, we have the person trying hard to not give such an impersonal excuse as 'I just don't feel the same', and so giving every other excuse in the book, and on the other hand we have the other person looking for every way in all those imaginary excuses to hang on to that person. Him and I were involved a lot longer than we should have been, simply because I could not accept his excuses, and I manipulated the situation in a way where he could not untangle himself from the excuses and avoid hurting me. I was wrong to weave that web of manipulation. I wasn't even fully aware that I was BEING manipulative... All that I could think about was assessing the problem I was given and doing everything in my power to fix it.

But that wasn't the point of being given the problem in the first place.... because in reality, he simply did not want to be with me any longer, and no amount of persuasion was going to change that. I realise that now. Perhaps he even said so. It just didn't get through to me. You cannot make someone stay with you if they don't want to; any excuse to keep them by you is selfish, and our friendship has suffered for it. And it's not love. The truth is, I could have done everything right by this boy (which I definitely didn't do), and he may still have left me. In fact, if he hadn't ended it when he had, all that really would have done was postpone it anyway, because there have been situations since then that he would not have stuck by. In a way it's almost a relief; had he left me during the more recent situations, it probably would have further devastated the delicate friendship that we have now.

I have to accept that he knows what is best for him, and that there may not be any other reason for it other than I am not the person he is meant to be with right now. Or ever. Definitely ever. It doesn't mean he doesn't care about me, that there was a reason or that I could have prevented or fixed it. I suppose that's just how feelings work.

Yes, I miss him tremendously. Even though I've come to realise this, it still doesn't seem to make it any easier in getting over him. I've given myself all the tools for moving on, all but time. I have spent so much time bettering my health for him that I have lost track of what really should be important to me, for me. Much of my efforts have been directed towards fixing the problem between him and I, or at least fixing the problem with me so that it won't happen again with anyone else down the road. Now I see how narrow-minded I have been. In spending so much time trying to fix myself as a problem, I have neglected to give myself time to move on from the past. There really isn't any way to just let this go; it has to happen on its own, I suppose. I just wish there as an off switch for the hurt. I need to, and I WANT to let him go. But it's never as simple as that.

---

I'm not really sure where to go from here. I feel like, as long as there is such a lack of communication between him and I like there is right now, that I will always feel that drive to 'read' into him and 'fix' things. I can say that his leaving doesn't mean he doesn't care, but in reality, I just don't know that any more. It's just not communicated to me. So I guess I'll always feel that insecurity. That I'm not doing enough, though I'm running myself into the ground. I am an intelligent woman, but he doesn't make me feel that way. I am beautiful, but I don't feel beautiful when I talk to him. Really, I feel inadequate, and guilty, and not me.
Perhaps, in that, we are simply incompatible as friends. Maybe most of that is all on me. But I can't help but feel like not all of it is.

This boy is very, very precious to me. He holds a place rooted deep in my heart for attempting to protect me three years ago, and I will always feel a tenderness for him. But I really need to move on with my life, and in order to do that I can't continue things as they are right now. Things need to change, acknowledgements need to be made, communication needs to commence, or I need to detach myself completely. I feel so anxious around him because I have no feel for him any more; I can't reach him, he is cold, and I have no idea of what value I am to him as a friend. I have no idea if he values me at all, if it would make any difference if I was around or not, just as the friends that we are now. I feel like I am hanging on because I just don't know. I am in the dark.

Well, now I'm just... indulging again. The fact is, is that if it were any other person, I would have picked up and left by now. I'm just wondering if maybe such a course of action is overdue. Maybe it's the only way I can achieve a sort of peace.
Maybe this friendship is just like the relationship. I should stop looking for a reason, and stop trying to fix it.
Or maybe doing so will just hurt this more.

Something that is still unresolved.
I just had to get it out.

A Self-Study on Conquering Social Anxiety

This blog post is dedicated to the sweetheart who took it upon herself to reach out to me for my experience with social phobia disorder. You took the very first step by overcoming your fear of being a burden to other people by contacting someone for their help. From what I have seen, you are a wonderful person and you are on the right path to 'getting better'. I know that it may not be possible for everyone to attend therapy, but I believe in your determination to help yourself. You are all that you will ever need, but I am always available if you need someone to help you with your goals.

The thing about social anxiety is that you have to constantly put yourself in uncomfortable situations in order to conquer it. It's pretty tough to do without a therapist around to guide you, but it is actually conceivable for you to put yourself through the rigors of mind re-training that a therapist would normally help you with. It’s just that it will be harder to do, obviously, because you do not have that safety net there to reassure you of any failures you may face and help you get back on track from that. Before I go any further, I just want to note that I don’t have any qualifications other than great personal experience when it comes to this. I’m just trying to do my best to explain a type of therapy that I had gone through to mostly conquer my crippling anxiety. I went through what is called ‘Cognitive Behavioural Therapy’ (CBT) for about three months, about two years ago. That being said, I’m just going on by what I remember. I will do my absolute best to remember everything in order to make this as useful as possible to others who are experiencing this devastating disorder, but I’m going to forget a few things.

What is Social Anxiety?

I’ll keep this short; anyone who is truly interested in this read will likely already know if they have social anxiety. I’m including this for someone who may suspect they have this disorder but may not be entirely sure, so feel free to skip ahead of this paragraph if you don’t need the whole run-down. ‘Social Phobia Disorder’ or ‘Social Anxiety’ is essentially, as the name states, a branch of a specific anxiety that relates to social situations. If you have symptoms of anxiety when in situations relating to people as a whole, you may have social anxiety. I will not know all the examples one may have of social anxiety, for there are many different manifestations of the disorder, but I can include some of my own personal examples that I will later touch upon. Phone calls, taking the bus, walking down the street, walking down a busy corridor, being in a public place such as the mall, communication difficulties, asking for help, ordering food at a restaurant/fast food joint, purchasing items from a store. The list of social anxiety blankets over any conceivable situation in which the person with the disorder may confront another human being. Symptoms of anxiety and anxiety/panic attacks can include (but are not limited to): hyper-vigilance, rapid breathing, rapid heart-rate, nausea, tenseness in the muscles/jaw, teeth grinding, dizziness, fainting, vomiting, weakness, symptoms of shock, and bouts of crying. The symptoms can range from ‘mild’ (former symptoms) to ‘extreme’ (later symptoms, indicating an anxiety/panic attack). Why are all these day-to-day actions so tough for people who live with social anxiety?

There could be many reasons why a person has social anxiety. From what I have seen, the most common reasons for social anxiety is a person’s fear of judgment and criticism and confrontation based on their appearance, personality, beliefs, and actions. Hyper-vigilance is the number one symptom for all social anxiety sufferers, as these people are hyper-aware of the world around them as well as themselves and their own behaviour in an effort to appear ‘normal’ and ‘unnoticeable’. These people are afraid of what they perceive to be as ‘being a burden’, or ‘being a nuisance’ or ‘being offensive to other people’s senses’. People with social anxiety typically have low self-esteem issues where they perceive themselves to be beneath much of the population and their daily routine. Social anxiety, if left unchecked, can be crippling to sufferers as it can result in total isolation of their world. The world of a social phobia sufferer will gradually become smaller and smaller as they avoid the necessary routines of life that enables them to go to school, commit to plans with friends, maintaining friendships/relationships, keeping or getting a job. Even leaving the house can become difficult for a social anxiety sufferer. In most extreme cases, social phobia sufferers will isolate themselves into their home, either emerging only when ‘they have to’ (for me, I got to the point where I would only leave my house for my therapy sessions) or just not at all. It is a very sad and very lonely way to live. Social anxiety disorder is shyness taken to a whole new level; to others, some social anxiety sufferers may appear ‘unnaturally quiet’, ‘un-opinionated’, ‘extremely agreeable’, ‘flaky’, ‘hesitant’, ‘noncommittal’, as the sufferer makes their greatest effort into appearing unobtrusive and unremarkable to everyone else around them. They will keep their opinions to themselves so as to avoid confrontation/disagreement, and may tend to avoid or ‘flake out’ on commitments to family members and friends.

First and foremost, the most important thing that one can do when living with social anxiety is to train yourself to recognise when you are having an ‘attack’ and why. You must essentially ‘reprogram’ your brain and your body to react differently to the situations that you may experience anxiety in. This is a very difficult process, and such a feat will not happen overnight. Instead, there are small ways that you can gradually shift your way of thinking into a more positive and healthy mindset. It is not an impossible task to undertake, for after all, people with social anxiety managed to ‘retrain’ their brain towards the opposite end of the spectrum of positivity to where they are now. This is just a matter of training your mind to shift back into positivity. Easier said than done, of course, but doable.

How to Recognise and Analyse Your Anxiety – Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: “A psychotherapeutic approach that addresses dysfunctional emotions, behaviors, and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic process.”

When experiencing ‘hyper-vigilance’ in a social setting, it is important to familiarise yourself with your own personal set of anxiety symptoms. These symptoms will vary for person to person, and may not necessarily be any of the ones that were listed under ‘What is Social Anxiety’, which are my own personal symptoms that I have experienced. It is important to realise when your body is in ‘fight or flight’ mode, basically poised and tensed for survival, but also equally important to take great care to note the situation that you are in that is making you feel so anxious. In my group CBT, the therapist gave us a bit of ‘homework’. We were given a chart that had to be filled out by the time we got together again every week, and it is a chart that will ensure organisation in your thoughts so I highly recommend that any person seeking to put an end to their own torment to make their own. In the following text, I’ll reveal the headers of the chart along with some personal examples that I go through, and then I will pick through the examples a little more finely.

What is the situation that is making you anxious?
Public transportation – buses; was being crowded in a moving vehicle with people with no escape route.

From a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the least and 10 being greatest, what level does your anxiety rank?
4.5.

What are the symptoms of your anxiety specific to this situation?
Faster heart rate/breathing, hyper-awareness, tenseness in the shoulders and jaw

What do you fear?
People looking at me; judging me for appearance; people speaking to me; and confrontation.

Is this a rational belief?
No.

What steps were taken to bring your anxiety levels down?
Breathing exercises, muscle relaxing techniques, and analysing the irrationality of my reaction.

Did you succeed in bringing your anxiety down from your original number? What would you rank your anxiety as now?
Yes. 3.5.

What is the situation that is making you anxious?
It is important to be able to identify the situation that you are anxious in. If possible, it is always good to include a brief note in this section of the social aspect of this specific situation. Try to note down as much as possible for yourself (though still keep it brief) as the situation just being “on the bus” is a little vague.

From a scale of 1 to 10…
Being able to rate your anxiety is a very helpful part of the process. This step allows you to objectify your anxiety a little bit, being able to step away from how you are feeling to analyse it a little more clearly. Depending on your level of anxiety, your range will differ from any other person’s. Think of one of the more distressing moments in your life related to your anxiety, and apply that as a 10. 1 can either be no anxiety at all, or a minor faster heart-rate. For myself, my 10 would be a full-blown hysterical panic attack, likely considered to be a ‘scene’ if I were in public, and my 1 would likely be aware of a situation with the potential for discomfort, but really feeling pretty comfortable in it regardless with little to no symptoms. Always be very honest in this section. Do not exaggerate too much; be realistic with yourself on what your 10 is, and what the situation you’re currently in is in relation to that.

What are your symptoms of anxiety?
This is an important aspect in being able to understand how your body reacts to certain situations. This is also helpful in being able to determine where you are on your ‘scale’ range. The more symptoms you notice, the higher up in your scale you are likely to be. If you are hyper-alert with a faster heart rate in one situation, and hyper-alert with a faster heart rate and trembling in your limbs in another, it gives you a good idea on what level your anxiety is at, and makes it easier for you to put your anxiety in perspective.

What do you fear?
Be very honest with this section, no matter how ‘irrational’ it may seem. A huge majority of your social anxiety is actually irrational fear, which is why it is something that you are struggling with while other people may not be. This is why it is a disorder; it is a dysfunctional thought process that is interfering with your quality life. This is why you are working on getting yourself help for this. So no matter how irrational you realise you seem to see yourself as, jot down anything you feel like you legitimately have concerns over. For some who have social anxiety disorder, you will find that a lot of your ‘fears’ stem from your fears of how other people perceive you. I do not know the exact term for this, but there is one, and it is essentially what is known as the socially anxious person believing that they have a capability of ‘reading’ people and delving into their inner thoughts; essentially mind-reading. A socially anxious person is concerned about other people’s opinions to the point of obsession. They are hyper-vigilant because they believe that they can see judgment in other people’s eyes, their expressions, and the way they move their hands. You are hyper-alert because you are tuned in to the people around you and how they are acting, and trying to pick up on anything that you think you could justify as them judging you.

Is this a rational belief?
Now you get to do a little more thinking about the previous question and express honestly if you believe your fear to be rational or not. It is, again, putting your anxiety in perspective and scrutinizing it a little more closely from the outside looking in, which is a very useful tool to develop in your fight against social anxiety. Being in immediate physical danger that could actually result in your own bodily harm is a legitimate and rational response for anxiety and the 'fight or flight' adrenaline rush. If you are being cornered by a mob of hungry zombies, drop the journal and run. You don't really have to do any more analysis at that point. People looking at me/people judging me: this is an irrational fear, because yes, people will look at you, but that does not necessarily mean that any judgment is going to take place. People will look at other people all the time, and most of it is completely absent-minded. You are, by being hyper-vigilant, looking very closely at the other people around you for ‘signs’ of their dislike. By doing this, you yourself are making the very judgment on others that you are so afraid of yourself. This does NOT make you a bad person. It makes you a normal person in partaking in normal, judgmental thought processes. Being completely realistic on normal human behaviour is crucial in this section. Being able to recognise that most of the beliefs that your anxiety stems from are irrational is absolutely a key step towards success in being able to shake your dysfunctional thought process. Recognition is the first step towards the retraining of your brain. Without recognition, you will not be able to tell where your problems lie.

What steps were taken to bringing your anxiety levels down?
If you have discovered that one of your symptoms is difficulty breathing/rapid breathing, taking this opportunity to try some breathing exercises is crucial. If you find your body very tense, relaxation techniques (slowly relax from your toes and upwards) are in order. The internet is a plethora of information on these types of relaxation techniques, so I will not touch upon them here. I will leave that up to the reader as a bit of extra homework to seek out such information.

What is your number now?
Now that you have analysed your situation, recognised any irrationalities, and have taken steps towards relieving your physical symptoms, it’s time to re-evaluate your anxiety rating. Even if your number is only a smidge lower, it’s a start that will only be setting up for success. If your anxiety is still the same or perhaps higher, the most important thing you can do is continue to stick with the situation as long as no immediate (and actually rational) dangers are present. If your anxiety is higher and you leave the situation at that peak, your body/mind will further associate this situation with the need to be anxious, and so the next time this situation is confronted, you may find it a little more difficult. This is exactly the sort of cycle that allows social anxiety to get worse, and the only way to truly battle this cycle is to break it by sticking with the situation until your anxiety has come down some. (That being said, it is best to start off with small things at first to make this final step easier. If you immediately try to tackle something that you have rated as an 8, it may be too overwhelming.)

This form serves to not only allow you to better understand yourself, but I have found the entire thought and analysis process to be extremely useful in taking my mind off of my anxious moment. It is channeling your hyper-sensitivity from the outside in your vigilance of other people to the inside of yourself. It is fascinating thing to see and understand you for having irrational fears, and taking the steps to correct that; it also serves to momentarily distract you from the situation at hand, which can, in turn, help bring your anxiety ‘rating’ down by the time you wrap up your analysis of the self.

Applying To Your Life – Goal-Oriented Aspect of CBT

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: “A psychotherapeutic approach that addresses dysfunctional emotions, behaviors, and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic process.”

If you are someone with social anxiety disorder and you are planning on taking this advice, it is advised that you keep writing supplies available if possible wherever you go. If it is not possible, try to remember as much information as you can, but even buying a small notebook and pen and using that specifically to track your anxiety will be very helpful for you. After you have filled out this form, it is recommended that you review these on a daily basis while in a safety zone. This enables you to reflect back on the situation while completely comfortable, and also enables you to further rationalise your reaction to the situation that you went through. If you succeeded in lowering your anxiety, this note-keeping may serve as a confidence journal. If you failed in lowering your anxiety, it is important that you take the time to reflect on that as well and think about how you will conquer the situation the next time you need to handle it. Please just remember that you may and probably will fail. This is not a reflection on your abilities to fight your disorder. You may have simply bitten off a little more than you can chew, which is fine, because it may be hard to determine exactly how anxious you may be before setting out to be in a certain situation. Or you may have chosen a legitimately safe rung on the ladder, and met with unexpected obstacles that you simply were not ready for. This is just the nature of daily life, and it is okay to fail in this exercise every once in a while. If you are actively failing quite often, simply re-evaluate what situations may be too tough for you, and back-track a bit to a safer level of comfort that still poses discomfort to you, but not in any extreme amounts. The important thing is to not allow failure to erode your confidence away. Take everything in baby steps, and allow yourself to be immersed in confidence whenever you do succeed.

Now that you have means to keep track of your anxiety, it is time to discuss how to apply this to your everyday life through personal goals. Unfortunately, there is no magical cure-all for social anxiety disorder (much like with any disorder) and it will take a lot of hard-work, perseverance, and perhaps even tears and much disappointment to be able to live a semblance of a normal quality of life. The issue with social phobia disorder is the gradual isolation and narrowing of the sufferer’s personal world, as they gradually keep avoiding situations until they are effectively too anxious to have a good quality of life. In order to fight this, the sufferer must gradually regain portions of their world back, starting with the smaller and more manageable things first. The theory is that in conquering the very small things, the broken self-esteem of the sufferer will gradually piece itself together again as they gain confidence from their success, enabling them to face the next step of their ‘anxiety ladder’ and gradually climb to their ‘ultimate goal’.

The first step of this goal-oriented process is to create your own ‘anxiety ladder’. The first thing to do is to set your ‘ultimate goal’; goals that you would truly love to see yourself at later down the road with a healthier frame of mind. You can always go back and change these goals if you later find that you set your ‘ultimate goal’ to be a little easy, because you did not have the confidence at the start to look at a bigger picture. For now, just choose one thing that you would love to be able to do and set that as a beacon for yourself, and then keep traveling down your list of goals, trying to list them all in order of manageability. Mine was as follows:

Move out
Maintain a job
Go through the interview process for a job
Apply for jobs
Complete high school
Register for final course for school
Asking for directions
Phone calls
Initiate hang-out invitation with a friend
Being able to shop at a mall
Initiate conversation first with a friend
Take the bus often
Be able to walk on the street with other pedestrians

This list can be more extensive than mine, and I’m only really remembering what I had set for myself a couple years ago. We can see through my first entry that I just seriously needed to be able to get a job to support myself, and my list travels all the way down to being able to be comfortable with walking on a street. Obviously, we can kind of see the extremity of my own situation through these goals: I had essentially isolated myself to the point where I did not leave my house unless it was to attend my therapy sessions, so even walking down the street on a nice day with other people around was very tough for me. I am very proud to say that after much dedication, I was able to complete every single thing on this list and more. Not only have I maintained my job for nearly two years now, but I have been promoted to supervisor and I am well respected within the workplace by my coworkers and customers. I was able to go out by myself apartment shopping, apartment negotiating, and I have been living on my own for nearly two years as well. Not only did I finish high school, but I have been accepted into college for the fall term after many miscommunication errors by the college when it came to my application that I had to hound them over. This has all been achieved by someone who originally could not leave their house to walk on the sidewalk with other pedestrians. I realise that my own story is exceptionally successful, but I was exceptionally dedicated at working towards meeting my goals on a daily basis. With every single one of these steps, I also had a wonderful therapist behind me who worked tirelessly at helping me meet my goals and discussing my failures with me when I was unsuccessful. If you are reading this as more of a self-study, it may be difficult without such a support system. Make yourself to be your best support system, and perhaps make it one of your goals to ask a friend or family member to be part of your support system as well.

Through the use of the journal form and your goals, every day should be an opportunity to place yourself in discomfort. As stated before, you should always start off with the smallest things on your list and gradually make your way up. Pay attention to your manageability. If you are going through your goals quickly at first but then reach a set of goals that are a little more difficult, definitely slow your pace down a bit and take your time climbing the next step. It is important to try and do the same things on a daily basis to try and build that confidence in the situation up. Take a walk every day, and extend that walk every time you go out. Take the bus every day or as often as you’re able to afford. The idea is that once you have reached that ‘peak’ in anxiety, your anxiety level should drop off. As you continue going back to that situation to repeat the process, after a while you should find that you have fewer symptoms and your initial ‘rating’ for the situation when you are at your ‘peak’ is lower than it originally was when you first began. As you continue being successful, your confidence level should build that stepping stone that will enable you to climb towards your next goal. It’s a slow process and requires much, much patience. It is very hard for someone with social anxiety disorder to have patience with themselves, as they perceive themselves to be on the lower end of the social ladder; they truly believe that they are not good enough, not worthy, that there is something wrong with them to justify and invite other people to share in their loathing for themselves. It’s a lonely way to live, and it no longer has to be that way.

This treatment will not work for everyone, even with a therapist to guide you through the steps of CBT. If you’re able to attend a CBT session, I believe that they are generally cheaper than regular talk-therapy, sometimes even offered for free (as mine was). Really, though, it all comes down to you: Do you want it badly enough? Do you want a world with opportunities that you have the self-made tools to take advantage of?

If you want your world back badly enough, you will succeed. You need to believe that for yourself. The first step in regaining that belief in you back is braving through the discomfort. It’ll be a tough go, especially at first where you just may be completely unaware of your limits. This is fine. I failed too. I lost some struggles. But ultimately, in the end, now, I’ve won. I still struggle from time to time; I avoid making phone calls, I will cross the street to the opposite sidewalk if I see someone walking towards me and I do still have some difficulty getting together with my friends (very blessed that I have patient friends); I indulge, shamefully, a little bit in my disorder. It just goes to show that it just may never go away… But you can definitely conquer most of it, and gain the strength and tools to bull through those situations that are waiting to spring upon you in life. In committing yourself to getting better, mostly, you are equipping yourself with a skill set useful and unique to yourself.

I’m going to begin wrapping up this lengthy blog post. Exposure treatment of CBT may not be for everyone, but CBT has been proven to be an incredibly effective form of therapy that has helped so many suffering from a variety of disorders, including myself. My apologies for the lengthy post, but it’s actually a subject and experience of mine that has, for once, been a really positive aspect of my life that has changed me for the better. CBT was the turning point for me in turning my life around from the 'dark age' I experienced over 2 years ago after my rape. While talk-therapy and Prozac helped jump-start things, it was ultimately CBT that began my trek to moving on with my life. CBT and my therapist saved my life.

As a side note, further apologies for neglecting my blog for the last couple of months. Life took over, but I have some things bottled up, so I would expect there to be more posts soon to come.