"Your past will always be beside you. You just have to choose between letting it walk beside you, or dragging it behind you like a big black sack with a noose around your neck."
I saw my therapist yesterday. It's only our third session or something, but I've gone private after the failings of the quote care unquote of the NHS for so long. I really like her, actually. She's the best one I've had so far, the only one that's got me to speak about anything. The only one that's got me to think deeper about myself and the way I react to situations today, and the way I will for the rest of my life.
This might get a little bit complex, actually, as I'll be trying to understand myself as I go on writing.
I've realised there are certain triggers to my depression, and to when I hurt myself. I think these are when I feel controlled, when I feel ultra vulnerable, and when I feel like a bad person.
I think all of those three things can be paired with my childhood experiences. The control and the vulnerability, are obvious. But why when I feel like a bad person? Perhaps subconsciously for a long time before everything came out, I felt like I was a bad person because I didn't stop it. Because I felt I had betrayed my mother. I was just a child - I thought I could have stopped it, I should have.
But I couldn't. I was, like I say, just a child. A vulnerable little girl abused by someone who she is supposed to be able to trust. I was too young to take control then, to REALLY know the difference between right and wrong... you get the picture. I think part of that is still there, though, in my subconscious... because throughout my teenage years I have cut myself or felt the strong urge to cut myself whenever I feel like I'm a bad person. Perhaps that's why, because that's what I did back then. That was my coping mechanism. And sometimes, it still is.
I feel a certain amount of shame to admit that still sometimes I cut myself. There are scars and cuts on my right thigh. And they are from each time I have felt any of the above 'triggers' because I didn't know how to deal with them. It's something only someone who has cut themselves before can really understand. Even just that second of relief that you feel as you slide the blade through your skin. Once you've done it, it's there, with you for life. Not just the physical scar, but the emotional scars too. With each scar on my thigh represents an emotional scar because now I will have to learn to walk with those at the side of me, and get rid of the noose around my neck. I think now I am figuring out about these coping mechanisms I have used, maybe I can develop new ones and stop myself from cutting in the future.
What has happened to me is going to be with me for the rest of my life. Things are going to happen that are going to bring up memories, make me feel vulnerable, controlled, or a bad person. Because let's face it, everyone makes mistakes. Maybe now that I recognise my coping mechanisms and why I 'lose it' under certain situations, I can develop new ways of dealing with the emotions that I will be feeling. Cut the noose from around my neck, and take a deep, sigh of relief.
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