I just finished my second date with my therapist, and we are actually getting somewhere. I always assumed therapy was just talking about your dark secrets and inner fears until the quack tells me what is making my thoughts dark, but apparently there might be more (or even less) to it. My psychologist has an interest in neurology as well as simple empathy stuff, and brought up that topic of brain plasticity as a hypothesis for my self harming habits.
And when he mentioned it, it seemed to make almost too much sense. It would explain how I can constantly think about hurting myself while not being depressed. It explains how I recovered from my depression in ninth grade when I became fixated on Julie and forgot everything else. It explains why being alone with my thoughts was so hard, why I never felt quite as dramatic as I thought I should have been, how it was never quite consistent and how I sometimes didn't feel as mentally ill as I saw in my past self and in others with serious problems. It's friggin brain plasticity.
Basically, it's not that I'm really sad, but that during my depression I kept thinking of that mental self harm, and then Rachel told me what i was doing, and I started thinking about it constantly. The self harm got worse because it became all I could think about; and the more I dwelled on it, the more that that line of thinking became further ground into my brain. Suddenly all lines of thought led inevitably to self harm. But there is a way to get around it, just how I managed to get out of my depression--distraction. That fills the rut.
There is a chance that I could interact with the world in a healthy way again. I could look at the world and not see ways to hurt myself. I could handle sharp objects without panicking. I could feel noprmal around lighters again. I could finally feel like a normal, functioning human being again.
I am so overjoyed and filled with hope. Overcoming my thoughts is going to take time, but I am so incredibly enthusiastic for the results.
Life is good.
And when he mentioned it, it seemed to make almost too much sense. It would explain how I can constantly think about hurting myself while not being depressed. It explains how I recovered from my depression in ninth grade when I became fixated on Julie and forgot everything else. It explains why being alone with my thoughts was so hard, why I never felt quite as dramatic as I thought I should have been, how it was never quite consistent and how I sometimes didn't feel as mentally ill as I saw in my past self and in others with serious problems. It's friggin brain plasticity.
Basically, it's not that I'm really sad, but that during my depression I kept thinking of that mental self harm, and then Rachel told me what i was doing, and I started thinking about it constantly. The self harm got worse because it became all I could think about; and the more I dwelled on it, the more that that line of thinking became further ground into my brain. Suddenly all lines of thought led inevitably to self harm. But there is a way to get around it, just how I managed to get out of my depression--distraction. That fills the rut.
There is a chance that I could interact with the world in a healthy way again. I could look at the world and not see ways to hurt myself. I could handle sharp objects without panicking. I could feel noprmal around lighters again. I could finally feel like a normal, functioning human being again.
I am so overjoyed and filled with hope. Overcoming my thoughts is going to take time, but I am so incredibly enthusiastic for the results.
Life is good.
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