It hurts.

[Centaured]

Ive blamed myself for my trauma my whole life. I'm starting to realise I'm right and that hurts. Not only was it my my fault but my actions following it led me down a dark path and I don't know how its ever going to change.

So yeh background on the first paragraph. my behavioural support practitioner saw me today and has told me we are going to start doing therapy together and wanted me to write some things down on what we need to address. I was randomly writing stuff about believing some stuff was my fault and some stuff that has happened. The I started crying. Now I'm wanting to self harm because the thing that was fault led to my first self harm and then everything has just escalated the last 10 years since then.

How do you rectify PTSD with knowing you caused in the first place. Let alone trying to manage DID and bipolar amongst it all. I'm tired. I wish that first suicide attempt had just worked, even after these years.

[Centaured]

Hey Croix, this Christmas was the first one I didnt hurt myself in over 10 years. So I guess thats a small win despite all the shit and trauma responses happening.

Today is NY. Im not going to make resolutions this year. I just want to become a survivor and warrior. Not having all this shit weighing me down.

[Croix]

Dear Centaured~

Well, maybe not self-harming will become more frequent now. A win this year to look back on anyway.

Please do not answer the next question if it might bring on unwanted thoughts - do you mind if I ask what was different about this year?

As for NY resolutions, I think you are wise. I don't do them becuse I used to set myself something difficult, like giving up smoking and I's always slip back, so why set myself up for failure?

(I have since managed to give up but that was circumstances, nothing to do with resolutions)

Actually I think you have been a survivor and warrior all along. If one has an easy life, no mental health hassles, enough money, great family and job then one has it easy, no survival or warrior needed, just cruise along

It is when things have been very tough, even life threatening and with constant painful thoughts that those characteristics are tested - and one way or another you are managing, even if it might not seem like it.

Would you like to say if you are still in Tassie?

Croix

[Croix]

Dear Centaured~

I've just found you have another thread

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/online-forums/suicidal-thoughts-and-self-harm/the-constant...

So if it is OK wiht you I'll talk wiht you there in future, that will save you repeating yourself

Sing out if you would prefer to stay here too

Croix

[Centaured]

This week is ten years since said event/events that I started this post about. Ten years since it led to my first attempt. Then 9 years since I found myself in a coma.

I can't help but think I deserved this pain. I put it on myself anyway. I was fine this morning, til I got thinking about this, now I'm on verge of tears hoping I don't have another 10 years alive.

[Croix]

Dear Centaured~

I have been following your other thread, I hope you get your housing sorted quickly

You know you are very hard on yourself. I remember you saying you were ashamed, and seem to think that you deserve pain, and an attempt or episode of self harm is a defeat (actually the bit in between are triumphs)

I can't say I see it the same way my friend. You were abused and that - I probably mentioned more than once:) is an injury to you by another. If you are injured you seek help - simple

The fact your injuries make you feel it is you fault is human nature. It is so wrong. Sadly logic will not convince you otherwise.

With someone in the next room acting like that it is not surprising your your reaction overrides other things. I would be most uncomfortable in that situation myself and want to escape, and I do not have your heavy burdens now

There are times when I'm being brought down by circumstances or people (notice I do not blame myself nowadays) and there is no easy remedy. I am stuck in those circumstances but find them too much. As a result I have a couple of things I try

The first is to get my mind off the situation, and I do this using Smiling Mind - a free smartphone app. It is full of exercises for all concentration levels (even mine) to get your mind to focus on something else, be it your body, a leaf or whatever -does not matter, whatever works.

https://www.smilingmind.com.au/smiling-mind-app

With practice (which is easier to do than just enduring severe mental pain) it can leave you calm and without the focus on all that is bad.

Next you transfer your thoughts to a mental safe place, one you have built when things are good and remain there for a while.

My apologies if I've mentioned all this before, it does help, at least for me. You might need to build your own safe place

Mine is built from my childhood . I'm standing in a small plateau on the side of a grey mountain at the top of the cliff. The plates is conversed with short sheep nibbled turf (I can see the sheep with their backs to the wind)

The wind is strong and buffets me.

All around I can see the sea, grey under low clouds with spume topped waves. Rain squalls are visible, approaching as dark patches over the water.

A seagull whizzes by, carried by the wind and the rain hits my face, streaming down like tears.

I'm warm in my clothes and quite dry.

This reminds me how huge the world is, how rain and events do not last, and I can build protection against them

Croix

[Centaured]

keep picturing my ending
Beneath a yellow rose
I don't recall this type of feeling
A seed inside my bones
My soul's turned its back and left me
I burnt the bridge within
Just another waste of human
Weighing down this skin
And it pulls me further from the point that I belong
And all you wanna do is
Take me, break me, hide me away
Or you can shame me, blame me
Burn me at the stake on a lie
'Cause my own mind wilts at the thought
Of being alive
And that I'd like if I tried

-caskets

My Valentine's will be me under a bunch of yellow roses.

But I'm in this hospital waiting for something that won't happen. I'm safe and nothing matters. Music helps me cope. It's the only way I feel things.

[Croix]

Dear Centaured~

Yes, music is a way of feeling, and in my own case proving to myself at times I"m connected to others who are the same as me. The wrong music -eg more cheerful when I'm right down, simply emphasizes the gap between me and others -isolation.

So I have a library graduated from very black though to more happy, and plug in at the point I'm feeling and hopefully over time work my way up

In one way music is a 'receiving' thing for me and I wish I could write it -and the lyrics, so I was creating . It's not in me I'm afraid, though I've tried other more artistic avenues with more success.

I can write (for myself) and look back and think "yes, I wrote that, it is a tiny fragment of life". It can often remind me how much better I feel than when I wrote it.

Do you do anything involving art?

Croix