Another Moral Issue

OCD, depression, anxiety dissorders are not like crayons in a box. They are more like sections of a rainbow. You could be somewhere between purple and blue or red, not quite any of them. You know, if you break your leg it;s easy to know what happened. But if you have the flu, you could have all kinds of different symptoms. Some people get sick stomach, some get aching bones, some both, some niether. Don't worry too much about what you have or don't have. Right now concentrate on making today work. When you were in therapy, did they give you any techniques to use to combat your urges?

lily00 said:

People keep saying that. One doctor did. No one else seems to agree. I don't wash my hands or anything. I don't have strange hobbies or anything like that. It is my thoughts. I stayed up all night last night because I couldn't get a story plot out of my head... I wanted to scream but didn't.

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I have similar issues at times lily. Just laying in bed all night long wishing you could sleep but your mind keeps itself focused on something and won't let you rest. I also have various neurotic "tics", similar to OCD, but different. Mostly a sense of "enoughness" in my body, that both sides have to feel the same (i.e. if I brush my arm against something I sometimes have to brush my other arm in the same place). It's a miserable thing to live with, as i'm sure your condition is, and it's very difficult to control when you don't have the medication for it.

Self-injury is not good! Everybody attacks themselves in some way, be it physical mutilation, sexual sins, self-contempt, self-denial of good things, etc. You're right that it's a tempoary solution and not even a good one at that. It's like taking a panadol to relieve a heart attack. Your heart is broken and only God can mend it.

The full, forever solution is to PRAY when you feel like hurting yourself. Pray all the time and every time you have a problem. God WANTS to hear what's troubling you. He can help you and heal you for good.

lily00 said:

I use the red marker. It is helping right now. Is thinking of cutting a sin?

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Goodness, no! Even when I was a christian I wouldn't have thought it was! Anyone that tells you it is, is only thinking of their own selfish holier-than-thou attitude and not about you and the pain you're going through.

(((((LILY)))))

You mentioned maybe needing a med adjustment yesterday I think. I hope you saw the doctor and told him/her about your feeling the need to cut.

If your meds were adjusted yesterday, I'm sure you know that it takes time for things to sort out and improve. Could you make yourself take a walk? I know it's really hot here and the last thing I want to do is go outside into the heat and walk. Just doing something with the nervous energy might help a little.

I hope you can get in contact with someone through that 800 number today and at least talk it out a little with someone who knows how to treat what you're going through. It's a medical issue, and will probably take a combination of medication, counseling, and a whole lot of personal work to get through. It's not demons. It's partly brain chemicals, partly thoughts, and partly what's going on in your life. All three of those areas are interconnected though. Brain chemicals change thoughts, thoughts change the chemical balance, and stuff going on in your life changes both.

((((HUGS)))) again.

I'm praying for you to get through today without cutting, and take a few step on your way to improvement

CSmrw said:

Don't worry too much about what you have or don't have. Right now concentrate on making today work.

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Without hijacking the thread and starting any sort of debate, I really have to disagree with you. I mean, yes she needs to focus on getting through today. But you can't just slap a bandaid on this. It doesn't address the underlying cause. It's not a surface wound that needs balm to be soothed. It's an unseen tumor inside which needs to be located and removed.

lily00 said:

I use the red marker. It is helping right now. Is thinking of cutting a sin?

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No.

lily00 said:

I deserve the pain.

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Why?

I'd like to hear why you feel that way.

lily00 said:

I deserve the pain.

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Bull. No one deserves pain, heartache or misery. I have no idea who or what makes you think you deserve any of that. God and Christ have told us we are to be joyful and happy. You are His child and He is clear on what He wants for you.

lily, vengeance is the Lord's. Even if you think you deserve punishment for what you've done, it isn't up to you to met it out. I don't think you deserve this pain. I think God loves you and wants you to turn to Him when you feel troubled.

Sweet lily,

I also used to SI a lot when I was in my teens and early twenties. I have many scars on my arms and legs, and bleeding always made me feel. I always felt like there were so many things going through my head, that there was just no room for feeling. I'd rearrange my room in the middle of the night, write volumes of stuff in journals and generally self-destruct. When I would cut, I felt relieved that I was human, that I felt pain and in that I felt like I was in control of myself for a bit. It was a temporary fix for the chaos I was so lost inside.

But I eventually realized that it wasn't really doing anything except focusing my attention to something else and away from the stuff I really needed to deal with. It even got worse with me, I ended up doing a lot of drugs in the process to get away from the void that I felt was my life. I always felt like everything was sucking me in to some kind of black vaccuum, and wouldn't let me go.

I don't know what brought me out of it really. But what I do now (yes, I still get all those feelings from time to time) is meditate. To slow down and just pay attention to my breathing, to count my breaths and see if I can make them longer and longer. And I do this for awhile until the feeling passes.

I have ADHD. Have had it as long as I can remember. What you are explaining is exactly how I feel some times. But cutting isn't the answer to it. You are a worthwhile person, who is intelligent and well spoken. Aware of herself moreso than others, and creative. If you can't get things out of your head at night, write them down or buy a tiny recorder and record them to listen to later. Do something, because some of those thoughts and feelings you get out become interesting short stories or poems.

You are not worthless, and you do not deserve pain. You need peace, and you need to be loved. All humans are flawed, but we are all God's children and worthy of being loved. You are no exception. He doesn't expect us to be perfect, that's why he is there when we fall.

*hugs*

lily00 said:

If you ever had depression, you might understand that it is vital to take it one step at a time. A tumor can't be located and removed in a day.

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I understand that. Believe me, I do. But please don't mistake what I was trying to say. (I sometimes have problems expressing myself in only a few words.)

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the notion of easing your pain right now. All I'm saying is that the underlying cause needs to be identified and then a process needs to be undertaken whereby it is removed. That's all.

I went through such a deep serious depression years ago that I literally didn't bathe for days on end. I stayed in my pajamas all day, and ate the whole day while watching television. I saw absolutely no hope for my future at all, because I literally was expecting the future to not arrive. (A lot of this was due to a fundamentalist Christian position I held.) I wanted to have myself committed to a psyche ward, but I couldn't afford it. And I couldn't talk to anyone, because everyone would just tell me to pull myself up by the bootstraps and "get over it". So I know it's not something that can just be gotten over in a day. At the time I was suffering from the depression, I was also going through one of the worst periods of my OCD. I was very big into cleanliness issues, which was odd because I wasn't showering much at the time. However, if I was doing laundry and dropped an article of clothing on the floor as I got it out of the dryer, I had to completely rewash it. If I put a clean blanket on my bed, and someone touched it or sat on it, I had to take it right back off and rewash it. I was so bad that I had to touch things a certain way, and a certain number of times. I had to be precise. If I messed up, I had to start all over again. It even transferred into my prayer life, because I felt if I didn't say my prayers just right, that God wouldn't hear me. So I would start all over again. If I so much as messed up one word, I would ask for His forgiveness for messing up, and then start again. Likewise, if I messed up yet again, I not only asked Him to forgive me for messing up, but I also asked Him to forgive me for messing up the first time. It was horrible! The strange thing is, I never considered suicide. I just wanted it all to stop, but I had no way of getting help for it to stop. So I had to suffer through it until one day I literally forced myself to stop. It was hard, and the mental "itch" was bad, but I couldn't keep going on the way I was.

My apologies if I'm not helping. God's mercy and blessings to you.

Lily.

You don't deserve the pain.
No one does.
Thinking of cutting is not a sin. Nor, I believe, is doing it - because God understand why we do it - we are in so much pain, even if it is "only mental pain" (which can be the most excruciating pain of all), that He understands. Of course He would prefer us not to do it, but given the circumstances, He understands. He only longs for you to turn to Him and lay your hurts on His shoulders. He's the only One strong enough to carry them all without the pain that we as humans have.

I agree with what someone previous said - for now, focus on getting through each day. Yes, it is sort of a bandaid, but at this point, if you try and focus on the big picture, you'll get stressed out and will most likely feel worse.

I hoped some of that helped. I'm here if you need/want to talk.

Here's the link to the hotline list, lily...
Think about what you have done in the past when you wanted to cut and what helped you then.
Some people find holding crushed ice cubes in their hands distracts, or drawing red lines, like you said.
Holding their hand under cold water
Eating really spicy food
But just know that it is not a sin, it is a problem that can be overcome with help. Please call someone if you can.
*hugs*
Cat

lily00 said:

I don't know.

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Can you think of something that might be related if not a direct cause? I know it's really hard to force thoughts in that direction when they don't want to go there.

groundhog said:

Without hijacking the thread and starting any sort of debate, I really have to disagree with you. I mean, yes she needs to focus on getting through today. But you can't just slap a bandaid on this. It doesn't address the underlying cause. It's not a surface wound that needs balm to be soothed. It's an unseen tumor inside which needs to be located and removed.

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I know. I know too well. But there is not one person on this board who can do that kind of surgery. No one. And I am not pretending I can erase what years have produced. But I also think...no, I know, that getting through the day is vital to getting through the problem. If I could I would get her the kind of help I think she deserves, but that's not in my power. I can only help her try to get through this time on this board.

You are right that she should get back into the real doctor. We are no substitute. It;s just that, right now, today, she needs to know that she is strong and that she can do this and that there is time and help and healing, right?