I haven’t been here for a while and I was under a different name- before just a scramble of letters- probably a reflection of wanting something ugly and being too much in pain to concentrate enough to make a name.  I am not in that place anymore.  I’ve made a life that’s more or less physically safe.  No one is abusing me and though my thoughts still turn against myself it’s rare that I’m not able to tolerate the distress.   I have a long way to go on making a life… or, I just don’t know what my life is going to be like- and I guess that will always be true to some extent.

A bit over a month ago harmed myself – or it’s so funny that I start counting then because there was stress before then I was flirting with it so it’s not like this one thing that happened was the full trigger but for some reason I wouldn’t tell my therapist what the trigger was.  Now I need to talk about it and I’m not going to see him until the end of the week- then I’m still in flux from the major life changes that were necessary so there’s always all this junk right on the front of the plate- and really I really I just can’t talk out loud about it without facing so much dissociation that it’s hard to tell if it’s even worth it.  But then the trigger- I faced it again last friday and I was ok- but I used medication, which is prescribed, but I just feel so confused about because it seems to controversial- I used it to be ok.

I see the emotion under the trigger is not feeling safe- I guess that goes under the category of fear but it gets so generalized that fear doesn’t sound like the right word.  I’ve been getting help for maybe 2 and half or three years now and I’ve come to learn what safe feels like- but that means I wasn’t always acting out on feeling unsafe- I never felt safe- and really I never was…. the point is: the prompting event that’s bothering me to a point where I have trouble staying in control is this one man in my work environment who is just really curious about my scars.  I did some damage to myself after he was persistently asking questions- probing- and then when the conversation changed he brought it back to that again.  I ran into him again in a hall on friday and I swear he kept trying to get a look- then asked me if my ex husband was so and so- so my ex has talked to him and my ex blabs and blabs so this man may know this very personal thing that I am not comfortable with him knowing.  My first thought is that I don’t know what to do.  My second is whether there is anything I can do.   He isn’t going to go away.  I don’t know when I’m going to see him so I can’t keep myself covered when I know I’m going to see him.  I can practice self-care afterward.  I can be really nice to myself- buy myself nice food, some flowers- but that’s assuming that I’m not in a rush and dashing around mad with projects- that’s energy that I’m not good at breaking.  I guess it will be fall soon enough then maybe he’ll forget about it.  I really don’t know how to handle this, and don’t know how to handle the fact that, professionally, I stand to gain by chatting with him- so my logic says I should talk to him and my emotion says I should stay away.  I know, I know, I know not to use the logic to invalidate the emotion but I don’t know where that leave me.

I guess, really, it’s not him that’s bothering me as much as feeling invaded.  I feel invaded by his interest in my scars.  I can’t really even look at my own scars.  I’m thinking about being nice to them- putting lotion on them and feeling the sadness but I just go cold and the destructive thoughts rush in.  I’m not ready to be present with them.  So, again, where does that leave me?