Please don't read this if you are feeling vulnerable.  Please go to the hot-line links on the right.  Thanks.

So, I've been kind of chatty here recently.  I've been chatty in my real life.  But I feel that I should be honest here, as much as possible.  I do believe that I mentioned my self-injury recently, but I'm not sure I gave it full credit.

I used to open my arms and legs with razors.  The cuts that got sewn up are thin with dots from the stitches.  Others are long and wide, thanks to no medical help and myself.  Cigarette burns make pale dots on the veins on my hands and tattoo bracelets around my wrists.  The final big burn up my arm took three cigarettes and shows it.  That one got me into the last hospital for three months.  Other injuries have done the same.

I have made a choice to no longer cut myself, burn myself, staple myself, hit myself, bruise myself or run my knuckles on bricks.  I have kept to that, for the most part and it has been hard.  What I do now is pick at bites until they become wounds.  Pick at bumps until they become wounds.  Pick until I am wounded.  And I am walking on wounds, as I have been ripping at the soles of my feet,

I am having problems walking, because of this.  We have changed my meds because of this.  But this is what I know:

If you are starting to hurt yourself, it will not get better.  You will only have to live with visible scars that you want to cover, whilst the inside scars still bleed.

If cutting yourself is your only form of control/release, please seek help, because you are worth it.  (On the right, I have a list of resources).

Although this may seem harmless, it's not.  Self-harm is a bad coping skill, a sign that all is not right and that you need help.  Some injuries may lead to death.  My last burn was to a degree that I was lucky to not suffer further.

It may seem cool and appealing now, but I'm telling you now at 42 years old, it's not.  Having to hide my scars under long sleeves and pants gets old.

Treasure yourself.

I saw my p-doc today.  As I watched him looking at my shaky, restless hands I tried to slow the stream of words.  I told him that I was much better than the last time we'd met, but that I was rapid cycling.  My speech rushes along to push the relentless patter of my mind out, while I handle my anxiety by tearing at the skin of my feet.  Waves of depression swell over me, leaving me achingly sad.

He took me off Pristiq, which we'd added last month as I was at the outside level of Effexor that SSDI insurance covers; 300mgs.  I have done well on 450mgs, but can't afford it.  Pristiq works better at lower doses and Doctor Z said that my rapid cycling was a result of too much anti-depressants.  I have been unable to work, because of my stressed mind, which is not great, in light of the expense of life, this season and the on-going debt that I owe Cricket.

Cricket is my best friend, who has sometimes been confused, by some, like my doctors on lock-down wards as my imaginary friend, or when they meet her, my life paramour.  She stood by me when my sister shut me out, when my father refused to see me ever again, when I should have been put in a State Hospital.  Which, without her, would have been my lot in life.

Anyway, I was over at Liz Spikol's site, where she had a link to an article about Holiday Depression Busters.  I haven't read the whole piece, because of relentless pop-up ads, one of which gave me pause.  The ad was for Pristiq, which along with being annoying, was a little offensive to me.

The ad features a woman of no particular ethnicity.  (Having studied voice-over as well as on-camera acting, I know that is now highly desirable, after decades of Caucasion persuasion).  But my problem lay not with the woman, but with her wardrobe and pose, which revealed a plunging cleavage.  It may just be me, but if I, as a heterosexual woman, finds my eyes looking at the decolletage, then what does it say about me, the ad and the message therein?

The problem of living with a Bipolar II Diagnoses, is that you can never be sure if you are physically or mentally sick. For example, two days ago I started thinking that cutting myself would be something that I should do. I didn't, partly because I was stabbed by the sharp claws of my bete noire chat, Henrietta. I bled, it hurt and the impulse was gone. In the meantime, I'm in serious "crash" mode. It's probably P.M.S., which doesn't make it any easier.

I haven't worked the past couple of days because I just couldn't do it. Right now, I never want to go to work again. Ever. Trust me when I say that this is NOT a slacker point of view. I take pride in my work. But I feel so overwhelmed, that the idea of going anywhere is causing me to literally quake. The thought of talking to anyone besides my best friend Cricket fills me with horror. I have a great friend of mine from High School, who is couch-surfing here whilst he looks for apartments. I'm avoiding him like the plague. He was supposed to leave yesterday, but he's still here.

So I'm hiding in my room, because I don't want him to know that I'm here and struggling. He'd probably try and apply stuff from his own problematic mental health issues. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear him. I don't want anything from anyone. I just want to never feel this fragile, low, dreadful and fucked up again.

Just at the moment in time where cutting myself seemed like a good idea, I stepped out of my room to apply a salve of aloe vera to Henrietta.  She is angry and violent.  I have an inflatable neck collar on her, to curb her self-mutilation, but she finds ways to hurt herself.  And me.  She stuck me in my fore-arm, bitching the whole way about what a wanker I am, in general.  She may be right.  But her making me bleed for a moment brought me back to the fact that I shouldn't do it to myself.