Maladaptive Beliefs

This is a basic list of the maladaptive beliefs I have come to hold over years of abuse and mistreatment. Please do not in any way feel obligated to argue as to why these are untrue. I know that they are not realistic beliefs to have and it is a long process to destroy them. Thank you for wanting to try and help, though.

• I am worthless.
• I'm not good enough.
• Everybody leaves me.
• Why try because I always fail.
• I'm selfish.
• I'm a horrible person.
• I'm ugly.
• I'm a burden to everyone.
• I do nothing/get nothing done.
• If I am wrong, the consequences are always dire.
• Nothing will ever get better.
• If people don't show me they love me, then they really don't.
• If I say I am good at something, that makes me arrogant.
• No one cares about what I am going through.
• The important things to me don't matter.
• I can't do anything right.
• Everyone would be better off without me.
• I am being punished.
• I deserve to be punished.
• If we fight, they won't love me anymore.
• I'm not safe anywhere
• If I trust people, they will betray me.
• Confrontation is dangerous. 
• If people have a bad opinion of me then they must be right because they can't see things I don't/can't.
• Letting others know I am feeling bad is a weakness.
• My friends and family really don't want to hear about how I am feeling.
• Losing control of my emotions makes me a bad person.
• If people don't agree with how I feel, then I shouldn't feel that way.
• I am not allowed to feel I have been wronged by people.
• I don't deserve what I want/need.
• Making requests is selfish.
• The problem is all in my head/I am crazy.
• Saying no to people will show what a bad/selfish person I am.
• I will lose people if I ask for what I want/need.
• Asking for what I want/need will always end in an argument.
• Getting upset means I am acting like a child.
• I am not worthy/don't deserve love and respect.
• I'm not wanted/needed by anyone.
• All of my ideas are stupid.
• I will never amount to anything.
• I deserve to be abused.
• I will never be safe as long as I am with myself.

All Apologies

If you apologize for something, but then you keep doing it? Then you didn't really mean that apology.

If you apologize but you have to add a "but" after it? It's not a real apology.

I don't need your fake apologies.

I am beautiful

I am finally starting to look at photos of me now and seeing the beauty in myself; beauty I have always pushed aside because I'm too fat, my teeth are crooked, my eyes aren't straight, etc, etc, etc. It has been much healthier for *me* to find love for myself like this than it would have been to do all of these huge diets in order to lose weight to love myself.

Anxiety attacks can come in unexpected forms

Sometimes when I'm just going about my day, doing nothing in particular to cue an anxiety attack, I get this feeling of heaviness in my chest and quickly behind follows this feeling of dread. It says to me, "Your life will only get worse and worse. Nothing can ever get better, and everything you try to do will fail."

By this time the heaviness in my chest is accompanied by a numbness that spreads out from my chest and eventually takes over my entire body.

It can last for 10 minutes if I don't take my Vistaril (anti-anxiety).

It scares me so much, especially when I'm working on something important to me, like my business and the things I'm doing with the Timebank and I begin to wonder if that's a sign. I know, rationally, that it isn't.

This one just makes no sense to me. It has no trigger. It just lies in wait until I'm fairly happy and then it lunges at me and digs it's claws into my chest.

Thanks for that, Anxiety.

Back Down to Earth

Sometimes you feel like you're superwoman. You're doing well and you're happy and you feel so much better. You think you can tackle your goals and it will be fine.

But then you take that leap and realize too late that the ground is coming up way too fast.

I've been running on adrenaline all day, which is something that people with disabilities do sometimes. You don't have the energy for it, but if you run at medium speed you can keep going and going until the end. What happens when you stop though is that you crash.

It seems funny to me that Superwoman could be taken down by a simple square cake, but alas.

After the panic attack all I could feel was this heaviness. And now I want to sleep, but knowing anxiety, I won't be able to for a long time tonight.

It would seem to me that my depression/anxiety is trying to make a statement to me: Don't expect to be happy for long, because I'm still here, and I will make sure you realize that.

To say I love you

I'm struggling a lot with beliefs right now. I have a whole 2 pages of beliefs that get me all messed up already and still shifting through some of it.

I believe that if people don't try and contact me, don't ever say they are thinking about me, don't say they love me, then they don't. I know that's not true, but that's how it feels all the time. That I'm being cast aside.

I'm feeling very, very cast aside right now and melancholy about the reasons why. Maybe this is how the world has to proceed for the future to end up before me. I don't really know.

All I know is that it leaves a very cold, numb feeling in my body.

What will it take to make me feel again?

Shadows Have Claws (Trigger Warning: Cutting)

It's easy to fall back into old habits. My right upper leg is a testimony to that. It has been for years. My plan has been to get a tattoo there so it wouldn't be so easy for me to just grab the scissors and slice. But I haven't been able to do that yet, and so the new marks form.

Last I checked this morning they were still seeping blood. Not a lot, but enough to need bandages still. I had it all wrapped up last night, then decided I wanted to try something different because those cloth bandages suck and got these huge bandaids. I'll clean them out again tonight and see what needs to be done.

This is a hard shadow to face, because shadows with claws fight back. They lure you into their trap, make you believe they want to help, and then they strike.

It almost hit the jugular last night, but my husband stepped in before it could get there. I could easily have been found today in one of the parks in a blanket, dead.

So cheers to Asher.