Day 259: Workshops, depression and suicide

Okay, I haven't been here or at any other journal for a few weeks now... And I am trying to remind myself that this whole journal-ing thing can be very good for me, especially when I don't think I have anything to write. Writing is supposed to be a method by which I actually come to figure out what I am actually thinking or going through. I don't do enough of this self-reflection stuff, even though sometimes I feel like I do way too much of it...

I'm trying to utilize a lot of the skills I've learned so far in my Skills for Successful Self-Management workshop I've been attending through my school's Health and Counseling Centre. It's pretty cool to me that I recognized it as being modeled in part after Dialectical Therapy, originally designed for individuals struggling with Borderline Personality Disorder (omg, I remember things from my psych course Intervention: Process and Outcome). There's a pretty major emphasis on mindfulness, which can be a really good way to intervene in the kind of value-laden story-telling the mind tends to automatically produce. I'm aware that training yourself into using mindfulness can be a long and difficult journey of basically teaching yourself a different way of thinking and experiencing the world, but I still sometimes feel a little irritated that it isn't coming to me easier. It is a journey, though, and something that really needs to be practiced and learned.

I'm glad to find I'm already sometimes utilizing little things we've covered in the workshop, like trying to do things one-mindfully and focusing my attention fully on whatever it is I'm doing at the time. If I'm working on something and my mind starts to wander, I'll notice it, and determine whether it's something I can schedule time to think about later. Then I try to gently bring my attention back to the task at hand. I'm trying to be more present in individual moments, especially if they are enjoyable ones. I'm aware that all moments are fleeting, so if I find myself in one that I am grateful to be having, I try to notice it and be as present as I can. I see that a lot of the things we've been talking about could be really useful to my mental and emotional health and regulation in the long run, so I hope that I can keep up with it and keep practicing these skills. I'm so grateful that I am able to participate in a program like this, and that I don't have to pay anything extra for it.

I had an IUD put in a couple of weeks ago at the advisement of my doctor after I asked about contraceptive methods that could control the frequency of my period. My hope was: fewer periods equals fewer time frames when I'm at particular risk of extremely low mood and suicide ideation. Apparently after one year, some 70% of women with an IUD simply stop menstruating altogether. 'n if I so happen to be in the other 30%, we're probably going to have to discuss my being on an antidepressant lacking horrible withdrawal symptoms for about half the month (which I obviously would not be particularly pleased with). I reckon I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I'm still on 5mg of Paxil every other day, but it's a small enough amount that it really shouldn't be having much of an effect on depressive symptoms. I'm just waiting til after school finishes for the semester to fully complete my weaning, lest I hit myself with withdrawal symptoms that would interfere with schoolwork.

A few weeks ago, a friend finished designing the tattoo I commissioned for my back, between the right shoulder blade and spine. It's meaning is of a few things, but probably most salient is its commemoration of the date of my failed suicide attempt over 5 years ago. There was no irony lost on me that around the time she finally sent me the completed design, I was struggling through my worst period of suicide ideation since before my partner and I got together. It's always difficult for me to reflect on these periods when I am so distraught and so depressed and so hopeless that all I can think of to solve things is to kill myself. Around late September / early October I was spending days just dwelling on it. It was especially hard because for a long while, I didn't want to talk to anyone about it. I'd gotten it into my head that I had to find a way to make it look like an accident, to spare my friends and family the increased risk of suicide that people experience because someone they knew committed suicide (you learn a lot of things when you take psychology). And if it had to look like an accident, then I couldn't tell anyone about my plans or my thoughts, because they could easily reveal that it was, in fact, an intentional death. I don't think I was ever more scared or concerned that I would attempt again than during that time when I decided I could tell no one about those thoughts. It's weird, because there's still this tiny little part of me that doesn't want to talk about it, because what if I change my mind in the future and commit suicide anyway? Since I've revealed I had this deep desire to make it look like an accident, I reckon any "accidental" death of mine will be highly suspected suicide.