Hi @Akinna ,
Thank you for sharing that and baring your soul to us tonight. It sounds like you are really caught in a tornado of conflicting action and emotion. I want to compliment you on your clarity and understanding of your emotional space, why you may be actioning your thoughts of SH and how patterns and emotions are influencing this.
I really think you hit the nail in the head when you wrote, “i know i can make the choice to try and think positive etc etc but that's so complicated because i have the tendency to self sabotage, to prove i'm bad to feel like i deserve help, it's mixed up with my identity and outside of my comfort zone”
When we get caught in patterns of hurting/hating ourselves, being miserable, being angry and bottling up things for so long. Often, when we take positive step or want to change our thinking, it is absolutely outside our comfort zone. Our comfort zone is/was that painful existence.
You mention not hearing advice that has been helpful before, I feel that is because you already have such a comprehensive understanding of your own feelings already, that anyone else's perspective can pale in comparison.
However, if I was to make an observation, I would say that, you are struggling to reach out for support, for three potential reasons:
One, this would take you outside of your comfort zone, place too many eyes on your personal space that you use to deal with your emotions.
Two, you’re scared that if you reach out and try everything, that it won’t stop the discomfort, that it will return one day, and it will feel like all the effort is for nothing.
Three, anger can often be a more motivating and captivating emotion than despair (or other emotions), it can help distract us from the other more conflicting or confusing emotions that can surround us.
Am I on the right track?
Well, those things are in some way all true. Changing how we think about things is hard work, things will be uncomfortable in the future and we will always seek to distract ourselves from pain and discomfort.
But I feel like you are making change by trying new things, by reaching out for more supports such as kidshelpline, by posting here today, and by trying to analyse your situation and figure out how you think and feel about things.
As you said at the beginning, medication and treatment is a series of peaks and valleys, and it sounds like you are in a valley at the moment.
What can you do to help yourself through this valley?
Have you been able to talk to your support team about your SH and come up with a safety plan?
Sometimes have an already defined safety plan can help us in the moment, as opposed to having to approach it differently every time.
I will be reaching out to you via email shortly to see how we can support you further through this.
