Anita, wow.
I screen captured this whole post to save for later- Wow. I will definitely continue to watch myself and my behavior.

I have tried to stop myself before and I have successfully succeeded a few times. I’ve talked myself through how what I’m doing won’t help and such. It’s really hard- if I’m being honest. I have this little voice in my head that’s like- but “temporary fix!! Who cares about long term- long term means that I have to work for for a long time to get the same thing!!” as  I mentioned I have overcome the urge a few times- but it’s like an addiction.

see someone walking down the street? I have to go walk by with my dog, maybe I’ll be noticed maybe they’ll want to pet my  dog etc. and in my head it’s worse. The other day I thought: “If I died I wonder if anyone would miss me? Would (insert name here) care? Would someone feel bad that they left me? Would anyone wish they did stuff different etc.”

the two worst things I ever did was: one, I told everyone in grade five I was going to make an attempt on my life- because I was so angry and upset that no one was listening to me when I was being bullied, I told the teachers and they didn’t care- until I said that.

2- I stabbed myself with a pencil in the hand when I was in 5th grade. After the first incident. It was horrible. I bled everywhere.  The graphite broke off and I still have a big piece in my hand- it’s under the skin but very visible.

I now an old enough where I haven’t  harmed myself for ‘attention’ since I was at least in high school. But I have definitely gone out of my way to get attention. It’s an addictive act that I’m slowly working on. But it feels like I’m working on 100 things- it seems like I have endless issues that affect me daily. Including my focus- I haven’t been able to work in school since last Friday- when I wrote a post about my hyper focus session. I could write a ten page list of all my issues and what I need to work on- it’s a bit discouraging.
have a great day Anita.

sincerely, Lea

Anita,

I appreciate it. I’ve been thinking- lots of my individual issues are linked. Before I start to just go in and work on them, I think I should find the biggest one- which affects all the others. The only thing is- how do I find that out?

also on my other thread you told me not to thank you every time we had an interaction- I am finding this difficult and actually kind of uncomfortable- it feels like you won’t know that I am appreciative of what you are telling me if I do not say thank you. Anyway I thought I’d share that.

sincerely, lea

Anita, that’s very nice of you to say to me!! I smiled really wide when I read that- I don’t think I’ve been told that I’m amazing in a very long time.
I think it might partly be that subconsciously I’m scared that you won’t reply if I don’t thank you. I also think that if I don’t thank you (even though you suggested that I don’t) you  might think me ungrateful and selfish in every post. I truly am thankful for every reply and I guess I feel as if I don’t say so then I become an ungrateful and selfish person- I think it’s a mix of things. It feels weird signing off and not saying thank you. I’m genuinely not sure.
I was going to say thank you here and end the post, but not saying it triggers an almost ocd like response- which is an unusual trigger for me- a very anxious feeling mixed with almost a panicky feeling.

sincerely lea