this is getting out of hand

[echolocation]

without going into any gory details, i can't stop hurting my feet.

i have been engaging in skin-picking that has quite apparently crossed the border between nervous habit and self harm. walking is painful right now. not unbearable, but painful. i went to clean out a small infection in a cuticle and left having made more damage. i don't know what the fuck is wrong with me or why i can't seem to stop.

i'm not usually distressed with my skin-picking, but i am now. this is absolutely self harm. i don't know what's changed and why it's become more severe. i have this compulsive need to "clean it up", which never stop at just cleaning and always results in more injury. my feet hurt. they look awful. i'm ashamed of what i've done and i'm really sick of this shit.

i see tdoc monday. i will bring this up.

i see pdoc nov. 17. when i saw her six weeks ago, we bumped my clomipramine up from 120 mg to 150 mg in the hopes that it might help the skin-picking, which i remember was just ramping up at the time. it's gotten much worse. my feet haven't been like this since i was in university (a very bad time all around for me).

the last few weeks have been stressful. maybe more stressful than i thought.

looking for support right now i guess. i'm behaving badly and i'm frustrated with myself.

[Unstrung Harp]

It’s good that you’re going to bring this up with tdoc, echo. I hope they can help you work through it. I would encourage you not to be hard on yourself though, and to try to reframe your thoughts that you’re “behaving badly.” Self injury is a coping mechanism, albeit not one that’s useful or healthy in the longterm. You’ve clearly got some things going on and are having some trouble regulating how you act on your emotions. But I don’t think you’re behaving badly. Beating yourself up about it is unlikely to help, and you don’t deserve it.

[Fluent In Silence]

I remember that feeling from when I used to self-harm. Might make you feel better in the short term but then there's the shame and thinking "What the fuck is wrong with me?" Like Unstrung Harp said - don't be too hard on yourself. You aren't the only one who's felt like this and beating yourself up over it can make you more prone to doing it again. It can be a bit of a vicious circle. Just noticed that this was posted a few weeks ago. Hope you're doing better.

[CrazyRedhead]

@echolocation,  How are you doing?

[echolocation]

i forgot about this thread. i'm doing better. don't know if the clomipramine increase started doing it's thing finally, but i'm feeling a lot more stable. i think i was dealing with stress (probably related to whether or not i should continue my schooling) by self harming. the infection in my cuticle got quite ugly, but i managed to leave it alone long enough that it dried out and healed up.

realizing that this is actually self harm helped me quit doing it. also it was really getting painful to walk, and i was worried about making it through a work day. i started wearing slipper socks tucked into tight pants to make it harder to get to my feet unconsciously. i also told my mom it was getting bad, and she helped me keep away from them.

i think tdoc and i talked about this, but honestly i don't remember what conclusion we came to. wait, let me check my notes app. wait, i think we actually didn't talk about it, or not much, anyway, because my dog died two days later and that was more pressing.

i think part of the reason the skin picking has gotten worse is that cutting doesn't work for me anymore. i've been clean for a while now, save a slip up a few months ago that confirmed that it doesn't do shit for me now. i still itch for that escape sometimes, though, and i think i went to skin picking for that. guess i have to cope like they tell you to do in self-care guides.

thanks for your concern, guys.