Posted by stebby on August 30, 2004, at 20:38:13
In reply to Re: Why bother with therapy?, posted by Starlight on August 30, 2004, at 13:10:53
Starlight,
Your story is inspirational. I'm glad to hear that you were able to conquer your desire to purge. I constantly struggle with a desire to cut, but as you say, the times when I am involved in things I enjoy doing and with other people, it's much easier. Sometimes I do much better than others. the self-absorbtion can be a problem. Fortunatley my occupation ( a teacher)forces me to keep from becoming too self-absorbed. How long have you been cured? Do you still struggle with the desire?Tell me about your therapist's involvement in healing. Were you attached to him/her? Are you still seeing one, or have you completely written off therapy?
Stebby> I had basically out of control bullimia for about 7 years - which is really slow suicide, so in that respect I would say yes. While I wasn't cutting myself, I was depriving my body of every single calorie and got to the point where I passed out on the job and was hospitalized in the psych ward of an overseas hospital.
>
> What cured me was a lot of investment in other things, like going to community college, getting heavily involved in music and just doing things that focued on others rather than myself. That's a huge part of it - getting rid of the self absorption. As long as you're self absorbed in how much you long to hurt yourself, then you can't fully engage in activities that you really enjoy. You've got to change the focus and take control of life in new directions, things you find mentally fun and stimulating. More stimulating than hurting yourself. It's interesting how we get stuck in feeling bad and when we finally feel good, we look back and say, 'wow, it was so much more work to feel bad'.
>
> My actual 'cure' arrived overnight. I dreamt that my fiance at the time, walked in and caught me vomiting. He looked at me (remember this is a dream) and said 'Starlight, you've really got to stop this' and that morning, I swear, the urge to vomit was gone. Gone. It was like divine intervention. I went from throwing up as many as twenty times a day to being completely healed. But ultimately, it was the work I did that got me to the point of being healed.
>
> But the most important thing, is finding something you enjoy more than hurting yourself. Maybe it's acting. Maybe getting involved in a different way of expressing your pain would be better. For me it was music.
> xo
> starlight
poster:stebby
thread:251041
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040828/msgs/384331.html