Values

On Monday, in individual therapy, I went over my values cards. It’s pretty neat, you have a stack of like 100 values and you start by sorting them by “very important,” “sort of important,” and “not important”. Then you get rid of the sort of important and not important stacks. You take the very important stack and sort it into “problems,” “shoulds,” and I can’t remember the other stack. Then you discard the problems and shoulds and start over with the other stack sorting into “very important,” “sort of important,” and “not important.” There are more steps, but I don’t remember them all. Anyway, you get down to 7 most important values, then 5, then 3 core values, then your single most important value.

My 7 most important values are: (in no particular order)

• family
• friendship
• growth
• connection
• love
• discovery
• spirituality

My 3 core values are:

• spirituality
• love
• discovery

And my single most important value is love.

I think it’s good to know your values as they can act as a compass to guide your actions throughout the day. Am I working right now toward one of my values of family, friendship, growth, connection, love, discovery, or spirituality? If so, I’m probably on the right track. If not, I may need to reassess. And is my overarching direction in life moving me toward love? Love of others, love of nature, love of my Creator, love of myself, love of learning, love of growth? If not, I’m going the wrong way.

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Anxiety and Avoidance

My anxiety has been really bad lately.

This evening, I was supposed to go to a barbecue with a friend. I didn’t really want to go in the first place, but she didn’t want to go alone.

Today, my anxiety was very high. I was freaking out about going. I canceled on her.

I feel terrible. I also feel relieved.

I hate that my anxiety makes me an awful, flaky friend. I hate that it keeps me from doing things I want to, or should, do. I wish I knew how to fight it or change it, but I don’t. I’ve tried everything my counselor suggests and nothing helps.

The need to destroy myself

I wrote this in my journal last night in bed.

I keep finding myself wondering if I can recover.

When I am living with my disorder, I am “stable”. When I try to recover, I lose all semblance of stability. I start feeling the all-encompassing self-hatred. I start having thoughts about jumping off buildings. I start trying to stab myself.

I can’t handle the level of all out hatred and loathing I have for myself. I don’t know what to do with it, other than to destroy myself.

The other day I wanted to slash my face and throat. I can’t stand to see myself in the mirror. The sight of myself makes me nauseous. I wish I could destroy the mirror.

I want to cut the fat off my body. Some days I don’t even care if I wouldn’t have any skin left after. I can’t possibly be more hideous than I am now. I can’t possibly hate myself more.

If I had a sharper knife, I could probably succeed at stabbing myself.

Luckily, just after that, I started talking to a friend and that helped me a lot. Sometimes what I need is just the opportunity to get outside of my own mind and connect with another person.