Reading and remembering

 So since I've decided to come back to this blog, I decided I should reread old entries. I'm not sure why I thought this was a good idea because in the past my rule was that I wasn't allowed to read old journals. If I did read them, it was often in an effort to sabotage any progress I had made. It's just that I tend to journal the negative things. I tried guided journals that have you write about gratitude and hope, and it just isn't what I am trying to accomplish when I journal. Here is a little different because I write under the assumption that someone will read it, which may or may not be the case. That means I also tend to journal objectively and explain events that occurred and about people in my life. I just try to include what happened before I process my feelings about it. 

Still, I'm currently reading from 2016, and there's not a whole lot positive that happened that year. My life consisted of drinking and working and sleeping and very little else. I try to forget those years when I was drinking for a couple of reasons. 1) It was a very negative time and I was very sick. I was living in an apartment that was a total mess. I was drinking and cutting. I had pretty much lost all friends. 2) Despite that, I miss those days. I miss being physically sick and so weak I couldn't carry things up stairs. I miss being able to numb out everything with alcohol. I miss my job and my apartment even if it was unlivable. I miss my AA friends.

So I honestly think that I am reading this as self sabotage again. Trigger warning for this. I am currently self destructive and a little suicidal, and I'm not really actively trying to change that. I lied about the extent of the self harm and the suicidal thoughts to both my therapist and the PA that does my meds. I ordered razors and first aid supplies on Amazon. I told myself that's progress because cutting has a much lower risk of infection than the burning I was doing, and it heals faster. I can't really explain why I don't want the suicidal thoughts to go away. I think the best I can explain it is that I read a book about borderline personality disorder that left me viewing suicide attempts as a massive form of self harm. I also over the years have encountered staff in hospitals that didn't really take me seriously if I was just suicidal but hadn't actually done anything; so if I'm going to end up back inpatient (which seems likely), I feel like I need to do something. 

The biggest thing I miss right now is other people. I miss having friends. I miss having coworkers. I miss having anyone in my life that wasn't my parents or my brother. You might thing that would inspire me to reach out to them, but I am also reading this and seeing how toxic I was. That particular job... I made no effort to hide the self harm. They knew about my drinking. I left at least twice.. maybe it's 3 times to go IP, but mostly I worried people. It's the same with people from AA. I was way to dependent on a couple of people, and that generally means when I go downhill they are the ones to get hurt. I can't bring myself to reach out to them when I am doing quite badly. It would be unfair to them. Although as I am writing this, I at least posted a photo on facebook so that they know I'm alive. 

I also miss my independence despite the fact that I was clearly not doing a good job at living on my own. I write about going shopping and wandering around stores all the time. I write about sleeping past noon (I was working 3:30PM-12AM at the time). I also miss the freedom to drink, which makes no sense because I was so mentally and physically unwell. I had to go to the ER more than once for dehydration and low potassium because I kept vomiting everyday. In some ways being physically unwell made me feel better because at least it was visible. Depression tends to be invisible, or at least I make an effort to hide it. 

I don't know. I think I am rambling. The synopsis is that I am rereading this blog, and I think it's to sabotage myself. I need to stop, but I keep going.