Today has been full of the Birthday Blues. I dislike birthday’s and Christmas for many reasons;
– The expectation of happiness
– The social implications
– The anxiety of gift reception
– The “happy” masquerade
– The prospect of being another year older
The whole thing is fraught with difficulties for me. Today has not been a good day, and even the whole week hasn’t been great if I’m completely honest. And to top it all off tomorrow is my last CBT session before the two week Christmas break; while I don’t enjoy the sessions I am going to feel quite lost and alone when I don’t attend them. This past week I have been thinking of things I want to raise with therapist and psychiatrist tomorrow before the break.
My compulsive hair pulling is not getting any better, nor is the skin picking and biting. I was researching these the other day and found that all three belong to a group of impulse control disorders. Also while researching I stumbled upon obsessive compulsive personality disorder which seemed to be the answer to some of my other problems regarding my endless list making, extensive planning of things that get in the way of completing or even starting them, my strictness about rules, the “right way” things should be done, my stubbornness and rigidity, my perfectionism and problems with relationships.
I’m sure that people think I’m a hypochondriac for researching these things but I feel that if I understand something I can control it. If something has a label I know what it is. The unknown has always been a problem for me, I get anxious if I don’t understand something so by placing a name on my feelings I can accept it. An analogy to this would be someone giving you a page of symbols and characters you didn’t understand and being asked to decipher them. You can’t. But if they told you what language it was or gave you the key you can start understanding it.
Now I face another problem, how do I bring this subject up with my psychiatrist and therapist? Do I just say “Hey look! I’ve diagnosed myself and now I have more disorders than I can shake a stick at!”? I don’t know! I don’t want them thinking I’m attention seeking or making up labels to put on myself but at the same time I feel I need to know what’s going on and that I’m not alone in what I’m feeling.
I don’t know. I’ll think about it tomorrow.
youngmentalhealth 