When things feel out of control

Things have been feeling out of control lately, and that's something I really struggle with.  That struggle becomes particularly evident in two areas of my life.  First, while there are many things contribute to my struggle with self-harm, a big one is a need to feel like I'm in control.  I can't control the darkness/"mental pain", but when I hurt myself, that is a pain I can control.  The other area are some of my obsessive compulsive behaviors; particularly with my planning/day to day schedule.  At it's worst, I had a monthly, weekly and daily dry erase boards AND planners and I had 3 "to-do list" notebooks, where I had to write the same list AT LEAST 3 times to feel okay.  I also was completely unable to do anything "spur of the moment."  My parents can attest to this- if they asked me in the morning to empty the dishwasher sometime before dinner, but I didn't have it planned in my day (even though it would only take 5min), I couldn't do it.  I can't really explain it to sound logical, because truth it, it isn't.  But to me, when I was struggling with that, it was completely logical.  But essentially, it would cause me to have panic and anxiety attacks.  And my refusal to do something, in the eyes of someone who didn't understand, just pissed them off.  Nowadays, thanks to some medicine, things aren't that bad anymore.  I still have a planner, and there are still some times where unplanned requests/events give me panic attacks, but overall I'm much more flexible and less obsessive about every minute of every day.  When things feel out of control around me, sometimes those behaviors kick back up again.  (When I was in the process of starting a new position for instance, it triggered a lot of those behaviors.)

There are some things that we've discovered in therapy that really contribute to this struggle with control.  The first one is an accident I witnessed when I was in 2nd grade.  On the way home from school one day, the bus was stopped at the top of a hill to let a girl off, as she was crossing the street, a tractor trailer came flying up the road, and not seeing the bus, or the girl, hit her.  Amazingly, she survived.  But as a result, we were held up in the bus for awhile, and eventually we were transferred to a different bus that took a different route to get everyone home (since the usual route was now blocked by the accident) and the 8ish-year-old Rose freaked about getting home and the sudden change in what was happening.  It seems that that was a big factor in some of my issues with control.  Another big factor was being unable to control outbursts from people around me growing up.  As I got older, when those events occurred around me that I couldn't control, I would lock myself in my bedroom and hurt myself because I felt like it was the only thing I could control.

Now, when things feel particularly out of control, that self-harm part becomes incredibly active (more so than usual), because I know that it will make me feel better, and I know it will let me feel in control.  I can't control friends who are moving.  I can't control if the electricity goes out and I don't sleep well.  I can't control if things are crazy at the hotel.  I can't control almost car accidents caused by other people.  I can't control my panic attacks.  I can't control the fact that my support system feels shot because of people being gone/leaving/busy/unavailable or having a hard time of their own.  I can't control the issues we were having with our apartment office and the chaos of people moving in/out.  I can't exactly control what's going on in my head, the best I can do is try to fight/manage it.  Suicidal thoughts have been strong lately and it's been really hard.  Some nights I lay in bed sobbing because I'm tired of hanging on; I feel like I have no strength left and I just want to let go because it seems so much easier, liberating, and relieving.

Right now, I'm functioning much better than I ever have before.  I'm spending a majority of my time, not just out of bed, but outside my bedroom too.  I'm making progress with my school work now that I'm finally done with my English class that I was having trouble with.  But at the same time, I'm really struggling.  I'm struggling to stay alive and I'm struggling to fight my self-harm part.  It just kind of feels like I'm going through the motions; spending a majority of my strength and energy trying to stay alive.  My point is, just because someone is functioning, doesn't mean they're not struggling.  Just because they're able to go through the motions and maybe seem okay, doesn't mean they're not fighting an awful battle inside.