Sorry, I got off topic.

I have a tendency to wake up during the night, especially when I'm stressed, and I'll stay awake for hours until I eventually fall asleep again. It doesn't really bother me much, until the tiredness hits the next day. I've found there isn't really much I can do to prevent it happening, I just have to let it pass when it does. Like a panic attack.

The core belief that affects me the most, and I'm sure you will be able to relate, is not being good enough. I remember the first time I actually noticed it. It was when I was in hospital at the start of 2008, and psychiatrist said I wasn't eating enough and I had to do better. I thought "Nothing I do will ever be good enough for you." There has certainly been quite a lot of things which reinforced that since then. Even what I spoke about in my last post, when I said, "Everything I do, you do better."

Kaitie.

Here is an interesting thought to think on. It could be an explanation of sorts. We know that when searching for answers the mind picks out the most appropriate based on  a number of factors. Interest, attitude, necessity. The list goes on. But it also looks at associated thoughts.

Ashley, I love white noise too! I was disappointed when we moved house about a year and a half ago because I couldn't hear the traffic as much.

Hugs, I've been doing the same thing too. When I first started going downhill a couple of years ago, I was quite unstable and my friends weren't sure how to take it. I had a breakdown towards the end of year 11, when one of my best friends got a school leadership position and I didn't. She went to hug me because I was crying and I pushed her away, then I said to her, "Everything I do, you do better." It was never a competition, but we did the exact same subjects, had similar interests, same group of friends. She was more popular than me, she got the top grades of our classes and got roles in the school play when I didn't. She never saw herself as better than me, but since I was depressed I thought I was a failure. Around that time, we had to write a reflective speech about our life so far, and as a part of that we were expected to write about difficult times we'd been through. I was chatting to another friend on Facebook about what we were going to write in that part. I mentioned I might talk about what had happened with our friends, like how I felt like a failure and that was a hard time for me, and he said, "Don't mention that or everyone's respect for you will go down the drain." He also told me "You can't expect to have a go at one of the most popular girls in school without there being consequences." For the 2 weeks since what had happened with her, apparently everyone had been talking about me behind my back and they were annoyed with me for what I'd done. Yet no one had asked me about it to my face. I felt hurt that no one realised that was my cry for help, that there was something else going on.

At the start of grade 12, another one of my close friends who I thought would always be there started drifting away from me. She said she couldn't stand being around me anymore because I was too negative and down on myself. I was still going downhill then. It's been almost 2 years since I yelled at the girl who was school captain for our senior year, and it's been playing on my mind a bit. I was sorting out my old school books, and in the margins of my biology notebook are random scribbles and drawings from the 3 people I've mentioned. In that class, it was just the four of us from our group. It was hard remembering what it was like before all that happened, to what things are like now. I've lost a lot of friends because of my anxiety.

This is the first time I've ever written what happened out like this, so sorry if it's a bit long winded. I was kind of processing it myself at the same time.

See Hugs, we need to stop torturing ourselves with the past. The problem with comparing ourselves to others is that we compare their best qualities to our worst, which isn't fair. It's strange how we would never do that other people, but when it comes to ourselves it's a whole different set of rules and expectations.

Kaitie.

P.S. Sorry to be a bit of a downer there!

Now this is where I am different. I lived in a cabin with a wood stove for heat. Not only did I not have insurance but what good is it in the middle of the winter if your home is burning down around your ears. Every noise means something when you live like this. But you get used to the ones that belong there. And the ones that don't, they wake you. So does silence. Like when a wolf is passing by my dog team and I don't hear any movement or too much movement. Or a rare thing but it happens, I have a chimney fire. So noises that I feel don't belong there bother me. It took me years to get used to a fridge. I still don't have insurance, I'm too far from the fire department so noises are still important. My drinking water filter wastes three gallons of water  back flushing for every gallon it saves. The pump kicks in often. It doesn't bother me but if it runs steady because I lost the prime it wakes me. A fan would cover these noises and I wouldn't sleep. But this is just me. Secure people should be able to sleep unless it is anxiety. That is a whole different game. 

Ashley, Health Educator

I sat down in my recliner with a cup of tea beside me and fell asleep. Woke up with my cat and my tea cold. I guess five hours last night wasn't enough. Hmmm. I have Benadryl too, that might have helped me sleep last night. I used to take it to stop the itch when I was on Morphine. I've been on Morphine a few times for intense pain and always got two days worth of panic on withdrawal. Never addiction even when I was on for over a month in hospital last summer. Hard to believe that was only a year ago. Hard to believe how bad the pain was. CBT keeps me from focusing on it. I can go there, I just don't and when I do it isn't bad. Just different.