Belated Welcome, Shavtay2007

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Belated Welcome, Shavtay2007
1100
Tue, 03-20-2007 - 10:32am

Hi Tziporah,


I am so sorry that this is such a belated welcome to you. I've been absent from the board for nearly a month - so many things have been happening in my life that it was difficult to also come here. The good news is that life has somewhat calmed down (but I'm still crossing my fingers and my toes), which means that I'm back on iVillage.


I am so very happy to see you here, participating and sharing in our conversations! I hope that we'll get to know each other better in the coming weeks.


Welcome again!


(PS: I love the sound of your name!)


Please visit these other great message boards:
Cranio-Facial Abnormalities
In Vitro (IVF)



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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2005
Wed, 06-04-2008 - 4:52pm

I've got the capsules. They are pretty good, I don't taste it. Sometimes people do, but if you put them in the freezer you don't get the "fish burps". They are just big and that is why I gag.


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cl of the Self-Injury

Amanda

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2008
Wed, 06-04-2008 - 4:57pm

ooh grosse, fish burps! :-)


Joy

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-13-2008
Fri, 06-06-2008 - 7:23am

Hi, I haven't posted for a while because I've been busy with study, but I'm a little less pressured now.


I've never had problems with hair cutting* but one of the girls that I support does. She also has OCD. She's doing quite a bit better with it now - I think that she's gone about four or five months without cutting it. At the time when she was struggling with it (and other SI behaviours), I suggested that she might do some nice stuff for her body. I was kinda thinking in terms of nice smelling body moisturiser, or warm baths, but she took the idea on board slightly differently. She started getting (neck) massages from an

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Sun, 06-08-2008 - 4:10am
Hi Luosha,
Judaism encourages taking care of ourbodies, believing they are the temples in which our souls are housed. Although modesty is encouraged, within that constraint, there is nothing wrong with beautifying oneself--particularly for one's husband.
Anyway, I could see how treating my body kindly could have a positive effect. I personally find facials and leg waxing painful and I also get agitated while you sit waiting for the treatments to set. I like the idea of massages, but my back has disk problems and I will only let a physiotherapist handle it. I occasionally take baths with baby oil an d I like putting olive oil on my hands and then placing them in gloves. the olive oil is soft.
The whole hair cutting thing started as a freak incident. I had always had my mother-in-law cut my hair. Then I read about a blind person who cut their own hair. I had never thought a person who is blind could cut anyone's hair. But I have discovered there are blind hair-dressers. Anyway, once my mother-in-law was tired and I thought, why bother her? I can do this myself. It felt so good--being independent of having to ask her to do it. I figured I could do as good a job as she. After that, I just started doing it.
Then the OCD part kicked in. No matter how short I cut it, it was never short enough. Always just a little more cutting and I'll stop. That's what I told myself. Well, since then, that is how it has been.
After a few times, the episodes started to frighten me. By this time, I knew I had OCD tendencies, but I had never done this kind of thing before. I have been biting my cuticles since I was a kid. I went to my psychdoc and told her about it and also my therapist about it. That was hard, but I felt necessary.
Anyuway, the cutting episodes are shorter than they used to be--depending on mood and circumstances, it can be as short as a little snip, five minutes, or 15-20 if I am really anxious. At first, it was an hour long. Still, I try to cut it as short as possible. I feel relief--no more havimg to worry about it for awhile. I like the sensation of the lightness on my head. No heaviness. Airy.
My body image, the way I feel about my body, is very much tied up with how I feel about myself--whether or not I like myself. I tend to eat better on the Sabbath and holidays, than I do during the week. During the week I can go with one meal a day. On the Sabbath and holidays, when two or three meals are required, I eat better. Still, I have gained weight can could probably do with a little weight loss. I am definitely not in the underweight category.
I weigh now more than I ever did--70 kilos, aprox. 150lbs. When I married, almost 30 years ago, I was 20 kilos lighter--40lbs. lighter. Part of this is due to my entering the pre-menopause. But not all of it.
It is also tied up with how my parents perceive me, which I have transferred to myself. It has to do with learning to like myself.
Right now in therapy I am working on learning to like myself. It is a complex issue. My t. says that once I can start to learn to like myself, my si will probably decrease. I have always set conditions for myself. When I will do such-and-such, (stop biting my cuticles, for example), then I can like myself. He says I have to learn to phrase it the other way: Because I like myself I can stop biting my cuticles. It is not an easy switch for me to make.
Tziporah
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Sun, 06-08-2008 - 4:30am
The gloves I use aren't cloth, but the plastic kind that med personnel wear. I like their softness. I know how itching can drive a person crazy. Are there creams that would help with that? Tziporah
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2008
Sun, 06-08-2008 - 8:35pm

Hi Tziporah!


I'm glad you see you posting again.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-12-2007
Mon, 06-09-2008 - 10:45pm
Hi Joy,
Thanks for your message.
I would put cream on my hands EVEN when I instinctively knew that 2 minutes later I would be picking at them again. I would often think: "what's the point?:" Or, I would put cream on my hands, put them in gloves, and they would start to heal. As long as the gloves were on--no problem. Then, as soon as the loves come off--big problem! laugh. Right away--picking at them again.
I think this is a stage we have to go through. We know we will harm ourselves again, even after we have instituted some preventive or healing measure. However, eventually, after awhile, the healing measure we have tried starts to become habit. We begin to see its positive healing effects and benefits and eventually that outweighs and overrides the need and compulsion to hurt ourselves DESPITE it.
So, even though I would often put myself down for putting cream on my hands and letting them heal, only to pick at them again, I ended up always doing that again--putting cream and gloves on. As I wrote here in a previous message, I find olive oil very warm and soothing. Perhaps vitamin E. oil will work. Many people here have reported that it is great for healing scars and is also very soothing and warm. I guess the main thing is to apply something that is warm and makes the skin soft--a way of taking care of ourselves.
I often put myself down, a mark of my low self-esteem, so it isn't just the actual creaming and then picking at my hands that is involved, but what I tell myself when that happens.
In therapyk, we are discussing the concept of conditional love and that I have always set myself certain conditions for when I will like myself. i.e. when I stop biting my nails, I will then like myself. when i get back to the right weight, then I will like myself. when I finally tackle all the clutter and get the house spotless from all the old stuff that is inevitably lying around, then I will like myself. when I finally exercise daily, then I will like myself. etc., etc., etc.
A lot of these activities are tied up with things my parents find easy to do. The areas they find easiest are the hardest for me.
It also has to do with how I perceive their love for me--a very sensitive issue.
Basically, this is what my last therapy session was all about.
He said that somehow all of these things are interconnected and will take "time to unravel" as he puts it. He says that once I can let go of these conditions, I will find liking myself easier. He said that waiting for these conditions to come about is not going to work, since, obviously, it hasn't worked till now.
I am very glad to hear you are happy and content.
It makes perfect sense that when a person is happy they engage in si less often. There is no need to do it because there is no emotional pain. Happiness and emotional pain are mutually exclusive. If you have one, you cannot have the other.
Yesterday was a Jewish holiday and I had a very spiritual awakening throughout it, plus a lot of time to just rest and disconnect from everyday stuff. A mini-vacation. So today I am feeling pretty good.
Tziporah
Tziporah
web: www.istillhavemylife.com
blog: tziporahwishky.livejournal.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-02-2005
Tue, 06-10-2008 - 4:34am

Hi Tziporah,


I hope you had a blessed, peaceful and restful Shavuot (I hope I spelled that correctly).


I can relate to the conditional love thing. I think for a long time I also put myself down and would not treat myself well because I didn't think I deserved it. I could only be good to myself when I was a better person, etc. I like to think that I am getting better at self-care and such now.


I think it is an important thing that you said about your feelings about yourself being tied to how you perceive your parents' love for you. I'm sure that almost sounds silly of me to say -- how could I think anything different when they comment directly about my weight, my home, my whatever... Still, I think you can see that this has nothing to do with their love for you, right? I am sure they love you, regardless of criticism. And of course, we are our own worst critic, aren't we?


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cl of the Self-Injury

Amanda

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2008
Tue, 06-10-2008 - 8:15pm

Hi Tziporah!


I'm so happy to hear you are feeling good!

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-18-2008
Tue, 06-10-2008 - 8:23pm

Hi Amanda,


I tried so hard to make myself believe that my parents loved me despite their criticism and past abuse.

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