** Trigger warning for talk of self harm **

Today has not been a good day at all. It started off with a battle with Royal Mail as I have paid to have my mail redirected for 3 months to give me enough time to work my way through all the companies I have dealings with to change my Address with them. For some reason when you enter my old postcode into any address checking system on a computer it lists the flats as flat 1 to flat 12. But that isn’t how they are labeled on the doors of the flats, instead it runs like flat 0/1, 0/2, 1/1, 1/2 etc. So even after taking ID into the post office last week to prove my address does exist and asking them to enter the address manually I still got a letter from royal mail this morning with the wrong address details. Argh! So I phone them and they say they can’t override it on the system nor can the guy’s supervisor. Frustrating? Very!

So in the end I went into my local sorting office and explained it all to them and they think they have sorted it out now but can’t promise I won’t miss the odd bit of mail here and there. . . Most annoying when I’ve paid for it to be done!

That was the point where I should have known it was going to be a bad day. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before but a couple of months ago my parents agreed to take out a bank loan for me and bought me a new car. It’s not brand new or anything but I have to admit I do love it, even though it’s going to take me 3 years to pay off. I haven’t even driven it that much because I’m very aware these days of not getting behind the wheel if I know I’m not in a good frame of mind but it has helped a lot with getting to a couple of new places that the agoraphobia has previously prevented me to because I trust the car to keep me safe. So today around lunchtime I decided to head out early, I had an appointment with Lovely Support Worker at 3 so I left around 2pm so that I could get her a xmas card and some bits from the shops. But then all of a sudden I seemed to go into this weird autopilot mode and found myself standing in a paint and decorating shop. My mouth was moving and sound was coming out, I heard myself asking for a pack of the strongest stanley knife blades they had. Then I went to the pharmacy and bought some bandages yet still really didn’t know why I was doing it.

I went back to the car park and sat thinking for a little while trying to make sense of my actions. The only conclusion that I could come to was that I needed them as a safety blanket, like even though I want this new house to have all these good memories in it and to be this blank canvas, now that all of the stress of having to hold it together over the past few weeks has gone I can finally let all my crazy mixed up emotions out. I sat and smoked a cigarette and tried to get my head together, felt calmer, drove along in the direction of my appointment then realised I’d forgotten to get something at the shops. I spotted a space and slowly reversed into it but there was a stupid metal bollard in my blind spot and I reversed right into it. Heard a bit of a thud and stopped immediately, got out the car and there was glass everywhere :( My whole back light unit where the brake light and reverse light and an indicator are were smashed to pieces and a deep scratch on the bumper. As everyone stood and stared at me I fought back the tears and drove to the garage, all the way believing that this was my punishment for buying the blades to self harm with.

At the garage I was told the damage was too bad for them to allow me to drive it and I had to leave it there. They are going to try and get it back to me by the end of the week. Now I don’t know whether to make an insurance claim and have my premiums go up or somehow find the money to pay it myself. For the parts and labour it’s going to be around £200 so I think I’m just going to pay it although it’s going to take a while to save that much up :( I could really have done without this especially so close to xmas even though I think it’s xmas I’m dreading so much.

The only good part of my day was seeing lovely Support Worker and getting a good long chat with her as I haven’t seen her in a while. I told her about buying the blades and said I knew I would act on the urges I just didn’t know when. She tried to talk to me about how bad I always feel in the aftermath of self harming but in the end just asked me to try and be careful when I do it. I don’t know when it will happen, maybe it’ll be tonight or maybe not til next week or even longer than that…

All I know is that the urges to do it and do it bad have been very strong over these past few weeks but I couldn’t let myself give in to them when I had so much else going on and now. . . well now it feels like all that has gone and I can finally give in to them. Part of me wants to go and run a hot bath and do it there, watch all of the water turn red before pulling the plug and seeing it all disappear. Part of me wants to leave them at the back of the drawer where I’ve hidden them and try to keep plodding on until things REALLY get too much. . . cos they will, I know that much. I sit here just now looking at the mess of my arms and legs from previous self harming, so many scars I can’t even count them. One part of my head says don’t add to the mess, the other part of my head tells me “do it and do it fucking bad like you deserve”.

So yeah. . .

Shit day? Yep.

Danger to myself? Possibly.

Will it go further than cutting? Who fucking knows. . .