Self-Harm Prayer

Dear God, you are the only one who knows what is in the depths of my heart.  You know the deepest secrets in my soul and the hurts and wounds in my life.  I ask you to look into my heart now and bring to the surface what you want to heal.  I ask you to reveal the root causes for self-harm in my life and give me the wisdom and grace to deal with them and give them to you.  I ask you to come into my life and heal my heart and soul.  Be my strength and bring the peace only you can give.  Cover me with your love and mercy.

And already P!nk's album is helping me get through the day.
*Source for prayer in the link connected to "self-harm."

Hmm, so this is perfectionism anxiety...

I am finding that college involves a lot of crying, sleepless nights, self-hatred, panic, and downward-spiraling of mental health.  Homework is freaking me out.   My assignments for Beginning Acting and Ballet I are pretty straight-forward and easy.  English and math, however, are a totally different story. 

I have no idea what’s going on in math.  I can do the homework, but the logistics for test taking, accountability for work time, and attendance all seem really complicated.  I’m really intimidated by the instructor, so I don’t think I’ll be asking many questions any time soon.  I don’t feel that I can ask my classmates, either.  In fact, I don’t really feel like the other students are my classmates.  We’re each in our own isolated online worlds, working at our own paces.  I feel like I’m moving too slowly because I'm really terrible at math.

There is so much to do in English!  I am juggling readings from two text books, a novel, writing assignments, online assignments, and online discussions.  With all the different books I’m reading for this class, I don’t feel like I’m absorbing much information, and I don’t know if I’m getting out of it what I am supposed to.

I haven’t even done any of the online CompClass assignments, because I’m not signed up for it yet.  I bought a used text book for the online component of the class, so I have to buy the code to sign up for the online class separately.  I won’t be ordering it until this Tuesday, and I don’t know when it will arrive.  I hate falling behind!  

Our reading assignments in the text books this week focus on revising drafts of a paper and peer reviews because we’ve just written our first paper, a literacy memoir.  The more I read about the mechanics of writing and connect it to the draft I’ve written, the more stressed out and insecure I feel.  Each sentence about sentence structure, transition, rhetoric, and thesis statements is whispering “not good enough, not good enough, not good enough.” 

I don’t do well when I have to do so much in so little time.  I don’t do well without strict schedules and detailed instructions.  Math is difficult because I’m bad at it.  English is difficult because I want so badly to do everything just right.

I like to work hard and learn, but this is too much.   It’s unbalanced.  I feel like I can’t talk to anyone about my struggles, either, because they seem so stupid.  I’m beginning to feel very stupid, as well. 

Favorite Excerpts from Willow by Julia Hoban[1]

                “You couldn’t really say that something that hurts so badly feels good exactly.  It’s more that it just feels right.  And something that feels so right just couldn’t be bad.  It has to be good.

Better than good.”

“She gets up from the bed and walks into the bathroom to splash some cold water on her face.  She stares in the mirror for a few seconds, looking at herself as if she were a stranger.

Who is this?

She supposed that to anyone else she looks exactly the same as she always did, except for her hair, that is.  She doesn’t have the energy or inclination to fuss with it like she once did, so she just wears it in a braid that hangs halfway down her back.

But she doesn’t recognize herself.  Maybe her face isn’t any different, but the look in her eyes is.  Worse than dead, their expression is simply blank.  She reaches out a hand to cover them in the mirror.  She remembers the reflection that used to stare back at her.  Those eyes weren’t dead.

She had never known that she used to be happy.  It had simply never occurred to her that her life had all that she would ever need or want. 

The one thing that can make her laugh these days is how much she used to take things for granted.  In the past, little hurts, like doing badly in school, or getting dumped by a guy, really used to throw her.  How was she to know what was lying in store for her? She shakes her head at how foolish she used to be, getting upset because her favorite dress got lost at the cleaners, or something equally stupid.

Stupid!”

 

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[1]I have altered some of the text to exclude the character’s name and generalize who may be speaking.