Bloggers!

I figured I’d rework some aspects of my blog and one part of that is updating my blogroll.

Now, I am very hesitant about adding blogs to my blogroll. I had one case where a blogger specifically asked not to be linked on blogrolls, so I do not want to go around adding people without asking them.

Now, if you are a member of a larger blog community (NQL, pantheos etc), please know that I will understand this as a “free to link to me” sign.

If your blog is a private single blog, I will link if I know for sure that you have been linked multiple times on larger blogs and are ok with it.

If I am not sure and your blog is a single private blog, I will go ahead and ask you. There are some people who I am very unsure whether they’re ok with being linked to due to past events a troubles with their blogs – I will try to make sure to ask before I add you. Depending on how I can reach you, I will contact you via Facebook, Email or blog comment.

If you do not want to be linked at all, please let me know via Email.

Holidays = Movie time!

I am addicted to movies. As an ex-QF girl, I have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to movies. But I didn’t just want to post “Movies you all know that I finally got to watch”. Instead I decided to pressure you guys to watch some movies I think you might not have seen yet, but you missed out on!

1. Sophie Scholl – The final days

I’m a sucker for WW 2 movies. One of the best in this genre is the German production “Sophie Scholl – The final days”. Sophie and her brother Hans were members of the “white rose”, a anti-nazi resistance group in Munich. Until today there is a memorial for her and her brother in at the Munich University: metal leaflets on the floor, in the place where they actually distributed their leaflets. Absolutely fascinating movie. It’s one of my favourite movies ever.

Note that there is a mistranslation in the subtitles – the movie plays in 1942 and Sophie was in fact born 1921 – not 1941 as the subtitle says. The audio does state the correct year of her birth.

2. Grave Decisions

Yet another German production (and a comedy) but nevertheless worth watching. The German title is “Wer früher stirbt ist länger tot” (literally: “Those who die early are dead for longer”). I could not find a trailer and I imagine it’s hard to find the English version (called “Grave Decisions”). If you happen to come across it, I can highly recommend it. In a rural village in the Bavarian alps, a little boy is convinced that he killed his mother – because she died the day he was born – and tries to find a way to make up for it. In case you believe that you can watch this movie with high school German skills – forget about that right away. All of it is spoken in a very deep Bavarian dialect which is intelligible to pretty much every German north of the white sausage border. I had difficulties keeping up with it. Thank God for German subtitles. A side note, how weird is it that they’re actually selling a German movie with German subtitles because otherwise a vast majority in this country could not understand this film? And no, this is not “German subtitles for the hearing impaired”. It’s two sets of subtitles on the dvd: German AND German for the hearing impaired.

3. Amelie (or: The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain)

Yes, I will admit, I wish I was Amelie. Who doesn’t??? French production and much better known. One of those movies which just makes you happy and love life – without being cheesy and stereotypical for even a second! If you’re fed up with romantic comedies, watch this, it’ll restore your hopes for the genre. If you hate romance, watch it. If you hate comedy, watch it. No matter what type of film person you are, this movie is so unlike everything else out there, it’s a must. Easily one of the best movies ever made. I would hope there is an English dub because then you won’t have subtitles distract you from the amazing images in this movie, but if not, watch it with subtitles!

Yes. So. Watch those if you’re bored.

Whoops!

Wow. I can tell you, I had an awful load of stuff to do over the last few weeks. I thought about updating my blog so many times, but I never got around to do it.

The weather has been amazing, which lead me to spend a lot of time with friends, just outside, in one of those cute little cafes where you can just sit in the middle of the road and watch the activity, on the lake, relaxing and reading, swimming and warm summer nights in the garden.

We all had a great three weeks with the European football championship too! There were so many public feasts with BBQs and live music and hundreds and hundreds of people watching the game on a huge open air screen. The singing and celebrating the many times the German team won, and also celebrating the one time we lost (which kicked us out) and just being happy that we had the chance to celebrate it for as long as we could.

I have also been considering school options, visited many places to see what it’s like there and finally made a decision which schools would be an option for me. I’ve come to the decision that I want to go to a school close to where I live, which gives me a Top 3 university list. I decided to do that because I just don’t feel ready to go out and start over again. At least not now, after such a short time. I feel like I still need my family close as well as all the friends I made. They know me so well and I just don’t want to start over all alone again. I guess I just still need the help they give me. I’m going to sign up for three different majors. Those majors are law, a teaching degree in English and German, and a major in culture and ethnicities studies. The latter two will accept me right away, I know that because they don’t filter for high school grades but actually filter via the finals after the first semester. For law you need a certain average that I did not meet, however, not that many people sign up for it. The advisor at my favourite school told me that the last 5 years all applications were accepted because there was enough room for everybody. She told me I had to apply right now even if I don’t meet the conditions because if I don’t, I won’t be eligible for the “leftover spots”.

I might even be able to keep my job at the cafe if I stay close. I’d be really happy with that. I like the people, the work and the hours. But, just like before, I don’t “depend” on my job. I will be getting social student loans. It basically works like this: If you study at a college or university, you get about 440 Euros a month (that’s the max, less or nothing if your parents make too much). This is a semi loan, meaning that if you finish with a degree, 50% of that will be gifted to you, the other 50% you can pay back once you start making enough money to pay it back. If you drop out without a degree, you have to pay back 100% of it. If you make it into the top graduates of the major in that year in your school, you’ll be gifted even more. If you, say, were the best graduate in law in your school, you’d end up paying back only 20% of the loan. Either way, it’s a great way to relieve some of the pressure. Of course 400 Euros won’t make a nice lazy life. It’s barely enough to survive. But if I keep working I’ll have a good living, enough to pay for books and rent and food and going to the movies once a month.

As you can see, everything else seems so far away right now. I’m so happy at this point in my life. All the things I did, the things I felt terrible about, suddenly seem so worth it. Everything is so perfect.

I hope all of you get the enjoy the summer as much as I will! No worries, I will not forget to blog. Don’t worry about me if I don’t post as much as I used to for the next few weeks, I will certainly be back to full time blogging soon! And of course I will blog about whatever is going on!

The girl I am.

I get a lot of comments, emails and messages on facebook about the way I come across on this blog. I’m not saying that those estimations are wrong but I feel like there’s a huge part of me missing in those descriptions. A comment that really shocks me is “you speak very humbly and way beyond your years”. That’s a great thing to hear! But at the same time, it intimidates me. Am I really? In daily life, I’m among the dorkiest people I know. I say REAL stupid things. I giggle in all the wrong moments. Hence I decided to come up with a selection of that other “part” of me. Yeah I might say some “deep” things, but I’m still young and naive and whatnot. so here it goes:

My favourite sentence is “OH REALLY?!”. It usually comes with a strange wiggle of eyebrows whenever somebody around me critices themselves. “I look fat in this dress!” – “OH REALLY?! *wiggle* No, you don’t. *cough*”

If I was a cat…. man, I wish I was a cat!

I make funny noises just for the sake of it. I love to see just how weird the noises can get before somebody stares at you.

I sing ALL THE TIME. That’s something I shouldn’t do cause I couldn’t sing to save my life. A lot of times I dance too.

I read like crazy. I always have at least one book in my purse and I read it whenever I have more seconds on my hand than it takes to open the book up.

Whenever I finished a book, I feel like discussing the things I read. However, most of the time none of my friends read the book, which basically makes the discussion a one-woman thing.

I’m addicted to nail polish. I tend to buy the real cheap ones for like $1 (aka euro) each and I end up wearing it once.

When I go shopping with my friends and I see just anything I really really like I tend to say “LOOK AT THAT!” much louder than socially acceptable.

I absolutely hate bikes and people on bikes. I curse my tongue out whenever one annoys me.

I keep telling people who “I hate fast food” and “almost never eat it”. Funny enough, it’s just Tuesday and I’ve been to Mac Donalds and Burger King once this week.

I’m obsessed with fairy tales and get very angry when people consider them to be for kids only. They are NOT for kids, they were NOT written for kids, and grown ups may very well read them too!

I forget a lot. Like, a lot. Few days ago, Daniel was going to cook for us. I asked him what he was going to make and he told me (Noodles with a creamy vegetable gravy type of sauce and chicken breast, he’s a great cook!). 15 minutes later, I asked him again. He told me again and pointed out that I had already asked him, which of course I denied. Another 15 minutes later, I came back into the kitchen and said “Oh, what are you making again?”. He gave me a look and said “…are you serious?”. I giggled and said “…Noodles?”. I only knew that because they were already in the pot.

I absolutely have to pet every single cat I see. I sometimes hiss at dogs.

“OH GOSH IT’S PINK!” is what I say whenever I try to dress in something pink. I never wear it.

I have a very weird obsession with animal-shaped earings. In fall I bought a pair of earings with bull’s heads on them, which all of my friends called ugly as hell. I wear them with pride!

“If the ship’s sinking, we should at least sink with style” is one of my favourite things to say when I feel completely overdressed or when I’m spending too much money on something (food, clothes, whatever).

I can’t lie at all. When I’m caught, I usually start to smile. It’s very easy to bust me.

I’m out of ideas for now and I bet my next post will be something very depressing or along the lines of struggling with myself, but please remember that you don’t have to worry about me being depressive or sick.

My blog is my playground, the area where I can tell my darker sides to people who care, who know what I’m talking about, who feel the same way. But at the end of the day, it’s no good to dwell on those thoughts until you go crazy. Make sure you get to smile every once in a while!

Oh my!!!

I did NOT mean to disappear on anybody! I guess it’S true what they say – Life happens! No, there was no particular reason for my absence! Nothing super good or super bad happened! I’ll get a long post together to catch up, until then, no worries, I just got so busy!

When time stands still and a praise to some very special people

I just sit there. Daylight sneaks into my room and throws shadows on the walls.

And I’m thinking that everything stopped. This isn’t the world we know anymore. It changed, it shifted. I’ll be caught in this very moment forever. I will sit forever, on my bed, I will not age, I will not feel hunger or thirst, I will not tire from it. I will sit there for eternity and the daylight will never cease to draw figures on my wallpaper.

Dusk falls over the world, but I don’t know about it. The daylight still seems to tickle my face. The world just isn’t spinning anymore. How long will it take for the catastrophes to come? Will energy go out? Will the earth’s shielding atmosphere collapse, will comets hit us, because the magnetic field depends on the world spinning? I don’t think that will happen. Time stopped. The atmosphere is trapped not by the magnetic field but by the simple lack of time to disappear.

The stars are shining bright and yellow. That is because it’s cold outside. The crisp air makes stars more visible. But I don’t see the stars.

The daylight still shines through my window and for the first time in my life I understand what Einstein might have meant when he said time is relative. Sometimes it’s nonexistent.

I’m very sure now that time has stopped. I sat there for hours and I didn’t hear a single car pass by my window. I live right next to one of the main streets and everything is silent. I’m certain that if I stood up and took a look outside, I’d see cars and people frozen in movement. Would anybody be tieing their shoes? Everybody is a statue. I know that because I am one of them.

Suddenly, the silence is broken by the sound of a key turning the lock of the front door. I hear feet, the whispering noise of warm jackets rubbing against each other, shoes dropping on the ground in the hall. Steps. The door of my room is open and three people appear. I’m still, I’m not surprised, I heard them come in. And yet I say in a calm, toneless voice that isn’t mine “You surprised me.” They don’t get it. They think I didn’t expect them. But the truth is, I didn’t expect that anybody on this planet could move.

My roommate Kathy comes over and kisses me on the forehead. “We brought some sushi along and some movies. We’ll make tea, and eat. We got your favourite sushis. Come on over into the kitchen.” She gets up  and goes to the kitchen. I ponder on what she just said. She always says “sushis”, but the plural of sushi is sushi, I believe. Maybe I should tell her that.

I get up, shaking the hard concrete out of my joints. I start to think that if they arrived a few minutes later, I would’ve turned to stone entirely. I’m kind of glad they are there. I don’t want to be made of stone.

Kathy, Simon and Daniel are in the kitchen, boiling water for the tea, preparing the sushi (or the sushis). Their mouths are flapping around which leads me to think that they might be talking to each other. I look outside and see the night sky. When did it arrive? Suddenly I’m not so sure anymore that time has stopped. I look outside, but see no movement. This throws me off again. I decide to believe that I’m wrapped in a million cotton balls. That would explain the lack of noise from the moving mouths of my friends as well. For now.

Next thing I know is me wrapped in a blanket. Daniel has his arms around my shoulders, Kathy is sitting at my feet, massaging and warming them. Simon is arranging an awful load of candy on the sofa. There’s a movie on TV. It must have been running for some time. I ask them what movie we are watching. They tell me it’s called Garden state. The main character tells a story about his mother. He pushed her, she stumbled over the open door of the dishwasher and ended up handicapped. Then she drowned in her own bath tub. For a second I think that their choice of movie was a terrible one. I look at their faces and I know that they know it too. Suddenly I burst out laughing and crying at the same time. I can’t hold myself. I’m rolling around laughing, literally, tears and whatnot streaming over my face. I’m almost screaming laughter. My friends ask me what was up with me. I tell them “It’s so funny. She stumbled over the open door of the dishwasher and ended up handicapped. That’s so funny. And then she drowned because she’s handicapped. That’s FUNNY!” I don’t know why that was funny. All I know is that the situation seems right to get it all out. Might it just be I have gone mad?

It’s 2 AM and I’m in bed but I can’t sleep. I’m still trying to imagine what it would look like if I stumbled over the dishwasher door. I get my laptop and go to my blog. I read the comments and I feel strange. I think I’m happy somewhere inside. I realize that I have a second family. I have my friends, the ones who brought me sushi, and my friends, who comment on my blog. I look at the time the comments were posted. Now I knew that none of you were statues. You were moving, too. Your fingers typing. Your minds thinking of me. Yes, I’m a bit happy. I catch up reading some blog posts before I fall asleep.

The days with my family

I was so surprised by the way my mom treated me back home. She never said a word about anything that happened, that I might have done to her, nothing negative. It surprised me really.

I felt terrible leaving after my sister died. I still do. I guess it’s because I’m raised to believe in family as a sort of God. I feel like I need to justify why I left and didn’t stay to help my mom.

The second day I was there my Dad asked me to wear skirts only. He did so in a very nice manner but it didn’t leave me any room to say no. It was a demand. I didn’t have any skirts with me, I hardly had clothes with me to begin with and I told him that I’d be fine in pants if I stayed inside, I would wear some old skirts when going outside. I don’t even know why I insisted on that. Somehow it bugged me deeply that he even had the nerves to ask that at this point. I asked him why it was so important to him and he said something about protecting my brothers’ eyes. So he thinks his sons have nothing to worry about but to stare at their older sister and have sexual thoughts, I thought, but I agreed anyway.

Generally my dad made me feel inferior the entire time. He talked about how happy he was that SHE was saved from the torture of hell, clearly indicating that I’m not. He made a huge fuzz talking about hell and all the tortures awaiting the unsaved. How we could die any day and had to make sure we were saved. We did a lot of praying, most of which I didn’t feel right about. I don’t feel like thanking God for “saving” her soul from hell and for taking her at a point where she was sure to go to heaven.

It all felt like brainwashing to me and I had my moments where I believed everything all over again. I struggled for quite a few days, wanting to do nothing but run back to my family and finally obey so I would go to heaven to be with my sister. I was so scared that I might end up in hell without them.

All in all this tore me apart in every way I can imagine. I considered for a very long time and decided that if this feeling – that I should go back and obey my parents, give up my life and live the way they want me to – would stay, then it was in fact from God. If it went away, I thought, it might just be the crisis of the moment.

I’ve been back for a few days. And instead of feeling homesick and guilty, though I do feel guilt about leaving my Mom hanging with the kids, I felt relief. Nothing but relief. The feeling went away – it wasn’t from God and I’m right where it’s best for me to be.

No title

I haven’t written a post in forever. That is because, until two days ago, I was back with my family in the US. It wasn’t planned and it turned out to be a horrible trip.

My aunt and my mother have regular talks on the phone. Usually my aunt will call my mother because Dad doesn’t like spending that much money on a long distance call. So it came that, on Monday, October 17th, my aunt went ahead to call my mother. My brother picked up the phone, as she told me later, and when she asked for my mother he explained that she wasn’t home but in the hospital. My sister was very ill and needed Mom to be with her.

You see, my sister was born with PKD. That’s a kidney disease which causes the kidneys to grow larger than normal and to be filled up with cysts instead of normal, healthy tissue. It’s a condition you can live with some time, but you’ll need a new kidney at some point. It can influence other organs as well sometimes (due to abnormal kidney size and function). Patients bodies must be cared for very well, they may not do too much physical exercise and should avoid too much contact with other people (bacteria). One thing that comes with this condition is almost constant urinary tract infection infections especially in females. My entire female family is beaten with UTI issues, as I am, but I don’t have a severe condition. I simply have many UTIs. It’s quite annoying, if you had one of them, you know what I’m talking about.

Either way, my sister always had many UTIs. We needed to be very careful with that as the bacteria might infect the kidneys and cause severe illness in her (unlike me, who didn’t have this specific issue with the UTIs). She needed quick medication whenever she had one, and that was often.

My brother told my aunt that apparently a simple UTI moved up to the kidneys, causing my sister to be very ill at that point. She was admitted to the hospital, where they found that the illness had almost destroyed one of her kidneys. It didn’t look too good for that kidney at this point.

My aunt filled me in right after she hung up. I was shocked. I mean, my sister had been to the hospital many times, but never had I heard such bad news from her. I urged my aunt to call again to find out more. She got my siblings to call Mom at the hospital, who called my aunt back a while later. My aunt put the call on speakers for me to hear. I just wanted to listen but my Mom started crying and I couldn’t help myself but talk to her. She told me that it looked bad and that they were going to wait the night for improvement but they’d probably have to remove the kidney. My aunt offered me to pay for a ticket back to the US and on Tuesday morning I had decided to go for it.

I didn’t know which hospital she was in – not even if she was in a bigger hospital in some other city than the one my parents live in. I didn’t know anything really. I rented a car at the airport and decided to drive home to see if I could find any family members, friends or neighbors there.

Luckily most of my family was home. A family friend was over, helping out with my siblings. She immediately let me in without asking where I came from, what I wanted or anything. My siblings were very happy to see me, though they were very confused at my looks. I wore skinny jeans, a shirt, and after all I cut my hair much shorter than it was when they last saw me. It has a different, darker color now too. I looked a bit alien to them. The happiness of seeing me again quickly vanished as I asked them what happened. They didn’t know much more than what my brother already told my aunt, except that my sister was still at the hospital, my Mom was there too, Dad had to work. They could tell me where she was and I got ready to head out again to see my sister. They held me back for a bit, asking me a lot of questions about my sister, none of which I could answer.

I managed to leave an hour after I arrived at the house and headed to the hospital. I quickly found out where she was, but couldn’t go in just like that. After all, I looked different in ways of dress and behaviour than the rest of my family. They weren’t sure if I really was the sister and informed my mother to come see me and confirm who I was. My mother came out to me, looking confused, shocked, worn out, teary, horrible. She told me that my sister had surgery the day before, the kidney had to be removed, no chance otherwise. She wasn’t awake yet, she was put into a coma, as the infection was still raving in her body. I was allowed to see my sister and I almost wish I didn’t. I have never seen somebody look so pale, so without any life. I don’t know much, it was all a blur. My Dad came to see her with some of my siblings. They weren’t allowed to go in at that point due to the danger of bringing in more infection.

On Friday, October 21st of 2011, my little sister died at the age of 15 due to kidney failure.

I’m sorry for cutting this off right here, I just don’t have any more in me at this point. I will write more once the time comes.

Cutting, eating disorders, selfdestructive behaviours

This is a very touchy subject for me because I’m very embarrassed about the things I did, the way I acted, but I feel like a lot of others have the same problems and struggles and I figured I’d tell them they’re not the only ones.

Body, femininity and body image are things which fundamentalists focus on in their own, special way. I know of many many girls who struggle in some way with their own bodies and their femininity and end up having an eating disorder of some sort because of that. I feel for all the girls and women who have been at that point or are still. I was lucky that I never developed this very serious and deadly disease.

I had a completely different one. When people talk about self-destructive behaviour or inflicting pain to your own body, cutting is usually the first thing on their minds. Whenever I heard the word “cutting”, I thought those people needed God and didn’t have a connection to him and that they could be saved from their inner demons. I was great at ignoring the fact that I had the very same problem. I never cut myself, that seemed absurd to me. Why would you hurt the healthy body God gave you like that? Visible for everyone. The method I used was much easier to practice, much less visible, but as I later found out is quite common among the self-destructive behaviour types.

My parents, who followed to Pearl’s advice, spanked in this very Pearl-esque way, where the children are talked to prior to the spanking, told that the parents hate to hurt them but they have no other choice. That it hurts them more than it would hurt me. This particular sentence inflicted tons of guilt on me. I hated to be spanked or hit, obviously, but I loved it at the same time. I needed it. I hated myself so much, so deeply, that I sometimes wished my Dad would really hurt me, really beat me, in order to be free of that guilt. It’s very hard to explain how I felt.

I started this self-destructive behaviour around the age of 8 or 9. I remember that my mother cried a lot because she felt overwhelmed by all the kids. She cried even more when there was a spanking, and they were daily business at our house. My Dad would hit me and I still hated myself for doing this to them. Once the spanking was over, I was given some quiet time to calm down and freshen up. I went to the bathroom and cried endlessly, not that much because of the spanking but because I felt my mistake wasnt punished properly. I felt the need to feel more pain, and I didn’t want to burden my parents with spanking me. I decided to do it myself. I looked for some sort of thing, a hard thing, to cause myself more pain and to remove the guilt I felt. It could be anything really, like a hairbrush, a stick, a wooden spoon, whatever was at hand. At first I started hitting myself on the legs and thighs until it really hurt. For some time, it was enough to do this three or four times to remove the guilt, but as I grew older, more and more pain was needed to calm my conflicts.

Sometimes I didn’t do it for weeks, then I did it every day, then stopped it for some weeks again. It really depended on my emotional situation. I never felt like I was doing something wrong. After all, I wasnt cutting myself, so I was much better than those people. What I did was right. It was the holy spirit leading me to do this. How else could I feel so much relief in it?

Time passed and my self punishments on my legs grew harder, more severe, more painful. One day my mother saw my bruised legs after a really tough session and asked me what that was all about. I told her I fell really bad playing outside in the garden and didn’t realize I was so bruised up.

I had to hide it much better, find a better way to do it. More pain, less bruises. It took me just a few days to figure out a part of my body where nobody could see my bruises. My head. All the bruises and bumps would be hidden under my long hair. I felt like I had found the holy grail. It was the perfect plan. But it didn’t last long. The pain inflicted by my hands beating on my head was really severe, and I was 12 or 13 at that point. But this pain wasnt enough. I went back to anything hard to increase the pain level. And when that wasnt enough anymore, I really hated myself. I hated myself for having no way of causing such severe pain as to fulfill my need for feeling really repentant. This anger caused me to be even harder on myself, try it any way I could. I went on for minutes, hitting myself on the head with a hairbrush and crying, and it wasnt enough pain. I started tearing my hair out and screaming at myself, the most vicious things I could imagine, using words which would set me up for another spanking if my parents heard me say them.

I remember a day where I had gotten a spanking and it didn’t satisfy my need to feel real pain. I sat in the bathroom, hitting my head with a hairbrush, not feeling the pain I wanted to feel, shrieking out in shrill screams then cursing at myself. You are a piece of shit, everybody hates you, you are worthless, you can’t do anything, you will go to hell and marry the devil and God will laugh at you, your parents hate you, you’re going to hell anyway so kill yourself right now and release them from this burden, you piece of dirty dog shit. I whispered these things to myself in a snakelike manner so my parents wouldn’t hear, but they certainly heard the screaming. My Dad came knocking on the door, telling me that I needed to stop the screaming or else I’d get another spanking. I hushed up quickly and answered “Yes Dad” as cheerful as I could. I started tearing my hair out, hitting myself with everything that wasnt nailed to the ground, and it didn’t satisfy, so I hit my head against the wall, hoping it will finally start bleeding so I could stop. But it didn’t bleed. It never did. After 15 or 20 minutes, I gave up. I was defeated. I couldn’t cause enough pain. My head was dizzy, spinning and painful, but it still wasnt enough.

Once I was 15 or 16, I realized what I was doing wasn’t normal or appropriate. I stopped myself from doing it, not because I wanted to but because It made me feel even more guilty and worthless. I still felt the need to do it, but I ignored the urge as well as I could. It didn’t always work but it did most of the time.

Only after I turned more rebellious, particularly in my courtship times and after, I started really thinking about it and realized that I shouldn’t have treated myself that way, because it wasn’t my fault. I blamed my parents for not helping me, for making me feel that way and for never even bothering about my emotions. Until this day, I’m really angry at them that they made me so angry at myself. Remembering how much anger and hate I felt towards myself still troubles me.

This sort of behaviour is a serious issue and certainly needed treatment at that time. I thought it was harmless but I was just lucky. I could have severely hurt myself any time, by accident. I’m really glad I could close this chapter of my life and now I can look back at it, though with pain, but also with happiness that I got out of it so easily, without permanent physical damage. I can still understand why I acted like this, but I would never do it again. I hope that, if some people who read this are in the same or a similar situation, they will know that they’re not the only ones and that it’s something you can actually work on and overcome.