- Hey everyone,
it is Wednesday, I am almost said it's Tuesday
cause I didn't see you yesterday,
or at least not like this,
but I finally released my collaboration with CourtneyPants,
so if you haven't checked it out
make sure you check that video out
and we have others, they're coming.
Make sure you don't forget to subscribe
and one of them is actually a surprise and it's really funny
and that'll be on CourtneyPants' channel,
so don't forget that one either.
Okay, so today is Wednesday
and you know what that means,
that means that I'm on the website, katimorton.com,
under community, forums, Q&A for videos,
so if you've asked your question there,
or I'm also on youtube,
so if you asked a question below yesterday's video,
the one with CourtneyPants, or the one before that
about the Monday video,
then I checked it and I made lists
and now I'm gonna answer your questions.
Okay, so without further ado, first question.
Kati, I was wondering if some aspects of an eating disorder
can be learned, or formed from habit.
For example, beginning in the fifth grade
I never ate at school and I'd always just binge
when I got home.
Now that I live in a dorm
I always binge when I go home for the weekend,
but I rarely eat during school, during the week.
Are these behaviors just a habit after seven years,
or is there something else going on?
There is something else going on.
I know many of us think that
well I've just been doing it this way and
that's just how I do it so it's habit.
Not exactly.
We don't have that habit in a normal eater,
someone without an eating disorder wouldn't do that.
They may not eat
breakfast because they get up late,
but they'll grab a muffin on their way,
or they'll grab a muffin after their first class,
or something.
A normal eater would not eat
just because it wasn't convenient.
It wouldn't be an actual thing that they do.
Like they never do blah blah blah blah,
it would just be, oh today I didn't have time, or
oh today they didn't have the thing that I wanted
so I'm gonna go to the other, you know it wouldn't be
planned and a habit if that makes sense.
So, we can't learn eating disorder behaviors,
we can't have a habit,
when we're not eating and we're binging
it is usually because there's something else going on
and we're actually using that lack of food,
or the overfull feeling that we get when we binge
and then the purging and all of that.
We're using that as a way to cope
with the emotional stuff that's going on
that we don't really want to talk about.
Okay? Does that make sense? Okay.
Question number two.
Hello Kati, I was wondering if you had any tips
on how to get over things that trigger my self harm.
I had a very similar question,
so I'm gonna put them both together,
cause I'm gonna talk about this.
Do you think someone can ever really stop
thinking about, or in a sense get over self harming?
Next week will be a whole year without it.
Woo!
Even though I'm much better and stronger now
if I have a bad day or something goes wrong,
it's my first instinct.
I can't see myself ever doing it again,
but do you think the urges will go away with time?
So, two things,
People are talking about
tips to get over self harm
and I also have another question
that I'll just lump in with this,
cause it's all kind of the same.
I understand that these are helpful,
oh so that I feel like when I usually talk to therapists
and people online about my self harm,
they give me ideas of things to do instead
like draw and exercising, etc., journaling.
I understand these are helpful for me to stop cutting,
but it seems like they don't actually solve the problems.
I have low self-esteem, self hate, etc.
Which are probably a result of my difficult childhood.
Wouldn't it be better to deal with underlying issues
instead of just suggesting other outlets
for my feelings of guilt, anger/sadness?
All of these questions are amazing.
And that's why I want to answer them all together
cause they're kind of
together, they're kind of work together.
So, the first question about tips
on how to get over things that trigger your self harm,
like the last question said
the best way, along with talking back to it,
I always talk about us talking back to that negative voice
because as silly and as crazy as it can sound
and it can feel when you're doing it,
nothing is better than negating what it's telling us.
Cause it's often telling us you're a terrible human being
and you don't deserve this and blah blah blah blah blah
and if we hear that all day
it can really just be like this weight
and we're like (groaning).
And we can't fight back and we can't beat it.
But if we talk back, we can slowly get stronger
and we can beat it.
That ties into the fact that just distracting
doesn't help solve the problem,
distracting helps in the moment,
and I want that distinction
because I talk about distractions a lot,
mainly because the messages I get are like
Kati help I wanna cut and I don't know what to do
or I want to (gibberish) don't know what to do
and so in the moment we can distract.
But then we should probably talk to someone,
we need to work through our feelings of self worth and
body image stuff, or whatever it is we're working on
we need to work through those feelings,
so that we no longer have that nasty voice
and we can fight back against it
and our healthy self is strong enough to be like
no, you shut the hell up. I'm better than that.
(gibberish) Right?
And we can fight the urges.
Distracting helps in the moment though
and don't, don't throw it out,
don't throw the baby out with the bath water,
you know that saying?
Because it is useful in some parts.
Now, another portion of that question,
will it ever go away?
So okay, so we're working on this stuff behind the scenes
and we're distracting in the moment,
working with our therapist, might be doing some DBT therapy.
We picked up that work book that I recommend
and then a year later we haven't self harmed,
but the feelings still come back.
It will go away.
Swear to god, honest to goodness,
pinky swear, whatever that it will.
It takes a lot of time
and for many years and many really stressful times,
it will still come back.
Like something will happen and you're automatic thought
will be well I'll just whatever your old ritual used to be,
or whatever your favorite thing to do was,
whether it's eating disorder, self harm, anything,
you'll go back to that for just that split second.
But the thing that's different is that you can let it go.
It's almost like a cloud just doo doo doo.
We let it pass, we let that urge and that feeling pass.
So there's that component
and we don't have to engage it.
Now we could, and we could set ourselves back
and we can have a little relapse, but
we don't wanna have that slip up, we wanna keep going
so we'll be stronger then and we'll overcome it.
And as the years pass by,
I know you're like years? Holy shit.
But it's not as bad as it was in the beginning,
which I'm sure this person can attest to.
It's not as bad as it was in the beginning, the urges,
but that thought will come up.
And it could be really disheartening
cause we've been working really hard, but I promise
it will go away.
Honest to god, okay?
Now my last question, cause those were all
of the other questions and I just
wanted to make sure I got all your questions answered
is I always feel the need to push myself,
oh, something fell down outside.
I dunno if you heard that, but hope they're okay.
I always feel the need to punish myself
for the smallest things, even though
I've never done anything too horrible,
I feel that if I don't punish myself I'll lose control
of my emotions and end up doing something bad
such as lashing out at someone else.
I fear that not punishing myself will result
in everyone else seeing me the way that I see myself.
I found this so interesting.
That's kind of why I wanted to answer this.
And I do get questions like this a lot.
First of all, if this was my client this is what I would say
do you hear that in asking me this question
you're telling me that it's better
for you to be really nasty to yourself and punish yourself
versus lashing out at someone else.
Just an observation.
Because that shows, already, that you're
self worth is like (mouth raspberries).
It's not doing so good.
And so you feel like everybody else is worth more than you
and that's just not true, not true.
So the best way to manage
really this need to punish ourselves
is to talk to a therapist
and to work through those deep seeded beliefs
because my guess is that if we did CBT therapy
and we did that downward arrow of questioning where I'm like
well that's interesting. So what does that mean?
If that's true, what does this mean?
If that's true, and we kind of figure out that your
firmly held belief may be that I'm a terrible person.
Maybe as a kid your parents spanked you a lot
and said you're a terrible person, or you know
you deserve this, or who knows, right?
Who knows what could have triggered it,
or if it's just a chain of events and we now believe it, but
I'd be interested to see what your firmly held beliefs are,
so I would do some work on that, working with a therapist,
CBT therapist, or otherwise.
Journaling and please please please,
once a week, at least, or if you can do more
for about 30 minutes.
I want you talk back to that voice.
I want you to tell it why you don't deserve to be punished
and what's different and what you're working on.
How you're amazing.
We need to start building up our positive self image
so that the negative will slowly go away.
And this takes time, but
it will really really change your world. I promise and
I even have to do it,
we all have to talk ourselves up sometimes,
when you have really bad days and somebody's really mean, or
you have a really difficult client, for me.
If I have a really difficult client who's like
you're horrible and I don't wanna see you anymore,
blah blah blah then I'm like (crying).
But then I've talked myself up and I'm like, Kati
get yourself together. You can do this.
You're better than that and
I have to be my best cheerleader.
Cause nobody else will be, right?
Okay. And journal topic.
(drum roll on desk)
Many of you missed it last week
when I didn't do it that one day, so
I saw this quote and I loved it
and I know a lot of my journal topics are quotes,
but those always get my wheels a-turning.
So this quote is a happy life is not built
upon the goal of perfection, but balance.
And that's tough for a lot of us.
I know many of us have that black and white, all or nothing
perfection or complete horrible shit show.
But it's all about balance.
We have to do things that we enjoy
and we have to do things that we have to do, but
we have to find that balance.
So please share with me one thing
that you're gonna do this week
that instead of doing it perfectly
we're gonna balance it out and we're going to
do it without worrying about it being a certain way.
Okay?
I hope you all have a wonderful day,
tomorrow is Thursday and I'll be on Twitter.
So ask your questions using the hashtag KatFAQ
and I will see you then. Love you, bye.