I used to cut, but I've found getting a tattoo every so often to be a better solution.

What kind of tattoos?

Depends. One is a solid piece and the other two are tribal. I tend to design my own body art and get a new one every few years. I have my next design ready it's just a matter of finding the right tattoo shop.

It's all founded on the same processes. The idea is that you develop a positive trance state instead of the negative one that's usually associated with acute anxiety. Learning to police my emotional states is one of the biggest lessons I'm working on, and turning out to be one of the most effective things that I'm learning to help with everything.

There are a lot of tricks that I use which pretty much are different ways to bring about the same thing. I find that I dissociate very quickly when I'm faced with an acute stressor, and staying attached to my physicality is something that's important in those situations (although, I think that this dissociative ability is also the reason that I'm really effective as a trauma nurse).

Tapping my sternum to remind me to breath slower, tugging my hair, tensing and relaxing different muscle groups works really well. If it's night time and I'm trying to sleep then cuffing my wrist or ankle to the bed settles me a lot. They are all things that connect me to my body.

I think that learning yoga was a really big step in moving forward as well, and recommend it to anyone who has problems with anxiety, especially PTSD.

I worked really hard to make sure that my body mods (permanent and temporary) aren't motivated by the same psychology as the self-harm stuff... but in saying that, I do find that the desire to cut drops right back after I have some work done. I think it has to do with the connection that I feel to my physical self after those times.

The most amazing was after the first time I had my eyelids sutured closed - that was like an epiphany, not only didn't I want to cut, but it was the first time that I wanted to change things so that I would stop it on a permanent basis.

I told Saya that I was drunk and could not give consent. She made out with me anyway. D:

By make out he meant like three pecks and a hug! Then he followed me around for a few hours saying NOT CONSENT if I got within a foot of him.

Also we're adorable when we brush our teeth together. That is all.

No, she forced herself on me.

Someone should have followed you two around with a camera.

I have no idea why but my friend sent me a link to this and I'm really confused. I'm honestly not even sure if I would be much less confused if I understood Japanese.

I can so picture this, and it makes me lol.

Not often, but he's worth the wait.

I took him to The Rooms, which is basically a museum and art gallery rolled into one, and we gawked at this giant squid carcass. Like I want to go in again to gawk at it some more and ponder what cruel god would create such a thing.

Anyway, I was like "This reminds me of the alien autopsy..." and he finished "from Independence Day!" And I knew he was the one.

Have you done any CBT or EMDR? Yoga Nidra is good to connect you to your body, where you tense then relax each part of your body? I love Yoga.

What helpd the most with PTSD was changing my perceptions and perspective on things - trying to see events from the other person's side, because if I hadn't, I would have torn myself apart a long time ago. Instead now I run around with gaffa tape, mending the breaks.

Ohh congrats on the weightloss and the health improvements. 10km - that's awesome!

EMDR was pretty cool, although the flicking pen can be annoying and it's hard to get into the zone.

Oh the negative internal dialogue is hard to fix isn't it? It's so easy to believe the things that other people say about you - like they reinforce your own self doubts, and then everything snowballs. It does take quite a lot of mindfullness to get out of that cycle and shift gears into a more positive view, and then it's a heck of a lot of work to stay positive initially, until it becomes a habit.

A friend said to me once, that you can either chose to be cynical and have a miserable life, or you can chose to be happy and have a wonderful life.

One of the hardest things I've done was forgiving and actually loving those who have harmed me. Especially when all I wanted to do was cause them as much physical pain as they had caused me mentally/emotionally, then one day I just let it all go, because the only person I was hurting was myself, and i was so very tired of all that crap.

Saya has a phobia of cold hands. Seriously, she recoils in fear more then finding an ear wig in her bed.

Kitten is settling in fine, eating, drinking and cleaning itself. It really doesn't like being left alone though, it wants to sit on my knee ALL the time.

When I was younger my cousins convinced me that if an ear wig gets on your ear it will somehow burro in and get rid of your hearing permanently.

No, that's listening to fruitbats that will damage your hearing, or is that loud music. Eh, same thing.

I once tried to convince a neighbour's kid that we kept dead bodies in the ceiling, but they never went for it, although her mother believed I was a drug dealer (which is seriously ridiculous)

I'm going to cry now. :(

It's a hat-trick!

(just wanted to do that once in my life.)