Mini Update of Sorts?

I think I'm doing a little better. Coping a little better, maybe, is the best way to describe it.
I've been waking up early - for me - which is anywhere between 7:30 and 9:30, and just automatically getting dressed, putting on some makeup... doing what I would do to get myself ready for something. This is good. I'm getting ready every morning.. for the day. So I wake up, get ready, and either make a coffee or a smoothie. Then I read (leisure) for about a half hour, until I decide I should at least attempt to be productive in my coursework.
Today, I got one more lesson in my book done. There are five lessons in four books, and I've just started this course - which I'm told is a "really heavy course"... but the book I have to read and barely analyse is Stephen King's The Body. It's not even technically a book. It's a novella. It's in a compilation of his other short stories. And it's written for twelve-year-olds.
That's enough of my griping. I got the end of lesson assignment done today, which made me feel accomplished. Like I'd done something productive and was therefore allowed to do as I please.
My best friend* is getting home from Hollywood on Saturday, and we made plans for Monday. I'm actually really excited to - leave the house - and see her. We're meeting at this local hipster coffeehouse down the street from my apartment, and then coming back to my apartment to watch bad horror movies. .... And she's said she has presents for me... which I feel guilty for getting excited about.
DBT group is going well... I made a friend.. I think. She's older and LGBTQIA and a Buddhist, former Wiccan... a few weeks ago we ended up talking about crystals. Long story short, this Tuesday we've planned to go to this crystal shop together. I'm nervous and excited.
Another thing with DBT group.. every week before homework we do a mindfulness exercise. I 'volunteered' to lead it this coming Tuesday, and I'm anxious about it. However, I came up with what I think is a decent idea. I found a container we never use, and went to the dollar store and bought a pack of decorative seashells. When I get to the CPC - Community Psychiatry Centre - before group, I'm just going to duck into a bathroom and fill the container with some water. The shells will be immersed in the water. The logic is that water as an element represents emotions, feeling, healing, cleansing.. all good things for folks in a DBT group. I'm going to explain the significance of this, and ask that everyone take a shell from the 'pond'. It'll be an 'observe and describe' mindfulness, because the shells are all the same type of shell, but there are always tiny abnormalities and differences. So, I'm going to give everyone about five minutes or so, to feel the moist shell, touch it, feel it, and think about how it's just that little bit different. ...... I really hope this isn't a terrible idea.
On top of all that positivity, I get to start violin lessons on Wednesday. My boyfriend and his boss are in charge of scheduling, so my time slot isn't absolute yet. He did tell me it will probably be in the evening, though, which is nice; what I wanted. I'm so excited to get back into actively learning and playing an instrument. It's therapeutic in the way that horseback riding is. Plus, my individual therapist is loving the music idea.
Overall, I'm just trying to enjoy what rays of sunshine the Gods are sending me for the time that they are sent. I know the dark will fall again, and that's a looming fear, but it's summer, and I'm just trying to be a 'normal' girl as much as I can.


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* This best friend is the 'new' one.

Forgive Me

... I forgot I ran this blog. So, please, my dears, forgive me. I'll do my best to re-cap.
The last post I made was in May... early May, so I'll start there. May was hard for me, really, brutally, teeth-grittingly hard for me. Flashbacks, all the lot of what you can get with PTSD. It sucked. I was a mess. .... Even more so than usual. However, my (awesome) individual therapist has been helping me with that, and she had me go to a CPT for PTSD information session near the end of the month. Trauma treatment is not a thing I'm excited about, but I know I just can't live like this forever. I can't. With that in mind, my therapist is trying to get me ready to start trauma treatment in (I think) late September. She thinks that if I do this treatment while I'm still in DBT for BPD, it'll be easier, because I'll be able to use and keep learning skills that can help me tolerate what this trauma treatment demands. I'm mostly just going along with whatever she thinks is best, or what she thinks I'm ready for. If I let myself completely be in charge of those decisions, I never would have gotten help to begin with. So that was May. Teary, tumultuous, just ... bad. Dark.
That's not to say I'm a ray of sunshine today, though.
June was better, I'll say that. I finished my philosophy course - which felt like a big achievement given all the 'vulnerability factors' - and started a new course, studies in literature. I can carry it into the summer, and even though the school is only open on Wednesday afternoons in the summer, I get to get - hopefully - another credit. My guidance counselor is hopeful that they'll be able to grant me about five or six 'freebie' credits based on life experience/etc. ... Which would mean that I only have to take between one and three courses in order to graduate. Which would allow me to graduate around January. Which would have me registering for college. I'm really happy about that.
Another development is my quickly-expanding friendship with a girl I've been 'kind of good-ish' friends with since late 2013. She and I have been spending a lot of time together - we have similar mental health issues; we both kind of.. have no one else*; we have a lot in common, we just get along. We just 'get' each other. I don't feel like I have to wear my daedric armor around her.. she's safe.
The anniversary of my being recovered from drug addiction was.. well, it was hard. I had intense cravings the night before and the day of. I resolved to celebrate only the 'big' anniversaries. This was six years.
Church/temple's been going really well, too. I'm getting to know a lot of people and I'm feeling really accepted. I've never had a community like this before, and it's just blowing me away at how positive it feels.
And now, to the now. Summer's out, so the boyfriend is working less. I'd really like it if we could go to the zoo or to a conservation area and go swimming. I'm - hopefully - starting violin lessons soon, I just need my boyfriend to get it all squared away - he's in charge of sign-ups. I'm trying to write more. I'm trying to enter into participation more. I'm trying to be more social. I'm trying to start doing nice things for myself.
Also, on a 'meds' tangent, I'm two weeks into taking Abilify and haven't noticed too much. Any experience or advice is welcomed.

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*Story time: My 'best friend', the one I've known since kindergarten, has in the past year or so begun to prove herself as not the kind of friend I want in my life as an adult, increasingly so. I haven't trusted her in well over six years, and I'm afraid a falling out would mean a spilling of my secrets. She's a very narcissistic person but also plays the martyr.