It started with a t-shirt (Jim Bonney day 2)

This workshop started out decently, turned awful, then got better. The meditation-like exercise was helpful and I was able to focus for the most part. It reminded me a lot of something I'd been advised to do in therapy. It was advised to keep a baby/young picture of yourself in your wallet so that when you want to hurt yourself in any way, you can look at that picture and think "would I harm this child?" It works sometimes.

In the beginning of the screaming I experienced a weird sensation. I could feel my body getting into it but my brain pulling me back to reality (in a bad way.) I'd like to get around that.

Then the bad. I was wearing a shirt that I got at a thrift store. It's a size XL and I wear it as a dress. However, it was impossible to fully engage my body for fear of accidentally exposing myself. So the simple solution would be to tie my shirt tight with a hairband. Tried it, got self conscious. Tried it again. Could not bring myself to walk around in something that tight/short. I was positive everyone was looking at me thinking "well she really did a 180 from last year. Maybe too much so" if you get what I mean. I understand logically no one was looking at me they were focusing on themselves. At this point I felt I might cry so I ran to the nearest chair. I was reminded of my first day of a summer program I did in 2008. This was the first day I realized I had a problem. I was supposed to be doing an acting exercise but all I could focus on was my body. It was the same way today, which scared the crap out of me.

Eventually I rejoined the group, at which point we did a group breathing huddle thing. Everyone had their eyes closed but I couldn't bring myself to partake. I just kept looking around wanting the workshop to be over. Then we listened to this song which thoroughly freaked me out in it's relevance to me. I got even more freaked out when Jim was asking us each about portions of lyrics and the portion he asked me about was "the mirror is not your best friend in the world." I actually started laughing out of nerves. I hate myself for doing that because it seems like I'm proud of my issues but in my head everyone already knows and I'm graduating in months so fuck it. But I know it bothers other people and then I feel like everyone hates me.

We practiced saying irrelevant text with varying emotions, and that I really got into. I felt connected to Doug, whom I was paired up with, and I felt able to project emotions onto him. It probably helped that I was paired with Doug as apposed to Megan or Nina or someone I'm much closer with because it allowed me to pull all things I was saying away from the context of real life.

The last thing we did was discuss our masks, our lower selves, and our higher selves. Not so shockingly, this made me hate myself for my openness again because I know people are sick of it and I felt like crap the second I spoke. My mask was "I'm in trouble" (Jim suggested that one, but I don't really get it) my lower self was "I don't like myself" and my higher self was "I've gotten better and I'll keep getting better." The main thing that bothered me was my mask, partially because I didn't really get it, and partially because the mask I have in the workshop is not an accurate representation of the mask I wear to school. I think my mask for school would be more like "I'm holding it together." By school I mean outside of STAC (which is real school but I'm much more open during STAC.)

Whenever someone said something negative, I assumed it was about me. Which is selfish and stupid but that's me. Especially when Becky said "I hate you" I was assuming it was about me. Which doesn't make sense, I'm not that important.

Overall, I was less cynical than last time, but more insecure...if that makes any sense?