- Hey everybody, it's Tuesday,
and that means that I'm on Tumblr
and if you're not following me on Tumblr,
then I don't know how'd
you'd ask your questions.
So if you haven't, find me, Kati Morton,
it's pretty easy,
everything, I tried to make it the same
so it's easy to find.
But, if you've asked your questions
using the hashtag katifaq,
I've searched and found them.
And there were bunches of good questions.
And I know Tumblr's very
popular for a lot of you,
and I'm sorry that I can't
get through more questions,
but my videos are already long enough
and I try to be faster
so that I don't bore you.
But I have five today, as
well as a journal topic,
so I gotta get cooking.
And my voice is back.
♫ Hello
I can sing again, it's amazing.
That's what antibiotics will do.
So okay, question number one.
"#katifaq,
please answer."
"Have you heard of purging as self-harm?"
"That's what my therapist said about me,"
"but when I looked it
up, there's nothing."
"Am I the only one? Thank you."
No, you're not the only one.
And,
To be truthful, diagnostically speaking,
so, diagnoses, those
are two separate things.
Self-harm isn't even its own diagnosis.
It falls under BPD, Borderline
Personality Disorder,
and then an eating disorder.
So, if you are purging,
and if you are binging and purging,
then most likely you have
bulimia, might be something else,
I don't look at purging
as a form of self-harm,
unless my client started...
they were self harming first.
This is just my own experience with this,
my own thoughts on this.
Diagnostically, like I said,
they're two separate things.
So, technically, what
she's saying doesn't exist.
That's why when you're
searching, nothing's coming up.
But, I would say this to a client as well
if they used to self-harm,
so that was first,
and then they stopped. Right?
We worked on it and they've
slowly stopped doing it.
And then instead of harming now
they're binging and purging.
Then I would think it's a
replacement for the self-harming.
To me, it depends on what comes first.
Binging and purging in and of itself
has nothing to do with self-harm.
It's more related to an eating disorder.
But like I've always talked about,
self-harm and eating disorder
are very closely correlated
because we're using them as another way
to deal with emotions, PTSD,
things that have happened
and things that we don't know
of another way to cope with.
Makes sense? I hope that helps.
Question number 2.
"When are your problems bad enough"
"to see a psychologist/therapist?"
I get this question all the time,
and you don't have to have
bad problems to see someone.
So, see someone.
I know that that voice in
your head is really judgmental
and tells you how to do all these things,
and you have to be almost on
your death bed or so suicidal
in order to see somebody,
and that is just not true.
I see a therapist.
Yep, me. Kati Morton.
I see a therapist.
I've seen a therapist for years.
And now, to be honest,
I don't see her every week,
I take like, months off,
then I'll come back,
like recharge my battery,
I go back out into the world,
but seeing a therapist
doesn't mean that you have to
be at the end of your rope.
It's nice to have someone to talk to
who has an outside perspective.
It can help to vent,
it just helps to talk to someone.
And our friends are great.
And Friends can be another great outlet,
but sometimes it's nice to
get a professional's opinion.
You know?
So, go get help.
If you're thinking about it,
chances are, you should be
getting some support. Okay?
Question number 3.
"Kati, while I was at
home for the holidays,"
"I feel like all the work
I've been doing in therapy"
"in the past year went out the window."
Did any of you feel like this,
I've been hearing this a lot lately.
"All my self-hate, guilt,"
"just re-emerged as if it was never gone."
"My therapist left a message today"
"asking when I'd like to
reschedule my next session,"
"but now I feel like I'm
just gonna waste her time,"
"and that I can't go back
or even return her call."
"How do I deal with this set back?"
Don't let the negative voices tell you
that all the work you've done is gone.
Because it's not.
Something that we forget,
and that, I even forget.
When we go home, like if we've moved away,
Like, so, I've moved away.
My mom and my family
is in Washington state,
and I'm in California.
So, I've been down here for,
Oh god, like, 12 years I guess already?
How old am I? I'm old.
So, 12 years.
I've been here for a long time,
so, when I go home,
I like revert into like 18 year old Kati.
Or maybe,
Sean might even say like a
12 year old Kati, who knows,
I could be a total brat,
but I just turn into like
a weird version of myself,
where like, my mom expects
me to check in sometimes,
and I find myself wanting
to do the same things
that I used to do when I was at home,
and I act the same way,
and like I turn back into
an old version of myself.
And it's very normal for us
to fall back into old habits,
and the pressure of family
and the stress of holiday
can make that happen even more.
Remind yourself.
Do some positive thinking
against your negative.
Like that,
you know how I do eating
disorder voice and healthy voice?
Let's do this negative set back voice
and let's fight with the positive.
And Set an appointment with your therapist
because not all is lost, I promise.
You need like two or three
weeks of venting time,
where you can be like,
what the hell happened?
Aaah, it was terrible, and then I did this
and then oh my gosh,
and then, we'll get back on track. Right?
And we'll prepare more for next time,
'cause the thing about these set backs,
is it teaches us what our triggers are
that we didn't even know existed
'cause it's at home, right?
It's not something we encounter everyday.
And then the next time
we have a get together
with our family, we're
more prepared, okay?
You're not alone, and we'll
get through it, Right?
We'll get right back on
track, not all is lost.
You still have all your tools.
Don't let that voice fool you, okay?
Question number 4.
"Is it normal to go into
therapy wanting a diagnosis,"
"and if you do, is it better
to bring up the diagnosis"
"you think you have at
the beginning of therapy,"
"or just let it happen if
that's really what you have?"
Of course it's normal.
A lot of us,
especially if we think we
have an eating disorder,
we self-harm, or we wonder
if we have borderline,
if you've been watching
a lot of my videos,
I know many of you are
playing around with the idea
that maybe you have some of the diagnoses
that I've talked about,
bring it up.
First session, second
session, it doesn't matter.
Whenever you want. Whenever
you're comfortable.
It's fine.
I've had plenty of
clients come in and say,
you know, I've just been really thinking
that I'm struggling
with an eating disorder
because of blah blah blah...
And they just dump what
they've been thinking about
and what they've been worrying about,
and it's kinda helpful for the therapist
because then I'm like,
I'm taking notes, right?
And I let them see the notes if they want,
and I'll write down like,
patient concern, you know,
they may have bulimia or an
eating disorder of some sort
blah blah blah.
It gives me a structure to
know what you wanna work on,
'cause obviously that's bothering you.
Whether or not you get
the actual diagnosis,
doesn't really matter,
but it gives us a treatment goal, right?
Because you don't want
to be doing that anymore,
or you want to cope with
that better or whatever.
So, bring it up.
No holds barred.
Therapists are, we're
just there to help you
so the more you share with us, the better.
Question number five.
"Who should be the leader in therapy,"
"the patient, or the therapist?"
That's a really good question.
"Sometimes I find myself waiting"
"for her to ask more questions"
"but it seems like she
needs me to say more first,"
"and I just don't know what to say."
"I'm just starting out. Thank you."
It can be tricky at first, right?
Therapy is kinda weird.
It's like we're meeting with a friend,
but it's not really a friend.
We're talking about things,
but she's not really talking about things,
I'm the one talking about things.
It can be really weird at first.
I try to let it flow a little bit.
The leader should, actually,
in my mind,
it should be you, the patient.
Now, I'm like your tour guide,
and you're the one that's like
telling me what you wanna see.
Does that make sense?
I feel like that's a good analogy.
It's like if you go to the LACMA,
which for those of you not in LA,
it's like our museum of art.
So, if you go to the LACMA,
and you have a docent,
it's like, I'm your docent,
but you come and you're like,
I wanna see the romanticism blah blah blah
I heard Degas was in, I wanna see that.
You tell me, and I'm like, right this way.
So, that's how it works.
If that helps. Let me know. Okay?
Now, journal topic today comes
from one of our very own.
So, thank you so much for giving this...
ooh, I bonked my elbow
and shook the camera.
This is a really good one.
This is gonna challenge many of us,
and I have an actual video on this called,
I think it's need for perfection
that I did like, way back, back in the day
when I first started.
But this is challenging your perfectionism
and the need to be perfect.
It says, allow yourself
to make some mistakes.
A lot of them.
Right a journal topic of your choice.
Your day, your goal your dreams,
your recovery, et cetera.
Make spelling mistakes.
Cross things out.
Write a little sloppily.
Maybe even send...
I get so many cards,
and thank you so much,
you all are so wonderful,
but, you can send me a scribbled out,
oops, I made a mistake.
'Cause I know I get annoyed
when I'm writing a card
and I make a mistake,
but that would be awesome.
I'd like to get some,
oopsy mistake cards.
Oh, I made a oopsy but
I'm still sending it,
and it's not perfect, right?
And, if you haven't been
perfect, let me know.
Let me know how.
What'd you do?
Did you not line everything up?
Did you not comb your hair
a certain amount of times?
Did you not do something in the right,
the a certain way that you normally do?
And then, this is the good part.
Check in with yourself after you finish
and notice how you feel.
Is your anxiety higher,
or you have to change it,
you have to go back and
re-do what happened?
What happened?
And what can we try next time,
maybe a little smaller version
and work in baby steps toward a goal
of letting go of our perfectionism.
I think that's a good one.
Okay, so it's getting long,
we're nine and a half
minutes in, oh my god.
Okay, tomorrow, Wednesday
website and Youtube.
So, leave your questions below,
we'll check them and I'll see you then.
Have a good one. Bye!
