04-27-03 @ 10:33 am EDT

Aaggh! All right, here's the gist...I have been meaning to respond to the many notes that readers of the Blurty version of Skew have been leaving. But for some reason I'm very phobic of responding to those, so perhaps a journal entry for their benefit will help? It's better than me not updating that version of the journal for days on end as I can't think of what to say to these people!! >_<

(The rest of this entry is in second person, to address these users.)

All of the above is nothing personal. I will assume that none of you know me as well as my readers on other sites, thus you might not know that I get these REALLY bad phobic spells when I just can't respond to people directly. That's why I don't stop by your journals and leave you notes very frequently, even though I keep meaning to. >_< So if you ever post something and I don't respond to it, that does not mean I do not like you or are ignoring you. It just means I'm frozen in fear for some reason! The Blurty version of Skew has been the one, oddly enough, to get the most notes, so I really DO appreciate the time that so many people have taken to leave notes to me there. Thank you!

I wished to address in particular the entry in which I said I wanted to hurt myself. Some concern was expressed over this and I wanted to apologize if I got some people worried, which it seems I did. I did not intend to do so, and I'm sorry about that, especially to the user who lost a friend to suicide. :( None of you know me very well, as I don't know you very well; perhaps this is why you were the ones who responded the most to that entry? (There were no responses to that part of the entry on any of the other versions of Skew, so I was quite surprised by the reaction; I hadn't expected it at all.)

I should clarify that I am a self-injurer...yet I don't cut myself, or do anything else that draws blood. The worst things I do are hit myself (bruise), and claw myself and pull at my hair, but those latter two are only when I'm very upset. I tend to hit things when I'm upset also, but I also bruise myself purposefully when I'm NOT upset. And lately I have just been having lots of thoughts of wanting to bruise myself. Gah, hope this makes some sense since I'm not used to explaining it like this. In short, when I mentioned wanting to hurt myself...I did not mean it to sound as if I intended to cause serious injury, or to kill myself. I would never do either one of these things purposefully; while I may talk about suicide in here at times, or wanting to die, I could never do that to myself. And my own type of SI'ing is relatively mild compared to what I've heard most others do. I wasn't aware my entry would make it sound more serious than it really is, and I feel kind of ashamed that I got people worried about me. Strangers, no less.

So, I'm very sorry that I got you so worried about something that's pretty trivial compared to what others do. I didn't mean it. The comments you all offered touched me, because I really had not expected them; yet at the same time, as I said, I feel rather stupid that I made it sound worse than it was. :(

WELL...I can't think of anything else to say at the moment, and I'm really thirsty. >_< I hope this clarified some of my actions and reactions for those of you who don't know me very well; I'm grateful that people were considerate enough to leave me comments when I appeared to be down, but I hate the thought that I might worry others needlessly when they have bigger things to worry about. I know I bitch in here an awful lot, but I can think of plenty of people who have much greater problems than I will ever have. :(

Have to go now, and thank you/apologies again to you all.

Tar...