Beyond the Borderline Personality

Memoirs on a Sunday: Monday edition

2012-02-27T09:51:00.002-08:00

I really wanted to write this yesterday but I ~~was too lazy and really just wanted to relax~~ didn’t have time.

I’ve been massively, massively stressed out lately. It’s affected my ability to blog the way I normally would but I should be getting back to a more manageable schedule now. Yay!

Friday I got off work, and I was done. I was done with my week. Done with the soul crushing pressure. Done with dealing with the real world. I went to the gym. I love the gym. I put my headphones on, step on the treadmill, and the only thing I have to deal with is putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes I read, sometimes I watch the telly (all cardio machines have televisions at my gym), sometimes I listen to music, but what really matters is that for that hour or two, nothing outside of my gym matters. This is my ‘me time’. Time dedicated solely to taking care of my body and my mind. I would recommend everyone doing this. I would doubly recommend everyone who has BPD do this.

Then I shunned social activities in favor of taking a nice quiet night to myself. Yes, it was a Friday night and I stayed in reading and playing PC games. And went to bed early because….

Saturday I was waking up early to go to the gym for one of the most epic workouts I’ve had in years. I ran for an hour. Then I went to one of the personal trainer run weight training classes. It was an hour and a half of weights/core/abs. Best decision ever. Even though dragging my ass out of bed at 7:30 a.m. on ~~any day~~ Saturday is not what I consider a fun idea, and is in fact getting harder and harder for me to do the more stressed out I become, I forced myself to do it anyways. I’m so glad I did. Pushing my body gives me so much more energy, clears my head, and makes me feel functional.

Saturday was eventful and cute. I cleaned my apartment then went to Tech Boys. He’s moving to a new place (closer to me). We went shopping to get him some new sunglasses (Oakley’s are f-ing expensive! Who spends $220 on sunglasses? Him, apparently). Then we went shopping to find him some new furniture. His idea to go shopping. I’d mentioned going shopping for various things before if he ever wanted a second opinion on picking things out but he thought it was a really weird idea. So I never really mentioned it again, even though I think it’s pretty normal for people to go shopping together. Yes? Maybe I’m crazy. Well, I mean, obviously I’m crazy, but I’m not wrong, right? ::smiles:: Anyways, we went couch shopping, and ya know what? It was fun. We bounced around on furniture that wasn’t ours and got to talk about asinine details of aesthetics versus function that generally had us laughing at our own ridiculousness. Afterwards we went to dinner at a really nice restaurant. It was super cute. We’re venturing into the land of day time outings haha. We had a pretty nice little Saturday ;) Shocked.

Later we went to a big bar to catch the nights Pay-Per-View UFC fight. I love UFC. For a minute we didn’t think it would be possible because the first 10 bars we called weren’t hosting it (I don’t have television so watching it at my place was out). We finally found a place though and proceeded to have many beers and lots of bloody amusement. We talked way more than we watched the fights though. Much more. About people we’ve dated, what we want in a relationship, work, family… and he brought up the debacle last week when things went in a direction I wasn’t ok with.

He’s still upset about it. Strangely I’m not. He’s been very careful with me since we talked about it. Sweeter, not necessarily more considerate, because he’s always considerate, but sort of more aware of how we interact? Idk. He still doesn’t really remember it happening, but when I told him about it, he knew that it was definitely something he could have done. He’s had ~~fuck buddies~~ friends with benefits that were really into that sort of thing. Not only that, but would ask for it even harder. Couple that with the fact that I really do play pretty rough sometimes he didn’t realize it was out of my boundaries. He was also kind of doubly shocked when I finally mentioned it because I didn’t act like anything had happened at first. I tried explaining to him that I shut down when things like that happen. If I don’t know how to react, I often don’t react at all until I can process. I also told him I was worried he’d was going to be mad at me for mentioning it. I think that confused him but I know it’s a product of the abuse I’ve dealt with before. He told me many times that he was glad I’d said something. He was very upset that he could have done that. Yeah other girls he’s been with were into it, but he also said he should have known better. I’d mentioned abusive relationships before and he should have made the connection. We talked a little about that. I haven’t gone into explicit detail of what exactly I’ve been through, I really don’t want to. He said he doesn’t need to know the details, that’s it’s not okay is all that he needs to know. I don’t need to explain, he just has to respect what I need regardless. He apologized a lot. I was having a hard time maintaining my sympathy face. On the one hand I was impressed that he wanted to talk about it further and brought it up unprompted. It was also nice to have the reassurance that it wouldn’t happen again (though I’m still keeping my eyes open). But I already said it was ok and accepted his apology once. Twice. Probably a dozen times. I just wanted him to change the subject. Plus I was distracted by the fight on TV. We went out to watch guys beating each other bloody, not get all serious. It’s nice to know that we can talk about stuff like that though, and he’s not going to get pissed off at me, refuse to talk about it, and give me the silent treatment because I ‘can’t just accept his {horrible} behavior as being a part of who he is’. Evil-Ex was a real winner <sarcasm>.

Thought. Before when he’d mentioned briefly the thought of hitting during sexual play. It was a quick conversation of liking when things get rough. Maybe his suggestion was more something he thought I’d enjoy and less something that was particularly interesting to him. It could very well be. It’s obviously not something that he needs to do. Maybe I had the intent of the first conversation wrong. Maybe since I like playing rough, and h e’s been with other girls that like it rough in that way, he thought that would translate to me as well. It seems logical to me.

It doesn’t change the fact that it’s not ok with me. But I do well and truly accept his apology. Next time, things like that are things we should talk about first though.

It’s funny. I’m very good at hiding how I feel. Avoiding hard conversations because I’m afraid of how the other person will react. Even if I’m very justified in the situation I feel a need to discuss. This is something I think a lot of people with BPD do. Instead of expressing a concern, due to fear of another persons reaction, even if it’s something little and inane that another person wouldn’t think twice about (Please don’t run your nails down the chalkboard. Would you mind putting the toilet seat down?) we’re often afraid to say anything or complain so we hold it all in. (I have more thoughts on this and the consequences for everyone but we’ll get to that another time). It’s incredibly reassuring to me to know that I’m allowed, and capable of expressing a legitimate concern, and having a healthy, productive conversation about it. Without driving him away. Without my feelings being hurt or my fears being realized. In fact, it gave me the opportunity to see the amount of concern and care he had in regards to treating me well. Which as it turns out, is a lot.

Initiating this conversation after it happened was really frightening. The thoughts and the scenarios of how I feared it would turn out all running around, smashing into each other, creating monstrous hybrid scenarios… all turned out to be massively unjustified. He didn’t run away. He accepts and respects my boundaries. Is, in fact, grateful that I brought this to his attention so we could figure it out. Who knew people did this? It’s as if I can have conversations about life stuff like an adult. Strange. ::smiles::

Also, Ben Henderson won the match. The man is a beast in the ring. A ripped, sexy beast, but a beast.

So yeah. Went back to my place, made with the sexy time, and slept in. He’s so cuddly! I adore it. That time in the morning when we’re not wanting to get out of bed and just want to stay wrapped up in each other…. That… is one of my favorite things in the world. Simple human contact is probably my biggest kryptonite. The Gold kryptonite, though. The kind that robs me of my ability to absorb the crazy from life and just live like a normal person for as long as I’m in contact with it.

And I’m a geek.

Thoughts from the Borderline

2012-02-27T07:59:00.000-08:00

I always try to remind myself that no matter how dire, how devastating life gets, moments pass. Tomorrow comes and the things that I had worried so much over in the past, aren't as terrible as they once were. Sometimes I have to force myself to just go to sleep. To get out of the moment. To make tomorrow come faster. But when it does, I realize that no matter how bad something was, my world didn't end. As long as I'm alive, there's a chance to work on it once more.

In the moment it is quite hard to do, but it is the reality of the world.

Stuff you never knew you didn't want to know!

2012-02-24T06:35:00.001-08:00

Hello Dear Readers,

You may have noticed that this is not my Lucid Analysis –Trials in Therapy post. I skipped therapy yesterday. I was too run down and frankly I didn’t feel like complaining about work stress for an hour.

So instead, my dear bloggy friend ib over at the Habitual Hobbit has tagged me to answer a couple questions for him. Which I did! Get excited folks, I’m about to spill some completely irrelevant stuff about myself. I’ll probably do a real post later as well. Because frankly, there are bugs in my design software and it’s making me very frustrated. Ugh. Here we go!

1. Out of the different races of life in Lord Of The Rings, which do you prefer and why? (Answer carefully.)

a. Orc

b. Halfling

c. Elven

d. Human

e. Dwarven

I choose C. Because really, what female in their right mind wants to be a brainless grunting meat sack, a hairy footed shorty, or a battle happy bearded lady (Yes, even female dwarves have beards. Srsly, you can look it up). I’m already human, at least that’s the story I’m sticking to currently, so I’d like to try something different. I kind of want to be a Night Elf though, or something out of Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Not these prim and prissy little glowy things with pointy ears. I wouldn’t mind having pointy ears though. Plus they usually have magic, a lot of ancient wisdom, and dexterity +15. Not much of a loss there. I may have overthought this.

2. If today will be yesterday, and tomorrow will be today, What will tomorrow be when it is yesterday?

Still, yesterday. In the past. A day to hope I didn’t fuck up to bad, but even if I did, something to recognize I can’t change, take my lessons learned, and continue on into the future.

3. Do you consider yourself a writer or a person that places rather large words together to form a sentence, and thus, a story/post/epic?

I’ve never really thought about it. I suppose I do consider myself a writer. I try not to use words that are too large, though occasionally I fail rather spectacularly at this. I mean, I write. I engage in the acting of putting pen to paper, or type font to screen. My sentences usually make sense. Usually (< --- fragment). Yeah, I’m a writer.

4. If you happened upon a war and you had to take part in it, what would be your weapon of choice?

a. rifle

b. sword

c. slingshot

d. bow and arrow

e. dematializer

None of the above. My brain. And my terrifying mood swings. Do not make me angry. I’ll make The Hulk look like a toddler having a temper tantrum. Or maybe a light saber =)

5. If you were stuck on an island with no means of escape, and were given one wish, what would it be for?

Well if I’m to assume that wishing for my escape is off the list, and that wishing for more wishes is off the list, then I’d wish for someone to keep me company. A real live human being, of intelligence, humor, and comparable sex drive. Hey, it’s my wish, back off.

6. If you participated in the TV game show Fear Factor, where would you draw the line in regard to consuming odd "meals?"

I’m strict vegetarian for almost 19 years now. I’m not eating meat. I’m not eating bugs. Especially not live ones < ---- Oh yes, I’ve seen the show. $50,000 isn’t enough money to make me enjoy the thought of vomiting on television, which is what I’d do.

7. What is your favorite album of all time?

Ugh. I fail and picking favorites. There are too many different genres and styles of music. I like different things for different reasons. I’m into Metallica’s early work (up to the Black Album),Flogging Molly, Apocalyptica, The Dresden Dolls, Birthday Massacre, In Flames, Rasputina, Collide, um, a bunch of other stuff, hmmmm, oh the new SleighBells album is pretty kick ass. In conclusion, I think I have properly failed at answering this question in any relevant way.

8. What is your favorite movie of all time?

Yep, I still fail at picking favorites. Damn it. Let’s just start picking things shall we: STAR WARS Episodes IV-VI, Gremlins, The Princess Bride, the new Batman Series, Boondock Saints, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Labyrinth, NOT Donnie Darko (I f-ing hate that movie. Creepy as fuck. Yes, I believe this is relevant enough to note), Harry Potter (all of them), Black Swan, um…. Bloody hell. I srsly have a DVD collection of over 800 movies and I can think of like a dozen movies? Where is my brain today? This’ll have to do.

9. Are you taking part in the 2012 A to Z Challenge this year? It may be the last one, depending on your answer for question 11.

I have no idea where to even find this challenge. Maybe I’ll do it on my other blog if you can point me in the right direction. Or left direction.

10. If, by chance, you were endowed with one super power, what would it be and why?

This might be a lame answer but I’d like to fly.

11. Do you believe that the Mayans are on to something concerning 12.21.12?

I think the Mayans probably ran out of room on their limited stone calendar and people today enjoy going bat shit about pretty much anything. Humans need drama. Even if it’s drama from thousands of years ago.

In conclusion…. I don’t follow directions very well. Like how I’m supposed to now think up 11 new questions and tag other people. I have unreasonable guilt about being able to pick some people over other people and imposing on another’s blog, so how about this: If you want to do 11 questions. These 11 questsion. Go ahead and do it. Then let me know so I can read them =)

Stress Reduction in Borderline Personality Disorder

2012-02-23T07:12:00.000-08:00

This doesn't actually help.

Stress! We got it. Now what are we supposed to do about it?

I’ll tell you one thing that doesn’t actually help: Alcohol. I’ve been drinking way more than I should. I’m pretty disgusted with myself actually. I’ve been pretty good lately and keeping it to just drinking on the weekends when Tech Boy and I go out or I’m hanging out with Roommate, but when things get even more stressful in my life than they usually are it’s pretty normal for me to pick up a bottle of wine. Sure it appears to make me feel better in the moment but is it actually helping? No, not at all. I’m more likely to Act Out and say things to people I never intended on saying. I’m less likely to monitor my caloric intake. I’m less likely to get good sleep – yeah alcohol may make you pass out early but it actually disrupts your sleep. And I’m very likely to feel like complete shit the next day when I actually need to function. I don’t drink enough to be hung over, but not getting enough sleep is one of the worst things ever for me. I need to get adequate amounts of sleep because proper sleep is one thing that actually has a very positive effect on my moods.

How to Reduce Stress Tip #1: Get enough sleep. When you’re stressed out, and finally have some down time in your evening, put on your pajamas and get into bed. Give yourself time and permission to get a good night’s rest. When your mind is well rested it’s easier to focus and function, thereby making it easier to deal with the stressors in your day to day life.

For more on the importance of sleep.

Tip #2: Get a little OCD. Take a page out of our fellow nutters handbook and start putting some order into your life. I’m a list person. I love to make lists. When everything I need to do is a jumbled concept in my mind it feels like this looming beast preparing to strike and I have no idea how to defend against it. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by something when you don’t have a solid plan of attack, or even a solid picture of what it is that needs to be done. Write it down. Prioritize. When you can actually point your finger at things that need to be done you can start making progress. And being able to cross something off that list when you are done, is pretty damn satisfying.

Tip #3: Create a schedule. This is an extension to Tip #2. Once you know what it is that you need to get done, give yourself a timeline and stick to it. Many of us live day-to-day and sort of fly by the seat of our pants. Sure it’s ‘living in the moment’, but it get also get pretty hectic and more than a little chaotic. We want to reduce chaos, and by extension; stress. Know what you need to get done during the day and make a plan.

Structure is very important for me, and I’m guessing many people with Borderline Personality Disorder. Structure imposes a stability to our lives that is something we desperately, desperately need, whether we admit it or not. Creating a structure gives me control of my day and my life. It creates a comforting certainty about what is going to happen in my day. Yeah, sometimes life throws you curveballs or new things pop up, so you need to be a little flexible. The beauty of creating your own structure, is that you can adapt it as things come up. As much as we would like it to be, life isn’t always predictable, so try not to be too rigid. I used to be intensely rigid, and actually obsessively compulsive, about sticking to my schedules. This just made me more anxious and made me feel like I had less control when things would alter my plans. I’m talking world ending, earth shattering panic attacks when things wouldn’t follow my carefully laid out schedule. This is also not healthy. We need to avoid allowing the things we use to reduce stress, create more.

Tip #4: Clean and organize your living space. The orderliness of my bedroom tends to reflect my mental state. If I’m calmer my room is immaculate and tidy, if I’m a mental mess, my room is a disaster. Is it the loss of control of the immediate environment that makes my mind messy or my messy mind that makes my environment a health hazard? I don’t know, but what I do know is that when my room is neat and organized I feel a sense of calm. It’s like I have my own little sanctuary back. When it’s a mess; things aren’t where I want them to be, I can’t find the things that I need, I have to search for things which can make me late, my frustration levels rise and I end up making even more of a mess because I can get frantic about finding things that I NEED RIGHT NOW. Personally, I prefer the calm. Clutter is chaos.

Tip #5: Plan ahead. When you think about the upcoming days you can consider what you need in advance. If you make meals for you family every night, instead of running to the grocery every day, decide what you’re making at the beginning of the week and shop for things all at once. If your kids usually run late in the morning, pick out outfits the night before and pack their lunch before bed. In short; make things as simple as possible for yourself. Reduce the number of things you have to do by consolidating the time you spend doing them. You’ll have more time to sit back and de-stress.

Tip #6: Just say ‘No’. If you’re like me, this is often a problem for you. Telling people ‘no’, even if I’m overwhelmed by my own priorities, often makes me really anxious. I begin to worry about what they’ll think of me, what they’ll think of my ability to handle my job, my work, all things that make me worry ceaselessly and often pointlessly. However, when you say ‘yes’ to every request thrown your way you allow the stress and frustration of all these burdens begin to pile up and overwhelm you. This leads to personal panic within yourself (at least it does for me) and often a resentment towards the other people for not realizing how much you already have going on and adding to your load. It might not be practical or possible to say ‘no’ to everything, but try saying ‘no’ to some small things that you don’t really have time for, or even a social obligation that you have no interest in. Instead of waiting until the frustration and resentment builds to the boiling point, just say, “I’m sorry I’m really swamped myself right now. I’m going to have to pass this time.” It’s tactful and lets them know that in the future you can still be relied on. You have limits as a human being, it’s good to respect them.

Tip #7: Get moving. By which I mean, get a little exercise into your day. Exercise increases your energy, your clarity of mind, and your ability to deal with stress. When you cultivate a physically stronger body you also cultivate a psychologically stronger mind. Mind and body are not separate entities. We are one cohesive unit. Taking care of one, affects the other. I know it’s often hard to take an hour out of your day to go to the gym, but taking 20 minutes to walk around the block or do an at home yoga video is often much easier. You can even do these things with your kids.

Tip #8: Feed your mind. What you put into your body is as important as what you do with it. If you feed it sugar and junk and fat, it’s going to be reflected in your mental state. You’ll have sugar spikes that bring you high and then crash you down. Our moods are already volatile, we don’t need sugar induced mood swings as well. Healthy, fresh food allows you to gain all the essential vitamins and nutrients your body needs while maintaining a nice even sugar level. This will help reduce the fluxuations you feel. This is also where reducing your alcohol and stimulant intake comes into play. I’m making a very firm decision to limit my alcohol consumption.

Tip #9: Don’t be so hard on yourself. I know, I know, I have a very hard time being gentle with myself and this is something I definitely need to work on. It takes courage to allow yourself to be imperfect. Even though we know everyone as humans isn’t, we often feel the pressure that we should be. It’s ok to be human and accept the limitations that go along with it.

Tip #10: Ask for help if you need it. I have a hard time asking for help, but sometimes I’m just not capable of doing everything on my own, or I don’t know everything about something yet. Instead of allowing the feeling of being overwhelmed crush you, take action to relieve the burden. Asking for help relieves some of the pressure from you and cultivates an active relationship with someone else. Win-win.

Tip #11: Take a break. Do something fun. Try something new. Revisit a hobby you enjoy. Sit and talk with a friend. Sit by yourself in quiet for a few moments. Pamper yourself a little. Life is full of little pleasures. It’s important to remember that this is the only life you get, and you are allowed to enjoy yourself. Take advantage of the things that bring happiness into your life.

Tip #12: Know your stressors. Just like it’s important to know our triggers, it’s important to recognize the things, situations, and people that stress us out. Make a list, write them down. Kick out the ones that you don’t need in your life and work to reduce the amount of time to spend on the one’s that are necessary.

Helping yourself is very important. I know I could definitely work on some of these way more than I do. It’s hard to remember all of this stuff. Incorporating even a few of these things over time can really help reduce that stress induced panic and make your life more manageable. Not all stress is bad. It can be motivating, it allows you to be engaged in your life… but excessive stress, which those of us with BPD often have, is something we should really work to avoid.

What do you do to reduce the stress in your life?

Stress and Borderline Personality Disorder

2012-02-22T06:36:00.000-08:00

Stress affects everyone. You, me, your dog, your office chair; everyone. How stress affects you personally will also vary. People with Borderline Personality Disorder tend to have a reduced tolerance to stress. Which is unfortunate because we tend to feel stress at an elevated level. Emotional stress compounds on mental stress compounds on our bodies’ ability to physically cope with the day. The magnitude of stress we feel is often like a weight crushing down on our shoulders, making it difficult to even sit up, let alone get out of bed. I find this is also common for people suffering from depression.

Stress has a very significant, if not dramatic, effect on our moods. People with Borderline Personality Disorder tend to have pretty volatile mood swings and are emotionally reactive to begin with. Even your regular old emotionally normative person will experience a shift in their mood and levels of happiness depending on their levels of stress. Tempers get shorter; tears are a little closer to the surface. You can imagine how this would be magnified for someone with BPD. Currently my medication seems to have done wonders for my anxiety levels, but previously it wouldn’t be uncommon for me to dissolve into an inconsolable panic attack puddling on my bathroom floor. That mental pressure can physically crush you down making it impossible to bear the burdens this world continually piles on top of you. Where we might have been able to control the outward expression of our internal turmoil before, having to redirect our energy to contain the buildup of pressure creates leaks in our external façade. The anger starts to slip out. The sharpness of our words. The ability to contain our frustration. One thing after another, another voice, another request, another this, another that, hypersensitivity to even more situations abound and it all seems to start coming at you faster and faster before you’ve been able to get anything in order, until your mind feels pulled in too many directions dizzy and reeling and finally, you snap. Stress can have a very negative impact on our moods and the control we try to maintain over them; making mood swings even worse. This could come out as angry, frustrated shouting, breaking things, picking fights, dissolving into tears of helplessness, or even manifest physically and present as migraines or illness.

We live in a high pressure, fast paced world these days. You’d think with the advent of our technological progress it would make our lives easier. In fact it just means that we need to accomplish more in less time. Something doesn’t seem right there. There’s a lot of fear these days that if you don’t measure up, don’t take on massive amounts of responsibility you’ll be judged harshly and punished; lose your job, suspended, or just talked about behind the water cooler. Cue the terror of judgment and potential loss. Fear of a potentially huge life change is debilitating and can drive anyone, let alone someone with BPD, to increase their stress levels instead of working to reduce them.

This can impact someone with BPD in an even more significant way than most because we tend to take the weight of the world onto our shoulders, including the weight of other people’s worlds onto our shoulders. Many of us are ‘people pleasers’, feel guilty for saying ‘no’, and want to relieve the pressure felt by those we care about so we take on their burdens as well. Whether it’s good for us or not. Which it usually isn’t.

Am I saying helping people isn’t good? Of course not. Helping people in need is great, as long as it doesn’t tax us beyond our ability to cope with our own stress.

If you can’t take care of yourself first, how can you really help someone else? The problem is that when I see someone that I care about in need of help, I feel guilty for not offering my assistance, even if I know I can’t manage to take on any more. The guilt leads to fear that they will think we don’t care, or that we can’t be relied upon. They’ll look to someone else for help. Make a stronger connection elsewhere. Not need us anymore, and we might lose them. This may not sound entirely rational, but I know the thought is there. I actually get jealous when people ask someone else for help sometimes; even when I know I can’t possibly take on more. It’s a conflict of what I need versus what I fear. Fear often wins out and I’ll do what I can to relieve someone else’s stress, making things worse for myself in the process.

I feel like I should have Yoda saying something like, Stress leads to Guilt, Guilt leads to fear, Fear leads to Abandonment…. Abandonment leads to the Dark Side! Geezus I’m a geek.

I try to remind myself that it’s counterproductive to take on other people’s stress to the extent I feel compelled to. We may be helping them in short term, but in the home stretch we’re disabling their ability to take care of themselves and learn to deal with stress in a productive way (This applies to us as well when we continually reach for others to lift our burdens!). For many people with BPD this isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. If someone comes to rely on you in order to deal with their stress, then they’re less likely to leave you. If you’ve made yourself an integral part of their coping mechanism then the disadvantages of not having you in their life are glaring. It’s one more way we act to not be abandoned.

A couple things. This may sound like a backhanded sort of ‘help’. We’re not really helping you, for you, but we’re helping you, to gain something for us. In a way this is true. But if you weren’t someone we cared about in the first place we wouldn’t feel this need to do whatever we can to keep you in our lives. Also, all help, no matter how altruistic it may seem, has some benefit to the person doing the helping. Even if it’s just a feeling that you did something good, there’s benefit to both people, and a bit of selfish gain.

Clearly there’s a whole lot of conflicting feelings going on here. This is why it’s SO HARD for us to make such seemingly simple decisions; like taking care of ourselves first. If this, then that. If this other thing, then potentially a million hazardous pits filled with snakes to bite us in the ass. I’ve been watching too much Indiana Jones lately I think. Anyways.

In conclusions: Stress is especially bad for people with a Borderline Personality Disorder. It’s essential to work on countering the stressors in our lives as much as possible. This will decrease the panic and anxiety that we are constantly consumed with, and make us much less grumpy, and therefore more pleasant to be around. See! Taking care of ourselves, is in actuality, taking care of those around us! Maybe that thought will help with some of the nagging guilt at the back of your mind.

So how do you work to reduce those stress levels? Well, that can be easier said than done…..

Yoda's pretty smart.... for a Jedi.

(Also, I’ve noticed my inbox has a lot of letters in it. I’m incredibly stressed out currently – hence the subject material – so I need to prioritize my time, but I will get to them all! I promise.)

Quotes from the Borderline

2012-02-21T05:06:00.000-08:00

“People think they know you. They think they know how you’re handling a situation. But the truth is no one knows. No one knows what happens after you leave them, when you’re lying in bed or sitting over your breakfast alone and all you want to do is cry or scream. They don’t know what’s going on inside your head — the mind-numbing cocktail of anger and sadness and guilt. This isn’t their fault. They just don’t know. And so they pretend and they say you’re doing great when you’re really not. And this makes everyone feel better. Everybody but you.”

—	William H. Woodwell Jr.

Inspiration: Guest Post

2012-02-17T18:40:00.003-08:00

Trigger warning: Self harm, eating disorders

All my life I was a little overweight, but I was neverfat. I just let other people convince me that I was. All throughout elementary school I felt like an outcast. I felt like my classmates were judging me because I had a little extra meat on my bones. I felt like the fat girl. The ugly girl. The weird girl no one wanted to be friends with. I was extremely insecure with myself, so I started to bully other people to make them feel as low as I did. I thought that if I put myself above other people, then kids at school would start to like me, and I wouldn’t feel like an outcast anymore. But that idea came to an end as soon as eighth grade began.

Two boys harassed my relentlessly. They mooed when I walked by. They nicknamed me Mary Cowhar and Garbage Girl. They made sure that my life was a living hell. I let them convince me that I was worthless. I let them make me believe that I really was fat and disgusting; I let them make me hate myself.

When high school came around I decided I wasn’t going to be the fat girl anymore. I lost myself in a deep depression and an obsession with losing weight. I went on crazy crash diets, and started working out by myself every day. I had a rule that I could eat no more than 500 calories a day, and I couldn’t eat anything after 5:00. If I ate more than I allowed myself I would take laxatives to flush it all out. My grades started slipping because I just didn’t care. All I wanted was to be accepted. I didn’t want people to have a reason to make fun of me anymore. I wanted to be perfect.

I had tried self harming once or twice before high school, but during my freshman year it became one of my biggest vices. It became my release. My escape. Whenever I was angry, I would cut. Whenever I felt worthless, I would punish myself. Whenever I felt numb, I would beat emotion into me. I was so lost in my own depression and insanity that I had no concept of the world around me.

It wasn’t until a friend saw how much danger I was in did I started to get help. My friend referred me to a medical clinic in my school where I could get medical attention and talk with a social worker instead of taking my problems out on myself. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety when I was 14 and although I was never officially diagnosed, I was at severe risk of being hospitalized for anorexia.

I spent my sophomore and junior years in a blur. My therapy caused me to face some of the hardest criticism of my life, all from my biggest enemy, myself. I wanted to give up. I wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out. I wanted to be happy, but I was scared of the journey I had to take to get there.

Last year, at my one of my lowest moments, I carved the word “Fuck” into my side. It’s one of the only highly visible scars I have left

Even though it was hard, it was all worth it. Because now, in my senior year, I can finally look in the mirror and feel confident. I am finally at peace with myself and who I want to be. I’ve only had two slip-ups with self harming since my “fuck” incident, and I have no intention of doing so in the future. I have reinvented myself. It was a long and emotionally draining battle, but I got through it. Even now every day is a struggle to stay positive and not let the negativity get to me, but I’m trying my best. Of course I have my days, but who doesn’t?

I want you all to know that no matter what anyone else says to you, all that matters is what you say to yourself. Look in the mirror every morning and say to yourself “I am beautiful.” Don’t let anyone control you like I did.

Be confident in who you are, and everything will fall into place.

Lucid Analysis: Trials in Therapy – Stress and Sexual Healing

2012-02-17T06:44:00.000-08:00

I’m about to crash. I’m so stressed out right now I’m not sure how I’m going to even function.

In regards to work, Therapist thinks I need to develop more interpersonal relationships at work. My mentor had his last day here a few weeks ago and has moved across the country. He was a huge inspiration to me and one of the only people I felt comfortable coming to talk to. When you’re able to discuss things that occur at work with colleagues it provides the opportunity for them to share similar stories and experiences that happened them. They can relay how they felt, how they handled issues, and how things worked out. It provides the opportunity to realize that I’m not alone in this kind of stress and that others have also shared this experience. The opportunity to relieve some of the pressure is created. Without that, I feel like I’m alone and adrift without anyone that I can rely on for support. I’m just, not sure how to go about doing this.

I’m so very hard on myself. I’m harder on myself than anyone else. She started to ask me where I got this idea that I wasn’t allowed to fail or make mistakes, but then she just sort of kept talking and went off on a tangent. I know this goes back to how I was raised. Nothing I do is good enough. Everything I do can be better. There’s always a way to improve. But it’s not like I was ever punished for failing. My father pushed us, yes, definitely. There was always a way for us to improve and keep getting better. But we never got in trouble if we weren’t the best, never got yelled at if we made mistakes. The only time we ever got a cross word was if we tried to quit. Quitting wasn’t acceptable, but mistakes were fine. In fact, he was always more concerned with fairness than he was with performance.

Story time: My dad was often our coach or assistant coach on the various sports teams we played on. He always coached my brothers baseball. Unfortunately he often had a losing team, but it was because he was the most fair coach. Parents and players loved my father. He didn’t care if a player was weaker than another, didn’t hit as many home runs or make as many catches. If you were on his team, you were going to play. As a result, his team often lost, but he players enjoyed the game and learned how to play. You can’t get better if you sit the bench, so he let them play, didn’t hold them back, and gave them the chance to improve. I always loved my dad for how he coached.

I think I’m self-sabotaging here too. I’m beginning to withdraw. I’m afraid to succeed. I’ve had so much turmoil in my life lately the emotional pressure is becoming too much for me. I’ve tried so hard with people and failed that the feeling is bleeding over into the rest of my life as well. I want to escape. Withdraw into my own head. I’m afraid of disappointing everyone, so I’m having a hard time forcing myself to try. I don’t want to put myself out there for fear that people will see me try and potentially not succeed. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. If I try I might make mistakes and possibly fail, but if I don’t try at all, I’ll absolutely fail. That’s not ok. Time to reorganize my life and my priorities.

Onto the next. I feel like I’m having a hard time working on the deeper issues of my psyche because I keep having to focus on current issues. ::sigh:: Everything in its own time I suppose.

If you follow my other blog you will have read about my last weekend with Tech Boy and the concern I had. In a nutshell: things got rougher during sex than they should have and he crossed a boundary of mine. I have very few of these but I was very upset and didn’t know if I’d be able to continue on with this ‘relationship’. You can catch up on it here.

I resolved to actually talk to him about the incident. On Monday I told him to get ahold of me after he got off work. He did. I was nervous and wasn’t sure I’d even be able to talk to him about it until the words were actually coming out. I was afraid he’d be mad at me for even bringing it up. If he even remembered… which as it turns out, he didn’t.

I told him I had a concern. I have very few boundaries and sexually I’m open to almost anything, but one thing I will not tolerate is being hit. He hit me, in the face, three times. Not very hard, but he still did. I knew this was a sexual fantasy of his, it wasn’t something he did in anger, but the only time he’d mentioned it before I’d flat out said no. It was so brief and we never discussed it again, and he was SO drunk that none of this entered his thought process. He doesn’t even remember this happening. But I do. I told him I wouldn’t tolerate it, and if it happened again, I was done.

He was floored. He couldn’t believe he would do something like that to me, or to anyone. He doesn’t hit people. He apologized profusely. He said he must have gotten caught up in the moment and clearly overstepped my boundaries. Apologized some more. He said he doesn’t handle being an asshole very well and he should have known better. I’d mentioned being in abusive relationships in passing, but I’ve never really discussed this with him. I figured it was time to tell him a bit about Evil-Ex and the abuse I dealt with from him. I’ve been in abusive relationships before and it’s not something I’ll ever do again, even if it’s just simulated fantasy situations. Not ok.

Therapist said this must have been very triggering for me because of my past abuse. It was. Which is why I wasn’t sure if I was overreacting or not. I’m concerned about whether I can feel safe with him now. I’m not afraid of him. I don’t believe he would ever hurt me on purpose. Being drunk isn’t an excuse to do something like that though. It actually makes me feel worse that it’s something he doesn’t remember because it’s potentially an out of control and even less predictable situation. I’ll just have to keep my eyes open, and not engage in more intimate behavior when that much alcohol is involved.

I felt a lot better afterwards, though I still wasn’t sure what would come of ‘us’. I was still worried that he’d be angry at me or that it would change things even though he thanked me for bringing it to his attention. I shouldn’t have worried though. The next day was Valentine’s Day. We hadn’t talked about it. We’re in that undefined area of relationships where I’m not sure what the protocol for not just friends with benefits but not quite boyfriend/girlfriend are. I hadn’t expected he’d want to do anything so I wasn’t going to mention it. As it turns out, he had been thinking about it. Later that afternoon he texted me and asked if I wanted to do anything. Why the hell not. He ended up coming over and made me a nice homemade dinner. It was very yummy. Afterwards we watched a movie and just curled up on the couch. He didn’t even hint towards sex at all. Just wrapped his arms around me and sat back to enjoy the movie.

Therapist was concerned when I said I didn’t have many sexual boundaries. This confused me. Why wouldn’t I be open to experimenting with my partner? I’ve already decided to be physically intimate with him, after that it’s just fun and games. She thinks it’s more than that. There should be trust and boundaries. She was very proud of me for speaking my mind, taking control of the situation, and setting boundaries when I felt it was important. But in a relationship sex is more than just being physical. In a relationship sex is about sharing something of yourself with your partner. There’s an emotional intimacy that should be there as well.

I definitely have problems here. Sex is affection. It’s something that makes him want to stay with me. This may not actually be true, but I generally think that sex is one thing that works to keep a guy’s interest. Oddly I don’t feel this way about women so I think it’s a by-product of my experiences with men using me for sex. If I deny sex or refuse something my partner wants, there’s a fear in the back of my mind that they will lose interest or go somewhere else for it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy sex a lot. It’s one of the few things that makes my brain shut up and I can just let myself feel and enjoy the moments. But I also think it’s a way to make my partner happy with me in a way that will lessen the chance they will leave me. Being open to new sexual experiences and things that interest my partner lets me potentially give them something they won’t get other places and endear them to me. I don’t know if that’s a healthy way to look at it. It doesn't really enter my mind that they should be accepting of what I want as well (Though Tech Boy certainly is). I didn’t have a chance to discuss this with Therapist. However as my homework:

Homework: Think about what my personal dreams and aspirations for a sensually intimate relationship are. What do I want? What do I need? This is important for me to consider. My needs are important to consider for a healthy and emotionally intimate relationship.

Therapist pulled out something called The Wheel of Self- Awareness. I make our sessions pretty easy because I’m very self-aware in most areas of my life, but occasionally I need focus.

The Wheel of Self-Awareness is a tool to help you organize your thoughts and feelings about any particular emotion, situations, etc. With any issue you want to explore you write down the:

Memories you associate with it

Thoughts that correspond to it

Feelings you have toward it or that are created by it

Dreams and Aspirations you have in regards to it

Sensations that you feel with it

Perceptions you have of anyone or anything concerned with the situation

And at the very Center is your place of Grounding. The things that you need or feel are important to think about the situation from a calm and centered perspective. The things that make you feel stable.

Try it out. It’s what I’ll be spending some time doing.

I know my handwriting is a mess.

Occupational Hazard

2012-02-16T07:52:00.000-08:00

Crushing disappointment with myself today. Stressed out beyond reason. I can feel myself shutting down and starting to drift away from my surroundings. Staring off into an empty, lonely space.

It’s not really my fault, but it feels like it. I should have known that something was wrong.

Work stress.

Having to rely on a team is necessary but dangerous. One wrong input, that I couldn’t generate and had no control over, that I had to rely on someone else to provide for me, and it changed completely the results that I had been looking for. There was a mistake. Wrong.

I feel like my job is over. I’m so panicked I can’t even feel anymore.

And the dumbest thing is, I already talked to my boss and he’s not that concerned! I just have to redo a couple things and make them my priority instead of some other projects. I now also have more resources at my disposal to collaborate my findings.

I’m just… I feel like I complete and utter failure. Admitting this is so difficult. So difficult. I’m ashamed of myself. I want to quit my job as save myself the embarrassment of ever messing up again. Everyone is going to judge me. Everyone is going to see I’m not as intelligent as I need to be. Everyone is going to see that I’m not perfect. They’re going to look down on me. They’re going to silently laugh at me behind my back and feel like they are better than me. I can’t actually measure up.

I know these thoughts are destructive and massively exaggerated, if not outright wrong, but I can’t help that it’s how I FEEL.

I take on so much. I know I can do the work, but the shear load is overwhelming.

When the work day is done I feel so much relief. I made it through one more day doing what I need to do. I go home at night, but don’t want to go to sleep because I know it will only make the morning come so much quicker. When morning comes I have to walk right back into work and do it all over again. One more potential chance to fail. I’ve never had a hard time waking up in the morning, but now it seems like dragging my ass out of bed would be easier to do with one of those giant claw machines designed to pick me up and drop me off into my morning routine.

This is the only thing everyone will see about me now. They’ll only remember this one thing. That’s what they’ll judge me on. This last problem. None of the other brilliant and productive things I’ve done before will matter. Just this one thing. This is how I think. I don’t think this is how ‘normal’ people think. But I don’t know how it feels to not think this way. I don’t have that perspective. This is all I know. And all I know, is that this time my work wasn’t good enough. That’s terrifying.

I have to be better. I have to push myself harder. Making mistakes just isn’t acceptable. I’m going to lose everything I worked for if I make even one small mistake. I just, can’t. I’m so disappointed. I feel small. My self-esteem is completely deflated. I feel the fingers of depression and self-doubt slowly clawing their way into the forefront of my mind. This is bad.

Every time someone looks at me I’m going to wonder if they’re thinking about that one thing. I want to crawl into a hole and blot out the sun. If they can’t see me, they can’t judge me.

All I can do is prove that I’m better than what I did previously.

It may sound like I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but when the mole is a mutated radiation experiment created by an evil genius, genetically altered to be 6 feet tall with yellowed broad swords for claws and teeth that rival a velociraptor, that molehill doesn’t sound like something I want to kick over.

Stress. I know that I’m actually very successful by anyone’s standards in my occupational field. Choosing such a difficult and high stress profession on top of my Borderline Personality Disorder is harder than most people realize. The work isn’t that hard. The amount of work load I have to juggle is where the pressure comes in. I have to figure out a better way to deal with this kind of stress….

Borderline Isolation

2012-02-15T08:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I need to be alone. Sometimes the rest of the world is too much for me to deal with. Hell, sometimes just one other person is too much for me to deal with. I need everything to just go away.

Isn’t this a contradiction in the Borderline personality? Aren’t Borderlines supposed to need a ton of attention 24/7 and fall apart if they’re forced to be alone?

I’d say that’s an exaggeration of the condition. Yes, it tends to be true that Borderlines need attention and hate to be alone. It’s not that simple though, because people aren’t that simple. Especially when you are dealing with someone with a volatile range of quickly changing moods, what they need in each moment is also going to change. I know that’s not incredibly reassuring. This is why communication of needs is so important.

For as much as I hate to be alone sometimes, there are even more times that I do need to be alone. I think I’m a little different here than many Borderlines. People with BPD often come across as needy and rather clingy when they’re not pushing away. However, for me, I have never been able to do this. I can’t stand the idea of being seen as clingy so I force myself to suppress the need to ask for constant attention, regardless of how I feel sometimes. That said, there are plenty of times where I really do not want attention.

For instance, in large groups of people that I know I often feel like an outsider. I’m different and constantly see myself off to the side, even if I’m engaged in conversation. I don’t quite fit so I feel alone. Surrounded by people, yet alone. Being with other people creates a cognitive dissonance between the reality of the situation and the feeling of the situation. It stresses me out and often makes me depersonalize and begin to feel like I’m floating outside of my own head. It’s not pleasant. I prefer to actually be alone, because then at least the feeling of being alone makes sense. Sometimes better to be alone and lonely, than with someone and lonely, because at least that makes sense emotionally. It’s logically consistent.

I also have body dysmorphic issues. Never underestimate the power of a poor body image and low self-esteem. Some days I don’t want other people to look at me. I don’t even want to look at me. I’ll put on baggy clothes, refuse to look in the mirror, and hope that I feel better tomorrow. I see and scrutinize every perceived “flaw” and because it’s glaringly obvious to me, I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be glaringly obvious to someone else. What’s more is, when I look in the mirror these flaws are amplified. They’re exaggerated in my mind and I actually see it this way. My body perception is distorted. I may look beautiful or just fine to someone else, but I am quite literally not seeing the same person they are. Showing flaws means I’m not perfect, and if I’m not perfect why the hell would someone want me around? I’m actually making a lot of progress here. I still have my days where I can’t face people, but I’m able to force myself to go out even though I’m not “perfect” and I even manage to enjoy myself. I can look in the mirror and realize I still have some work I want to do, but also appreciate my positive features. I think this is a great step. It’s not all perfect (white) or one flaw means everything is ruined and I’m hideously flawed (black). I’m starting to see the grey areas in my self-perception. This is probably the first time in 18 years that I’m starting to be able to do this. I know gaining a couple pounds or ‘feeling fat’ may seem like a silly reason not to see someone, but I promise you, it’s not just an excuse.

Probably the biggest reason I want to be alone is that I’m aware that my mood is unpleasant and I don’t want other people to see me like this. I’m often depressed, angry, frustrated, and irritable. who the hell wants to be around someone like this? When my mood is swinging in this direction my temper is extremely short and I’m likely to lose control of my very sharp tongue. I’m quick to make harsh and cutting comments that hurt people’s feelings. It’s a great way to piss people off and drive them away. Which is exactly what I do not want to do. When I was younger I wouldn’t care. I’d want company and what anyone else wants be damned. If they’re really my friends they’ll put up with it. If they’re really my friends then they’ll let me be how I want to be. However, at the time I didn’t think of the fact that, if I was really their friend I wouldn’t want to take out my temper on the people around me. I wouldn’t want to upset them. I just didn’t think this way. It took some reprogramming to get there. Other people have rights too. It’s not always about me.

Not to mention, it would ruin the pleasant image I purposely and meticulously cultivate. I constantly feel a need to ‘hide my crazy’. Always. The picture that most people have of me is a very in control, quirky, but competent individual. And really, I am. On the outside. Internally though I’m often a seething mess of emotion. Letting other people see that, or letting them know it exists, I believe would drive them away. I hide anything unpleasant so the impression they have of me, is one that they want to keep around. I can't internalize the concept that other people may understand or accept that I am not perfect, I have emotions like others (ok, moreso) and it's ok to show this to people.

See a pattern here? I do.

And then of course, sometimes it’s just practical. Yes, Borderlines can acknowledge practical needs. We’re not running around with our mind in a frenzy every single moment of every single day. Sometimes, even if we’d prefer company, it’s necessary to go to the grocery, or clean the house, or run a metric butt ton of errands and it’s not feasible to get everything done if we feel like we have to entertain someone else at the same time.

Sometimes I feel guilty having company as well. For as much of a socially theatrical person as I can be (think themed parties, costumed events, masquerades, wild venues, and street performance – not personal drama queen issues) I also have a big homebody streak. I like to have nights where I curl up in my pajamas, reading a book with my cat curled up in my lap. Or as has been the case lately, spending hours on my computer trying to complete my latest Quest (Hush, I’m a gamer). I don’t need to go out every single Friday night and often I’ll opt to stay in and avoid the social scene. I would actually love to have someone else over to keep me company, but I feel silly having company and then ignoring them as I do my quiet time stuff. This is one of the reasons I appreciate living with Roommate. She’s around a lot, but it’s pretty typical for her to be in her room doing her own thing. I feel her presence but there’s no pressure to talk or entertain. I can do what I want to do and not be alone.

I think the final thing is, bottom line: It’s safer to be isolated. The more time you spend with someone, the closer they become to you. The more intimate your connection becomes. This is dangerous. Because as we all know, the closer someone gets to you, the higher the risk becomes that they can hurt you. People that we have no emotional attachment to can come and go and it makes no difference. When you let someone into your life, they learn who you are, share your secrets, this gives them leverage and ammunition and the control over the extent of the attachment begins to slip for your grasp. It’s a risk that is absolutely worth taking for the right person, however, as you may have notice, finding those “right” people isn’t exactly easy. Often I err on the side of extreme caution and don’t let anyone close at all. That doesn’t mean it’s a good thing to do, but it feels safer.

Our disorder becomes intensified in interpersonal relationships. People drive me crazy. (Yay for massively inaccurate oversimplifications.) I can’t stand to be alone, for long stretches anyways, but if it’s a choice between feeling crazy and feeling lonely; the lesser of the two evils is often to feel lonely.

It's funny, even on days I desire to be alone, it can create anything from an intense anxiety to a low level dread in me. Not always, but usually. It's a struggle. It's hard to completely fill up the emptiness and the room in my mind for ruminations if I'm by myself. Often it comes down to a fight between what I know to be good for me and what I know I need. Reconciling the two isn't as easy as it should be.

I isolate.

Valentine’s Day and Borderline Personality Disorder

2012-02-14T06:17:00.000-08:00

I really do have a hard time taking this holiday srsly.

Yes, it’s that time again. That special day of the year when Hallmark tells you that you haven’t been living up to your woman’s expectations of what a good spouse should be. Congratulations you fail at life, unless of course you empty your bank account on expensive jewelry, flowers, and epic love poetry that you compiled yourself while starving in a cave, naked, for an entire year.

This holiday makes a lot of semi-reasonable women turn into pretty, pretty ultra-pink heart shaped princesses with highly unreasonable expectations. You don’t have to have Borderline Personality Disorder to be driven crazy with this one, but as with most things, it’s possible to make us crazier.

If you’re dating, married, “special” friends, or ~~stalking~~ appreciative of the Borderline in your life you should know by now that it’s important to make her feel special pretty often. If you wait for only one day a year to provide her with the reassurance that she is meaningful to you, well, you probably experienced the melt down and received a lovely parting gift of emotional explosions. Frequent reassurance of love and caring are very important (To EVERYONE!) when you’re involved with a Borderline. Be careful not to be too reassuring though. You don’t want to cross the line into smothering and emotional suffocation.

Really, you want to make your loved one think Valentine’s Day is silly because you already make the effort to turn those ‘average’ days of his/her life into something special. That’s really the point here.

Be continually appreciative.

But for those of you that didn’t plan ahead and now are floundering about to make this one day a focal point of the year, here are some helpful tips for a smooth evening out with your Borderline.

Tip #1: If your Borderline has an eating disorder, don’t get her chocolate. I know the corner drug store has those gigantic heart shaped boxes of chocolate all up in your face, but unless you want to encourage a binge filled evening laced with a hint of self-loathing, step away from the candy.

Tip #2: If your Borderline has a fear of commitment, don’t choose this day to propose. Getting engaged is stressful enough. Getting engaged on a day where the expectations of romance are a bajillion times higher, could make her heart crack into a thousand of those mini little chalk flavor heart candies with inspirational sayings like “WTF dude?” or “Are you serious?”.

Tip #3: Just because your Borderline says that she hates Valentine’s Day, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything. Remember when I said that you should treat her special every day? February 14^th is still one of those days. I know it's a complete contradiction to say you hate Valentine's Day, and then want to do something on Valentine's Day, but it's also a message of, the holiday is stupid, then again, it's a day like any other that I want to see you, so I want to see you! Warning: This may get you laid instantly.

Tip #4: Don’t expect perfection. This is for the Borderlines out there that create these amazingly unattainable fantasy scenarios that no human short of a transgendered Aphrodite come down from Mr. Olympus could live up to. There are a handful of romantic men out there, but playing the odds, yours probably isn’t one of them. If you want to do something specific, speak up! Otherwise just be appreciative that he remembered the date at all. Let’s face it, this is pretty impressive for a lot of guys.

Tip #5: If your Borderline has issues with object constancy… get her/him a gift! Or even a thoughtful card. No, not one of those goofy ones with a pre-written message. A blank card. The kind that you fill up with your own writing. Don’t be afraid to get gooey. Emotionally gooey, I mean. Don’t like, jerk off on the card. That’s just gross. And creepy. Giving a gift or a card that your Borderline can keep with them is an excellent way of saying, “I may not be around all the time, but here’s a small part of me for you to hold on to.”

So there you go. Haven’s tips for a successful Valentine’s Day with your Borderline. Does anyone have any special plans? What am I doing you ask? Nothing. Tech Boy hasn’t brought it up and I’m not going to mention it if he doesn’t. I’m going to the gym, because I do have an eating disorder and if I skip one more workout my head may explode. Head explosion prevention trumps candy company holidays in my book. That doesn’t mean I like the idea of being lonely today (because it’s a day like any other day that I don’t like to be lonely!). Feel free to spend some time here with me =)

EDIT: Soooo I may have plans afterall =X

*I know I use “her” mostly but this also applies to all the “him”s out there too. Writing him/her everywhere is kind of obnoxious and interrupts the flow of my writing. It’s not that I’m discriminating, I’m just lazy. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Take a Tumble with me...

2012-02-13T19:20:00.000-08:00

I don't know if anyone is interested or uses Tumblr.... quite some time ago I had been running a Tumblr for this blog alongside my posting here. As my life got more hectic I sort of let it fall by the wayside. I'm attempting to pick it up again, picking up where I had left off, posting old posts and all the pictures and inspirational quotes, messages, and pictures that I enjoy and tend to correspond with my post. This blog will always be my priority, but it's fun to have the little additions. So if you're interested in reading older posts as I revisit them and seeing the pretty pictures my wacky brain is attracted to, follow me at:

http://borderlinepersonality.tumblr.com/

This blog will still and always have the latest updates and thoughts.

Stop the Ruminations

2012-02-13T06:28:00.000-08:00

Mental Ruminations are distressing and often very unhealthy. If you’re someone like me, you find yourself doing this often.

For all the time spent worrying and creating disastrous scenarios in your mind, how often do you come to a constructive conclusion? Practically never? Hey, me too. Is it just me, or does this seem like a phenomenal waste of time, energy, and emotion?

These aren’t going to stop on their own. The most important thing we need to do in order to stop these is also the hardest thing to do:

Take responsibility for your thoughts and proactively work to change your habits.

Unfortunately there are no quick fixes or easy solutions to this one. Not that I’ve found (unless you’re considering a lobotomy. Please consult a medical professional first. I don’t recommend this. Hah.). If you’re working to heal from Borderline Personality you should be used to this. It doesn’t make it fun, but it’s not something we’ve never heard before.

Why can’t anything be easy? If only……… This. Right here. Is where the problem starts. This is the wrong kind of question. Instead of working to find a productive solution, it is very easy to get caught up in thoughts that push away responsibility and blame the fates.

Step 1. The first thing you NEED to do. With no exception: Realize when you are ruminating. When you see your mind start to run away with it, you need to recognize what you are doing. Say it out loud if that will help, “Hey you, Brain. I see what you’re doing. Right now. You’re ruminating.”

Step 2 can be one of many options, or a combination. But Step 2 is ALWAYS: Be proactive. You need to take responsibility for your mind and do something about it. Fortunately there are a whole lot of things you can do:

1. Talk it out. I know a lot of us have a very hard time doing this because expressing our inner concerns and fears puts us in an emotionally vulnerable place. We’re afraid that if we let someone in on our thoughts we will get hurt by opening up. Well you know what? By not expressing our concerns, by allowing our minds to torment us with “what if” scenarios, we’re hurting ourselves and potentially doing more damage to ourselves than anyone else could do. These thoughts are destructive, harmful, often self-abusive, make us fearful, hurt, angry, paranoid… and when we have the destructive emotions building up it makes it all the more easy for us to explode at the very people we’re afraid of losing in the first place. We have two options:

Disordered Thinking Scenario

1a. Talk to someone, and fear they won’t understand or worse, walk away without caring.

1b. Don’t talk to someone and potentially hurt ourselves and eventually drive them away anyways.

Lose-lose.

Here’s how this actually tends to work out. Realistic Thinking Scernario

1a. Talk to someone that you can trust. At worst they may not understand. At best they can help you brain storm various ways to come up with a constructive solution or figure out better ways to cope with the situation you’re dealing with. At the very least you will have unburdened some of the weight you’re carrying. But I feel bad dumping my problems on people. The thing is, while we may feel the weight of our problems, someone else isn’t going to internalize them the way we do. It’s a burden for us. For them it’s often the simple act of caring and providing a few minutes to listen to you.

1b. Don’t talk to someone. Destructive thoughts build up and multiply like mental gremlins fed after midnight and multiplying in water. Stress yourself out, mentally hurt yourself, and potentially misplace your anxiety and pain on the people around you that you care about.

Wait a minute. Both those #1b’s are practically the same thing. Yep. That’s the point. You can do nothing productive and continue to hurt yourself mentally. Or. You can ‘take a chance’ and ask for a little help. If the thing that is stopping you is being afraid that you will lose the people you care about by asking for help, it doesn’t make any sense to not ask for help… and still potentially lose the people you care about. If you talk it out, you have a much greater possibility of finding a healthy solution while strengthening the bond with whomever you’re confiding in. If you don’t, you still risk the thing you fear. Choose the more productive option.

Sometimes it’s not always possible to talk things through. Maybe no one is around or you’re not in a position where you feel it’s something you can talk about. It happens.

Other things that help me:

2. Do something else – Sometimes my mind just starts picking fights with itself over nothing in particular, or problems that don’t really exist. These are the least productive ruminations in the entire world. The things that helps me the most with these, are to distract my mind by doing something productive. I’ll go to the gym, make an elaborate dinner, pop in Diablo II on my PC because Blizzard still hasn’t released Diablo III yet even though it’s been like a decade, grrr. I digress. Do something that engages you, which you enjoy, and let yourself focus on something else.

3. Schedule some worry time – I’ve mentioned this before. Quite literally pick a day, time, and duration, go someplace quiet and dedicate a small chunk of time to worrying. When the time is up – Stop. Physically leave that space and get on with your life.

4. Journal. Write it out. – It helps me so much to write down the things on my mind. It makes the real problems seem more tangible. At first this sounds bad, but if they’re just these disembodied free floating forms and thoughts they can seem impossible to tackle because you can’t actually get a grasp on them. If you write them down, see them, they become something you can take action against. On the flip side, sometimes by writing things down you give solidity to your fears and are able to recognize just how absurd some of the things you think are. Writing down your fears and anxieties can also help you find patterns to what bothers you and causes you unnecessary stress. When you increase your awareness of the things that motivate your destructive thoughts, it becomes possible to counteract these.

5. Become a list person – I worry about a lot of dumb shit sometimes. I worry about a lot of very real problems and issues though as well. When your mental ruminations involves real problems it is very helpful to compile a list of the things you spend time worrying about. Write them down.

5a. Come up with various solutions, or at the very least, ways of interacting with each item on your list. Use a lot of verbs; doing statements. Use affirmative and positive language as well.

Taking concrete, decisive steps to solving your problems with always make you feel better. I promise.

The great thing about doing these things is you have a plan of attack. Start with some #4 during your scheduled #3. Take the real issues and move on to #5. If possible take that list you made in #5 and sit down with #1. Write down a list of things that trouble you. Take that list to someone you trust and work on creating constructive solutions that you can actually implement.

Instead of ruminating endlessly, destructively, and wastefully…. If you’re going to worry, make your mental activity productive. Do something about it.

I feel three thousand times better when I am able to actual DO something about a problem I’m having. I hate, hate, not being in control of things in my life. The uncertainty of ‘potential’ scenarios is just awful. Instead of leaving situations up to the whims of the world, take control. Things in this world do not get better on their own, especially if people don’t realize anything is wrong in the first place and can’t work with you on it. Recognize something is on your mind, figure out what is really bothering you, decide to do something about it, form a list of things you can actually do, and seek out the resources and help you need to make the changes that will actually benefit you.

I know it sounds like a lot of work, but the simple fact of reality, especially a reality with BPD, is that living requires a certain amount of effort. However the more you do this stuff, the easier it becomes. Until one day you’ll realize you have a problem and instead of wasting massive amounts of time worrying needlessly, you’ll see that you automatically begin fixing your situation without a second thought.

Additional thoughts that a lovely Reader brought to my attention in the Comments below, which I believe is valuable for everyone to see:

A friend gave me a helpful tool. When you catch yourself (the sooner the better) say, out loud if no one is around, "do I want to change this?" And answer "Yes" out loud, again if situation permits.

It’s a self-empowerment technique. You have to really feel the word change. Feel it with a positive, powerful connotation. No room for fear of change, here. In this context, change is your very best friend. This question is your awareness that you are not only the captain of your ship, but you are the waves and the stormy skies as well. You have the omnipotent power, through this simple question, to change your mental scenery.

Lucid Analysis – Trials in Therapy: Endings

2012-02-10T10:12:00.000-08:00

I feel surprisingly better today. Warning: Super long post today. I’m venting.

Without further ado… I am well and thoroughly done with Friend and his wife. I know I came to this conclusion last week, and I meant that, but I had planned on just sort of letting it fade off into nothingness. Yeah, so in actuality I ended up slamming the door shut on it. I was done, but I hadn’t told him that, and was still open to the idea of discussing what the problems were. I got myself back into a more emotionally reasonable place, not hyper emotional, not dissociated and detached, just sort of normal. I explained with greater accuracy how I felt last year, that I’d been healing all this time and that I had needed certain boundaries in our friendship. I have absolutely no impulse control when it comes to physical contact. In the moment all I know is that it feels good and I want to feel good, however the emotional attachments I have to that kind of physical affection are not healthy when I’m trying to focus on simply friendship and not dredge up past romantic feelings. By not allowing physical contact for the last 4 or 5 months in our friendship I was really coming to a better place and was happy with the direction things were going. The last time I was over I was actually in a very good place mentally and emotionally, and relaxed enough to kick back with Friend on the couch. Of course, you may remember, that as soon as I did this he began massaging my feet and my calves and running his hands up and down my legs all the way up past my knees. This is what triggered my emotional flip out on him. I explained that. In just about those term. These are boundaries I need and I needed him to not cross them. At the end I also told him that I have a hard time talking about things like this, because I’m afraid that if I express my emotional needs, people will judge me poorly and leave me. I have a lot of abandonment trauma so it’s difficult for me to place myself into an emotionally vulnerable position with people.

So what did he respond with?

For the last year you let me believe things were ok. You came over, you hung out, we talked all the time. You even seemed to be getting along just fine with [the wife]. I didn't assume you were close to her but you seemed to like talking and were friendly to her. But then I find out it was all a lie.

I'm hurt and, honestly, confused. Right now my main thought is, it shouldn't be this hard to be friends with someone. I shouldn't have to feel like I'm constantly walking on eggshells and dancing around issues I wasn't even told existed.

I need time, and I need space to sort things out. We aren't healthy for one another and I don't know if we ever will be. Please don't contact me anymore.

-Friend-

Who wants to guess how I felt after that? Pissed. The Fuck. Off. Of course I didn’t listen to him either. I did reply pretty impulsively but if anyone has ever seen me ticked off before, my clarity of mind is really pretty astounding. Here’s what I wrote if you’re interested…

Tell yourself whatever you need to in order to make yourself feel better.

I told you quite a long time ago how I felt about your wife. In fact I think I still have that conversation. At this time last year I told you how hurt I was {by what happened}. That I still wanted you in my life, but wasn't dumping my emotional turmoil on you, wasn't a lie, it was a lack of trust in our friendship and something I chose to work on in therapy. It was very personal grief that I do not feel comfortable sharing with people. You like to push away uncomfortable things, but that doesn't mean you weren't informed.

Your right, it shouldn't be so hard. It's been very difficult for me for the entire last year and yet I continued to give you and your wife a chance. I felt this was worth it even though you hurt me terribly. I was civil and acted like an adult, instead of crying over something that I knew couldn't be changed, nor wanted to change after some time had passed and was healing. Most of the time I did enjoy hanging out with you, I did enjoy your company. We had fun and shared a lot of good times. Life throws hurdles at people, I was dealing with them for the whole of last year, making things work and healing. You can't seem to be presented with them for even a couple weeks without fleeing.

My first letter was letting go of feelings that I had a long time ago. I haven't constantly held onto these feelings, but when you triggered me with your actions the last time I was over, they did come flooding back. It was time for me to deal with them, with you, now that I thought we were in a stable place and I have been in a better place mentally. I needed to let those go in order to move back into a place that was ok.

After everything we've been through and been there for each other with, I get one half assed e-mail and an "I can't deal with the consequences of my actions so please don't make me face myself" letter? I'm sorry I ever loved you. I'm sorry I trusted you. I'm sorry that I cared so much about our friendship that I put my feelings aside in order to continue being friends with you. All while I actually made an effort to bring myself to a place where I could truly appreciate what we had again. Progress that I was making beautifully, btw, for the last 4 or 5 months now.

Grief over the loss of an intimate connection is a natural and painful human experience. I'm sorry that I couldn't get over mine on a time table that was more acceptable to you. I am allowed to grieve. I am allowed to be in pain. I was well and truly healing from these things. You triggered me, I decided it was finally time to get this out of my system, so that we could deal with it and avoid it happening again in the future. I have every right to talk when I am ready to talk. And not before.

That I didn't tell you every emotion that was going through my mind at every moment was not a lie. That was my business. Business that you did not have any right to. What goes on with me, is my privilege to tell people. You have no entitlement to my thoughts or emotions. It's not a lie, to not trust someone with vulnerable feelings because they've proven that they cannot be trusted to care for you. I may have still been hurting at points, but that never changed the fact that I still valued our friendship. I would not have bothered to bring any of this up, I would have simply walked away, if I didn't feel there was some value left in this. Being friends, I believed that if I told you about my issues, you would be willing to talk to me about them and work through them. Clearly I overestimated you.

Trying to turn this around on me, and make it my fault, is passive-aggressive and abusive. That is not ok and frankly I'm disgusted. I have had enough abusive people in my life and I didn't expect that of you.

You don't usually walk away from people? I've seen you do nothing but this over and over. I suppose I shouldn't expect you to treat me any better.

"Don't contact me again". Please learn to be an adult and handle your problems directly instead of constantly running away from them. The passive aggressive facebooking is unnecessary as well.

I think you've well and truly proved the kind of person you are at this point. My taste in people is tragic. My problem is I believe people. I give people too much of a chance. I hear what people say and give them the benefit of the doubt that they can actually be the kind of person they say they are. Except people rarely have even a mildly accurate picture of themselves. They glorify themselves in their own mind and then can't deal with reality when it shows them the truth in their own mirror. I know I have problems, I know I'm far from a perfect person, I know I make mistakes, but at least I'm not afraid to face them, or myself.

I'm sorry I wasted so much of my life believing you were someone you are not.

Good-bye

Anyways. So it didn’t end how I was expecting it to, but after the initial shock of it I feel better. Therapist was shocked at his response considering how I described him so highly. I think my idealization phase is over. The man is a coward. Whenever life throws anything even remotely difficult into his path, his solution is to turn tail and run away until the problem disappears. Therapist was proud of me for my final response to him though. I sent it to Roommate as well and, having much the same experience with him, thought it was well stated. I put up with a lot. A LOT. Of peoples bullshit. Once I’m done though. I’m done. And I don’t hold back.

Therapist wishes that he could have shown more emotional maturity instead of running away from his feelings. She thinks his reaction to what I’ve written him is because it forces him to face aspects of himself that he tries to deny. He likes to tell himself and others that he has this crazy code of honor and duty. Except that only applies when things are taking care of themselves. Honor comes from doing the right thing, even when it’s difficult to do. Which he apparently isn’t capable of. He wants to believe things of himself, but I very clearly showed him how he is not these things by the way he acts and by the way he’s treated me.

She also thinks that he was afraid I would walk away so was trying to be the one that left first. Hah, sorry buddy. Too late.

She’s worried that I’ll personalize this. How do I not personalize this? I was good enough to fuck. Good enough to play around with when times were good and good enough to take care of everything he needed when he needed something because his wife sure wasn’t going to do it for him. But when I needed something in order to fix a problem, sorry, that’s too much trouble. Friendship? Doesn’t sound like it.

She thinks that I may have overloaded his senses. He may be reacting defensively and lashing out, but in time he may revisit my words and realize the reality of the situation and hopefully offer an apology. I certainly hope not. She thinks it would have been better had he said he needed time to process everything but would get back to me in a month or two when he had time to really process. I think that would have been worse. The uncertainty, the guessing, that’s the bad part. When I don’t have a solid answer, that’s when I can’t stop the ruminations. No thanks. Even if he’d wanted to take his time, I don’t need to hold out hope for something that hasn’t been good for me. A solid decision is better for me. Plus, the longer we don’t talk, the more of a stranger he’ll feel to me. He already feels like someone I barely know. He’s a familiar face and name but I don’t have any feelings directly attached to our interactions. Not right now. And the longer he’s out of my life, the harder it’s going to be for me to remember why I cared in the first place. There’s a reason a lack of object constancy is a defense mechanism.

Also, the very last thing I said in my previous letter was essentially, “You know I have abandonment trauma, this is the worst thing that could possibly happen”. Ok, I’d already made the decision to leave so this may have been a bit manipulative on my part because I did want to see how he’d react. I was honestly expecting some kind of discussion because previously he’d said he wanted to work on things. I wasn’t expecting: This is too much effort, good-bye. Asshat. So when Therapist thinks he may eventually come back around and offer an apology, all I have to say to that is ‘fuck you’. This was a deliberate statement of “I want to hurt you”. There is no coming back from that.

None of it matters anyways. Therapist kept asking me how I feel. I don’t. All she would do is nod. This is how I deal with abandonment. I shut down. I retreat to place inside to protect myself from the pain. This is something I should have done a long time ago though. I’ve been on the verge of walking away from this friendship so many times but letting go is terrifying. Sometimes having painful conversations, getting awful responses, is the best thing that can happen. It made it very easy for me to let go and now I don’t have to waver between figuring out if I should stay or if I should go.

"Jerk" = proof of emotioanl restraint.

I played the “I hate [how] you [treat me], I can’t leave” game with him for a really long time. The contradiction there is what drives me to madness. Passing into, “I hate you, get the fuck out of my life”… feels much better. There’s no discrepant emotions there.

I spent so much time, so much money, doing stuff for them. Therapist kept trying to get me to remember the good aspects of our friendship; the things I can positively take away. I don’t want to remember the good things right now. Right now I want to be angry.

In retrospect I do realize this is me only seeing him in a solid black light, but it’s emotionally less painful to do so. When I’ve had a little time to process things I’ll start trying to remember the good things and see if I can actually remember the positive emotions associated with that. Attempt to not split this thing up. Right now, I just can’t. Remembering that someone else has their good qualities too, makes me think about how I wasn’t good enough for them. It makes me focus on what is so bad about me that they could let go so easily. Angry is better. Black is better. For now.

I’m getting the urge to move my life again. I figure when it comes time that I decide I can’t live in New York anymore it’ll be one less tie binding me here. The people here are just, shitty. Roommate is a really decent person. I know they exist, but the shear number of people here just makes it hard to weed through the douchebags. I get so tired of trying with people. All I want, is some reciprocity. Is it really too much to ask that someone care about me in a way that is comparable to how I care about them?

Therapy last night was a lot of me being very pissed off, gnashing my teeth, and wiping my hands of stupid people forever. Ya know what, letting go isn’t that scary after all. At least not in this case. Being full of rage probably helps.

I went home after therapy and made Tech-Boy a strawberry-rhubarb pie (his favorite). It’s his birthday tomorrow =) The plan is to go out of state. We shall see, we shall see. He was surprisingly receptive to the whole debacle this week. I mean, I toned it down and didn’t get into a ton of detail because that’s a long ass story. But when I thanked him for listening he just smiled and quoted somebody that said “We have two ears and one mouth for a reason… because listening is twice as important.” Or something along those lines. He also didn’t try to “fix” the problem. Just let me talk.

I feel relieved.

Ruminations

2012-02-09T06:21:00.000-08:00

Whirring. Whirring. Whirringwhirringwirring. Round and round we go. I can’t get these thoughts out of my head. I keep replaying scenes, scenarios, and situations over and over. Each time slightly different. Events tweaked ever so slightly creating wildly differing outcomes. None of them are any good though. They’re all unhappy. At worst they are emotionally vulnerable and devastating. At best they are angry. Very angry. These run away thoughts can spiral me down into an even deeper depression than I’m already in. They can also work me up into a rage-tastic frenzy.

A thousand thoughts going in a million different directions at approximately the speed of light, all at the same time.

I’m talking about mental ruminations. I have no idea why I do this. I have no idea why I can’t control this. The harder I try to focus on something else, the more rebellious my brain tries to be. Thoughts of walking to the corner store for an ice cream run me straight into some situation of insanity walking into me, out the door, and confrontation abounds. I beat myself up as I beat in someone’s face and dig my own mental grave either way.

Ruminations are a way of responding to distress. They’re composed entirely of repetitive thoughts that only focus on that distress; the causes and the potential consequences.

Usually my ruminations are far worse than anything that happens in reality. They’re destructive fantasies that bully their way into the forefront of my mind. I know these things will never happen, but the emotional connection created by them is very real. And very unhealthy. They make me doubt myself. They make me see ulterior motives in the people around me. They make me paranoid.

Not only is there a monster under my bed, but it’s plotting with my best friend behind my back, has an uzi stock pile and is holding my cat hostage. All I wanted was to have a polite conversation~

This is something I’ve always done. Ever since I was young.

Rumination is more common in people who are pessimistic, neurotic, and who have negative attributional styles. The tendency to ruminate is a stable constant over time and serves as a significant risk factor for clinical depression. Not only are habitual ruminators more likely to become depressed, but experimental studies have demonstrated that people who are induced to ruminate experience greater depressed mood. There is also evidence that rumination is linked to general anxiety, post traumatic stress, binge drinking, eating disorders, and self-injurious behavior.

Thanks, Wikipedia! You’ve just described a good chunk of my existence. Ick.

With all the repressed emotions and pent up resentment that I’ve been harboring towards Friend and his wife, and my attempt to actually talk about this with him, I’ve been unable to stop the mental tailspin.

Generally I have two ways of dealing with this. 1. If the thoughts make me depressed, I drink. I know it’s self-medicating and unhealthy, but I NEED my mind to slow down. 2. If the thoughts make me angry, I run. I lace up my awesome bright orange Saucony’s and hit the treadmill. This is constructive and a healthy way to release my emotions. I prefer the angry ruminations. They make me feel stronger. They charge me up. They fuel my desire to make things better. The depressing ones just make me sad and I have a much harder time getting unstuck when I’m mired in a thick grey cloud of depression.

Fortunately I recognize that these thoughts aren’t actually based in reality. I may have a mental fight with Friend, but it’s not one we’ve actually had so I don’t interact with him as if it is. This hasn’t always been the case. Especially if I’m paranoid and second guessing someone’s motivations with me. It’ll make me withdraw. Or trip my hair line trigger of a temper just a bit quicker. I’m prepped and ready to react already before something has even happened. That sucks. It’s not good for anyone.

It helps for me to write them down. To see where my mind is going, get it out, and let them go. The more important the situation is, the more emotionally charged, the harder it is to release though. And right now, I’m pretty charged.

It makes it so hard to focus. Concentration is nonexistent. I feel useless.

There has to be a better way. I’ll look into and let you know what I find.

Letters

2012-02-08T06:49:00.000-08:00

Hello Dear Readers,

Today I don’t have it in me to write. As prepared as you can be for some things in life, it never seems like you can be prepared enough. Heartbreak never gets easier.

Fortunately, I would like to introduce you to a very dear friend that does have it in her to write. Who, in fact, has written an incredibly moving novella that she would like to share with you. The novella is Letters from a Bipolar Mother by Alyssa Reyans. Her story is compelling and extremely relevant to those of us that have struggled with mental illness. Your story may not be the same, but the emotion she describes might be familiar.

The first novella in the series, Letters of a Bipolar Mother, deals with mental illness and depression. I explore in depth what I experienced during my psychotic break and share the aftermath which led to my being separated from my children.

I know how difficult it can be to live inside an all-consuming darkness. I wanted to give a voice to those who have not only survived depression, mental illness, and abuse, but also let them know they are not alone. The only way the stigma of mental illness can be removed is by people coming forward and talking about it. I hope by sharing my experiences I am able to help others.

Today and tomorrow she is promoting her book and would like to offer this tale to you FREE of charge, downloadable from Amazon. < ----- Just click on that link. I encourage you to support her.

Love,

Haven

Recognizing The Outer Child

2012-02-07T09:16:00.000-08:00

While I’m talking about The Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson, a while back I talked about the Outer Child. Her book specifically focuses on abandonment trauma, not necessarily Borderline Personality Disorder, but as most of us have clear abandonment issues I think it’s very applicable. She hypothesizes that we have 3 parts to our personality: The Adult Self, The Inner Child, and The Outer Child. The Adult Self is that rational, functional human being that we strive for as a healthy person. The Inner Child is the vulnerable part of you that needs to be nurtured and cared for. Now, Outer Child is a little devil. I mentioned before:

Outer Child acts out your inner child's feelings - especially your abandonment feelings - without giving you, the adult, a chance to intervene. When you feel hurt, angry, or insecure, Outer acts out these feelings in ways that sabotage your relationships. Outer works like a bungling undercover agent in trying to protect (overprotect) you from abandonment. Stealthy, quick, and misguided, it intercepts love before you ever know what happened.

We all have ways of feeling about certain things that happen in our lives. These feelings often correlate to very distinct behavior, and often those behaviors are destructive. That’s the Outer Child taking over. Learning to recognize the behaviors of our individual Outer Child is one way to increase our Self-Awareness. When we understand the behaviors that come with this part of our Self that acts out, it’s easier to mitigate these behaviors and choose a healthier way to respond to situations. Even if it’s just to take a step back and not react at all.

So what does the behavior of the Outer Child look like? Here’s an inventory of 100 things that Outer Child might do, think, or feel. It’s not complete because everyone is different, but you should get the idea and begin to form a clearer picture of what your own Outer Child looks like.

1. Outer child is selfish, controlling, self-centered part of all of us.

2. Outer child encompasses all of the outward signs of the inner child’s vulnerability – all of the scars, the warts, the defenses that show on the outside.

3. Outer child is developmentally around seven or eight. Self-centeredness is age appropriate for the outer child.

4. Outer child wears many disguises, especially in public. Since other people’s out children are usually well hidden, you may think you are the only one with an outer child.

5. Outer child is the hidden Chuckie of the personality. Even the nicest people we know can act like a seven-year-old with a full blown behavior disorder when they feel threatened enough.

6. Outer child is developmentally old enough to have its own little executive ego (much to our chagrin). It’s old enough to forcefully exercise its will be not old enough to understand the rights and feelings of others. (Inner child isn’t old enough to have its own ego, so it has to appropriate ours).

7. Outer child steps right in and takes over, even if we had every intention of handling a particular situation in a mature, adult manner. Outer child handles things is own way, leaving us holding the bag.

8. Outer child can dominate your personality if you’ve had a history of repeated abandonments. Many abandonment survivors of childhood are mostly outer child.

9. Outer child throws temper tantrums and goes off on tirades if it feels criticized, rejected, or abandoned. If Outer seems emotionally disturbed, it’s because of what you’ve been through. Don’t blame your outer child – it doesn’t react well to blame.

10. Outer child takes revenge against the self. It sees itself apart from self and creates a schism between Big (Adult self) and Little (Inner Child) whenever an opening presents itself.

11. Outer child likes to blame its faults on your mate. It tries to get you to imagine that your unacceptable traits belong to your mate.

12. Outer child doesn’t like to do things that are good for you.

13. Outer child would rather do something that will make you fat or broke rather than thin or fiscally responsible.

14. Outer child is a hedonist.

15. Outer child talks about your friends behind their backs.

16. Outer child thrives on chaos, crisis, and drama.

17. Outer child enjoys playing the victim.

18. Outer child distracts you when you’re trying to concentrate.

19. Outer child loves to play martyr.

20. Outer child is a world-class procrastinator.

21. Outer child makes huge messes that take forever to clean up.

22. Outer child makes you late for appointments.

23. Outer child loses things and blames it on others.

24. Outer child can find an excuse for anything.

25. Outer child tries to look cool and makes you look foolish.

26. Outer child is the yes but of the personality.

27. Outer child is reactive rather than active or reflective. – I am much less reactive now. At least in behavior. The feelings are often still there but I am getting better at controlling the manifestation of them.

28. Outer child explodes when it encounters difficulties with its own abilities.

29. Outer child can never be wrong.

30. Outer child hates asking for help. It’s stubborn, ornery, blind and pigheaded.

31. Outer child acts like a tyrant but is secretly a coward, afraid to assert its needs.

32. Outer child acts gracious when a friend steps on one of your toes and then holds onto the anger for the next twenty years.

33. Outer child specializes in blame; if it has an uncomfortable feeling, somebody must be at fault.

34. Outer child uses crying as a manipulation.

35. Outer child criticizes others to keep the heat of itself.

36. Outer child has a phony laugh to cover up stray feelings.

37. Outer child acts on its own, rather than consulting us, the adult.

38. Outer child needs total control to avoid having to feel inner child’s feelings, especially hurt, loneliness, disappointment, or loss.

39. Outer child can’t stand waiting, especially for a significant other to return your call.

40. Outer child doesn’t form relationships – it takes emotional hostages.

41. Outer child doesn’t like to show its vulnerability; it keeps it injuries hidden. -- !!!!!!!!

42. Outer child will demand, defy, deceive, ignore, balk, manipulate, seduce, pout, whine, and retaliate to gets its needs for acceptance and approval met. It doesn’t see this as a contradiction.

43. Outer child has a favorite feeling: anger. In fact, outer child’s only feeling is anger. – Anger is my deadly sin.

44. Outer child has a hole in its pocket when it comes to either anger or money. Both must be spent right away and damn the consequences!

45. Outer child wants what it wants immediately. Yesterday.

46. Outer child wants to get right in the middle of things when you try to start a new relationship. It becomes more reactive, more demanding, more needy than ever before.

47. Outer child may be found in our mates. Sometimes we marry a person who can act out our own outer child wishes. Hopefully, our mate’s outer child doesn’t act out against us.

48. Outer child may be found in our children’s behavior. When we get into power struggles with one of our real children, we find ourselves battling our own outer child. Sometimes we secretly encourage or real children to fulfill our outer child needs. They act out the anger we don’t want to own.

49. Outer child goes off on a rampage if it detects even the subtlest signs of abandonment. This leaves Little in jeopardy, unprotected.

50. Outer child strives for its own self-interest while pretending to protect Little. But your outer child wants one thing only: control.

51. Outer child is a people-pleaser with ulterior motives. It will give others the shirt off your back. And what have you got to show for it? Nothing. You’re left cold and naked.

52. Outer child is not old enough to care about others. Only you, the adult, can do that.

53. Outer child tests the people it looks to for security – to the limits.

54. Outer child tests new significant others with emotional games. Its favorite is playing hard to get.

55. Outer child can be very cunning, putting its best foot forward when pursuing a new partner. It can act the picture of altruism, decency, kindness, and tolerance.

56. Outer child can also be seductive, funny, charming, and full of life. When it succeeds in catching its prey, it suddenly becomes cold, critical, unloving, and sexually withholding. Outer child makes us pity the person willing to love us.

57. Outer child is the addict, the alcoholic, the one who runs up your credit cards and breaks your diet.

58. Outer child enjoys breaking rules. Your best friends may have very dominant outer children living within. Their rebelliousness might be what you enjoy most about them.

59. Outer child actively ignores you, the adult, especially when you try to tell it what to do. Outer child just goes right on doing what it wants to do. – 99% of the time I can look at my life situations, logically reason my way through the best decisions and courses of action to take, and then with full knowledge of what is best for me, go right ahead and do what I know is bad for me anyways because it’s what feels good in the moment. I do this All. The. Time.

60. Outer child strives for independence. Maybe someday your outer child will become independent enough to leave home, but don’t count on it.

61. Outer child gains strength during dormant periods. Then, when you feel vulnerable, your outer child acts out, jeopardizing the new relationship.

62. Outer child tries to defeat the task of intimacy, which is to get your inner child to become friends with your mate’s inner child. Intimacy is when you nurture each other’s inner child and don’t take each other’s outer child too personally.

63. Outer child loves to hook up with your mate’s outer child. They instantly get into power struggles. It is futile to try to control each other’s outer children. Your best bet is to find something for your outer children to do other than interfere in the relationship. If you can’t ignore them, send them out to play.

64. Outer child has enough vanity and pride to try to conquer an emotionally dangerous love, one who is potentially rejecting, distancing, and abandoning.

65. Outer child thinks emotionally unavailable people are sexy. – This is beyond true for me. It’s almost romantic law.

66. Outer child is attracted to form rather than substance.

67. Outer child wants what it wants – emotional candy. This goes against what’s good for Little, who needs someone capable of giving love, nurturance, and commitment.

68. Outer Child seeks all the wrong people. It can’t resist a lover who won’t commit. – On some level this seems safer because there’s no real threat of true intimacy.

69. Outer child refuses to learn from mistakes. It insists upon doing the same things over and over.

70. Outer child developed during the rage phase of old abandonments when there was no one available to mitigate your pain.

71. Outer child becomes most powerful when Big and Little are out of alignment.

72. Outer child believes laws and ethics are for everyone else.

73. Outer child obeys rules only to avoid getting caught.

74. Outer child can dish it out but can’t take it.

75. Outer child can be holier than thou.

76. Outer child loves chocolate and convinces you that it’s good for your heart.

77. Outer child beats up on other people’s inner children – especially the inner child of a significant other.

78. Outer child bullies its own inner child. -- Big Time. I’m much worse to myself than I am to anyone else.

79. Outer child tries to get self-esteem by proxy by chasing after someone who has a higher social status.

80. Outer child can deliver a subtle but powerful blow if it perceives a social slight, no matter how small.

81. Outer child covers up in public. Some people are better able to hide their outer child than others. Of course, some outer children are easier to hide than others.

82. Outer child can’t hide from your closest family members: they know. That is what intimacy is all about: the exposure of your outer children.

83. Outer child can express anger by becoming passive. A favorite disguise is compliance. Outer child uses compliance to confuse others into thinking that it doesn’t want control. But don’t be fooled; outer child is a control freak.

84. Outer child finds someone to take for granted and treats them badly without having to fear rejection.

85. Outer child expects new significant others to compensate it for all of the hurts and betrayals inflicted by old relationships dating all the way back to childhood. – This is one I have to think about. I never thought about this before but something in there rings true.

86. Outer child protests against anything that reminds it of being on the rock (abandoned).

87. Outer child refuses to stay on the rock. Unlike Little, Outer climbs down, picks up a hatchet, and goes on the warpath.

88. Outer child has a chip on its shoulder, which it disguises as assertiveness.

89. Outer child is like the annoying older brother who constantly interferes in the guise of protecting you.

90. Outer child doesn’t obey the golden rule.

91. Outer child obeys its own outer child rule: Get others to treat you as you want to be treated, and treat others as you feel like treating them. -- For me the opposite is true. I treat people exactly like I wish they would treat me, in hopes that they will treat me that way, but I always choose the wrong people, the emotionally unavailable people, to do this for. This results in hurtful resentment more often than not.

92. Outer child needs to be disciplined, but don’t expect limit-setting to go smoothly.

93. Outer child provokes anger in subtle ways, then accuses others of being abusive. Outer loves to play the indignant injured party. (Gaslighting).

94. Outer child submits so it can seethe at being dominated.

95. Outer child knows how to wear the white hat (play the good guy).

96. Outer child is master at making the other person look like the bad guy.

97. Outer child behavior ranges from mild self-sabotage all the way to criminal destructiveness.

98. Outer child can gain control so early; the individual doesn’t develop any true empathy or compassion for himself or others. The extreme outer child is a sociopath.

99. Outer child needs to be understood, owned, and overruled by an airtight coalition between the inner child and the adult.

100. Outer child holds the key to change. Inner child beholds our emotional truth, but can’t change. When you catch your outer child red-handed, wrest the key from its hands and unlock your future.

From here it’s possible to separate feelings from behavior. People often use feelings as an excuse for unacceptable behavior, but the truth of the matter is, these behaviors are almost never ok.

I’ve highlighted in green some of the Outer Child behaviors and thoughts I’ve recognized in myself over the years. They don’t all apply anymore, but I’ve noticed them at one point or another. Which ones do you see most strongly in yourself?

*Both my Inner and Outer Children like a lot of colors =P

The Four Cornerstones of Self

2012-02-06T08:59:00.000-08:00

I mentioned a while back that I’m reading a book Therapist recommended me called The Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson (review to come soon).

It talks about the 5 stages of abandonment grief: Shattering, Withdrawal, Internalizing the Rejection, Rage, and Lifting.

In stage 3 Internalizing the Rejection she asks you to keep in mind The Four Cornerstones of Self. These are those basic inalienable aspects of what it means to be a human being. No matter what happens in your life nothing can diminish these things. “These are invincible principles of self that no one can take form you.”

The Four Cornerstones of Self

Facing, accepting, and ultimately celebrating your separateness as a person. We are, each of us, a wholly separate human being, whether we are in a relationship or have just ended one. We enter the world and depart from it on our own.
Celebrating the importance of your own existence. You are not more or less important than anyone else. Every person’s existence is important, and it is up to you to value and respect your own. Regardless of your age, attributes, or physical capacities, each person’s existence is important. Life is a fleeting, precious gift that must be realized in the moment.
Facing and accepting your reality. No matter how difficult things may be for you at this moment, it is the only reality you have. Remember that it is always changing and that you are the force that moves it forward. You may not have chosen the challenges you now face, and chances are you are not to blame for the things that have gone wrong. But the situation is yours to deal with. You can choose to rail against it, or you can make the best of it. The responsibility for owning it and c hanging it belongs to you.
Enhancing your capacity to love. I believe that most people use only about 5 percent of their capacity to love. Love is one of the most compelling powers we possess as human beings. You cannot control the love of another, but you can increase your own capacity to give and receive love and all the benefits that flow from it.

You, as a person, have worth and value independent of anyone else in your life. You need to value you. This is something I struggle with often. I’ve had a lifetime of being not good enough. Says who? Why does anyone else get to tell me what I should be striving for in my life? It’s my life. I get to choose what goals I want to reach and how I get there. No one else has the right to define my value as a person.

I also like this because it reminds you that you are responsible for your own life. So often we get caught up in blaming. If he hadn’t done this, that wouldn’t have happened. If she had only listened I wouldn’t have to feel this way. It’s not my fault this happened. And so on. All of that may be true, but the simple fact of reality is that these things happened. Understanding where the problem originated is helpful so that you can avoid that situation in the future. Blaming, passing the buck, and refusing responsibility for yourself only mires you in the past. Stuck. Ultimately you control your own life and the choices that propel you into the future. You must decide for yourself where you go from there. No one else is going to take responsibility for your life, for you. You must do that. No matter how you got to the place you are in, you get to choose where you will go next.

2 and 3 are conclusions I came to a long time ago and have very much embraced on this road to healing from my mental health issues. I still struggle with accepting myself, but I’m getting there. And if I’m really honest I have to admit that love still scares me. I have a lot to work on there. I can give love. I can give of myself to others, but I’m afraid to receive love because I’m afraid that it will be taken away. I’d rather not have love in the first place than have to mourn the loss of it. All love is a gift though. Not all love leaves. If it does though, that simply leaves room for new love to come in.

Ask Haven! Episode 3: Obsession

2012-02-04T16:39:00.000-08:00

A Reader asks : How much obsession is too much obsession when in love?

Well first let’s start off with: What is obsession? The dictionary says:

Obsession =

1. Compulsive preoccupation with an idea or an unwantedfeeling or emotion, often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety.

2. A compulsive, often unreasonable idea or emotion.

As I’ve written about before, I’m not sure I know the difference between real love and obsession. However I do recognize that a compulsive preoccupation with anything is probably not healthy.

So the short answer is: Any amount of obsession is too much obsession when you’re in love.

Obsession is an unhealthy preoccupation with the object of fixation. Love should be a mutual emotional act between two people. You can be in love, think about someone often, want to make their lives better, but maintain your own identity as a person. When you are obsessed with someone you love, your own identity begins to slip away in favor of being everything you believe that person desires. Losing who you are as a person is not healthy.

Obsession often leads to stress and anxiety when you can’t constantly be in the prescense of the one you love. Your very happiness seems to depend on them. No one should have this kind of control over your mind.

Being in love is a beautiful place to be. Being in obsession is not.

Lucid Analysis – Trials in Therapy: Good Decisions, Bad Decisions

2012-02-03T09:43:00.000-08:00

Good Intentions still hurt.

::deep breath::

I managed to get Therapist kind of worked up last night, but she wasn’t angry at me. She was angry at Friend. Remember I sent him the letter I needed to send him. He responded. I responded again. It’s been a week now and I haven’t heard back from him. I read therapist the letters that I sent him and his response so far.

I was floored by her reaction honestly. When I first read his response I thought he was being gentle with his words. I only really read it through once or twice. I can’t read things like that a lot. It’s painful. I also do this thing where I’ll skip to the end and read a letter backwards. Gradually skipping back up to beginning, reading things out of order, before I read it straight through. Does anyone else do this?

When I read it back to her, she asked me how I felt. Honestly, I was pretty annoyed. He did acknowledge that how he acted and how he treated me was wrong and that I deserved to have been treated better. That he failed me in that way. However…. and he pompused himself up a whole bunch, lied a couple times, and made a lot of hot air about how much ‘they let me into their lives’. ::blinks:: Plus the tone was just, flat.

He ended with this: But I can't have you seething at my wife all the time. Or even quietly hating her. It would make socializing uncomfortable at best. You need to sort out your problems with her and reach some sort of accord. Healing can't happen if theres hate and resentment. It can't. I don't want to lose you as a friend, but I don't want our future interactions to be strained and awkward either. I want you and I and {her} to work this out because she values you as well. We both do.

I’m sorry. You’re worried about things being uncomfortable… now? This isn’t new information I told him. He’s always known that I didn’t care for his wife. Also… I’ve been beyond uncomfortable around them for the past YEAR! I’ve managed to suck it up and act like an adult because I valued my friendship with him. Of all the vulnerable emotions, hurt, love, and value I’d placed on our friendship and told him in my previous letter, right now he’s worried about awkward socializing? Our past interactions have been strained and awkward for me, for the last year.

My relationship is with him. My problems are with him. He does not get to dictate terms. Friendship shouldn’t involve terms of engagement. He doesn’t get to tell me how I need to be.

Part of the reason I valued him so much as a friend is because I sincerely believed that he accepted who I am as a person. All of me, even the bad parts that I usually hide. Accepting someone means working with them to figure things out, it does not mean telling them they have to change to make socializing less awkward.

Amongst many things in my reply I told him: No, I would not be seeking a relationships with his wife.

I’ve never had a relationship with his wife. She’s never had much of an interest in me, except for what I provide them. What I can do for her. Beyond that, I have severe issues of object constancy.

With Friend, because we did have a very intense, positive and meaningful relationship I was able at times to feel truly connected to him. This is also why everything hit me so hard. Things hit me hard but it meant he felt like a real presence in my life. Part of the reason my connection to him was so strong, was that we were in such close and constant contact. It made him consistently real to me on an emotional level, not just a cognitive one so our friendship was essentially whole. Because I felt this connection, I can understand that there is something meaningful there to hold onto. It allows me to hold onto the thought that he is someone of value in my life and keeps me from splitting him into a place where I cannot form an attachment any longer. I’ve never had this connection with his wife. Like most everyone, she is just another passing face, an annotation next to his picture. I have zero emotional connection to her. She also suffered an absolute devaluation with me. Despite all warnings from people I did place some small trust in her. She threw it back in my face and tried to use it against me to victimize me emotionally. All that actually accomplished was to piss me off, but all previous value I’d been able to maintain, shattered. Besides how she’s treated me (and there were lots of little bullshit things she’s done), I’ve watched how she treats other people. I saw how she treated Friend, I saw how she treats people she considers friends, I saw how she gossips, instigates drama, and tries to manipulate people when they call her on her bullshit. She has zero integrity and treats people very poorly. At least when I fuck up I can admit it. She just blames everyone else. I’ve had too many abusive and destructive friendships in my life, and she is not the kind of person I will willingly allow close to me. So I’m sorry, but no.

I haven’t heard back from him since, other than some passive-aggressive Facebook comments. Typical.

Therapist noted my 2^nd letter was of an entirely different attitude. I heard her sighing and sucking in her breathe at times. She told me she could hear in my letter how I was shutting down emotionally and acting to protect myself. She could hear me intellectualizing my feelings (< ~~~~ This is funny because I was just talking to someone about this very thing and she said it). I intellectualize in order to help protect the more vulnerable aspects of myself. It probably contributes to why I can write this blog the way that I do. But I’m pushing away the experience of actually feeling those emotions.

She was very angry. She doesn’t usually give me advice or make decisions for me. She lets me do that for myself. She had a very solid opinion that I should end this friendship. I left out a lot of what he wrote me, but she believes that he and his wife, are fucking crazy. While his words may express favorable sentiment, his attitude, the flatness of the content, and the message as a whole, expresses something very different.

I’m not sure how I feel about ending it yet, but it felt good to hear someone make a solid decision about what I should do. I told Roommate about it too and she agreed that it sounds like a healthy decision to cut them out of my life (which is an experience she herself has already been through).

I think I’m going to do something very out of character. I’m actually going to listen for a change.

Therapist doesn’t think I need to tell him “THIS FRIENDSHIP IS OVER” or anything like that. She thinks that might be too traumatic and triggering for me. But it would be healthiest for me if I collected my thoughts and let this friendship go in favor of having the opportunity to cultivate newer, healthier relationships. I still feel like I'm abandoning this one. It's a contradiction of my own fears that I can't reconcile yet.

Homework: Write a letter of closure for this friendship. I don’t have to send this to him, but for myself I do.

Therapist believes Friend was a catalyst for me. This was a relationship that inspired change in me. It allowed me to remember that I could be close to another person, that I could love another person, care more about someone than I do for myself and grow in a positive way because of that person. That he doesn’t seem to have grown or changed at all is unfortunate and a failing of his character, not mine. It’s important for me to look back and remember the positive things that came from this relationship. Like the fact that it is possible for me to feel safe with someone.

Though at this point I had to question my ability to trust myself. How can I trust myself or how I feel if this ending is the result? Clearly my feelings about the situation were wrong. Therapist disagreed. She believes my feelings were very real. And perfectly appropriate for how our relationship developed and the intimacy that was cultivated between us. That he is incapable of reciprocating the same level of caring is his failing, not mine. And not something I should waste any more time hoping for.

Not all relationships are meant to last. But they can all be meaningful in ways. Even if it hurts to see them end. I grew a lot in this relationship. I learned a lot about myself and the things I care about (and don’t) in people. I don’t feel ready to let it go yet, but I think I have to anyways. When left to my own devices I make terrible decisions about people and relationships. I routinely ignore what people tell me about others in favor of finding out for myself and hoping that things will be different with me. Well ya know what? Sometimes other people are right. There is no doubt in my mind that Therapist only has my best interest in mind. No ulterior motives, no personal agenda. She sees how very triggering this relationship has become over the last year and how emotionally destructive it’s been for me. Just because something can be pieced back together doesn’t mean it will ever be whole.

They say BPD is a disorder of relationships. Frankly I think the human condition is a disorder of relationships.

Aye. Tech Boy! As I mentioned earlier this week, it was my birthday on Wednesday. He surprised me with a night out to my favorite restaurant. For as much as I believe he is emotional immature or unavailable, he’s been surprising me a lot. The sweetness of that night was definitely one of those times. We got back to my apartment, spent a couple of tense moments picking a movie before I couldn’t restrain myself anymore and practically tore his clothes off. We didn’t even make it to the bedroom. The heat radiating between us was just that intense. Afterwards we just laid down on the couch, he pulled me on top of him, legs all entangled, brushing his fingertips lightly over my skin, wrapping his arms around me tightly. Every now and again he’d tilt my chin up and just stare into my eyes, finally kissing me. He may not be verbally expressive when it comes to emotions, but he finds other ways.

I actually had a medium sized freak out earlier that day and I thought whatever we were doing was over. My boss needed some last minute stuff so I asked Tech Boy to put it together right away (this is one of the projects that he works with me on). It was necessary for me to override some previous work requests he had and essentially display my authority in a pretty demanding way. I was CONVINCED he was going to be furious at me. In my mind all the reasons why we shouldn’t tangle up personal and professional relationships came crashing down around me. My stress and anxiety levels were off the chart. He just got it done as fast as he could. He never seemed bothered, but my mind was running away with me.

When I got home I actually texted him to see if we were still on, and told him I’d understand if he didn’t want to go out because I’d made the afternoon so stressful. He completely laughed it off, told me not to take my job so seriously, and said he’d be by in an hour. Relief.

Therapist was impressed. She thinks he has a very mature capability for keeping personal and professional aspects of our lives separate.

And then last night he busted out with, “You keep making a better and better case for having a girlfriend”. He’d asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner {tonight}. I’d inquired as to whether it was just us or if there was something going on because of all the going away parties and whatnot. He said, “Just us, I don’t think anyone else would be up for it.” I told him I was happy with just us. He said, “Me too, I want to make that happen more often…” and that’s when the girlfriend statement came into play. Gotta say, I was pretty shocked. It’s like a baby step in the direction of thinking about a relationship, but that he’s thinking about a relationship at all is sort of a shocker.

I was so down after therapy. Therapy can be very painful. And I come home, and am greeted with these warm sentiments and him telling me he wants me to be in his life more. Not gonna lie, I was pretty elated.

I just want to be wanted. Sometimes I think this is why Borderlines get such a bad rap or have such impulses to cheat. We crave this constant affirmation that we’re needed in someone’s life. Necessary. That kind of emotional attention coupled with the physical expression is just addicting.

I’m still very guarded. And conflicted. I think I’m afraid to be happy. I’m afraid to place that kind of hope into another person. I can have hope for myself, but I have some degree of control there. I don’t with someone else. Which is probably why I still don’t think this is a great idea, but it feels good and I’m just kind of letting it go where it will go right now.

It shouldn’t be so hard to let go of a hurtful relationship and open yourself up to a caring one. It shouldn’t be. So why do both scenarios cause so much pain?

Thoughts from the Borderline: Change

2012-02-02T05:39:00.000-08:00

“…I still feel like dying sometimes when I’m overwhelmed but I have to maintain hope. As long as you’re alive there’s a chance for change. As long as things can change, these feelings can change, and there’s a chance to be happy. Or at least a lot happier. Some days I think I’m naive. All days I remember that this is the only life and chance I get so it’s my responsibility to make it worthwhile. Even if I don’t always like the idea of it.”

~Haven~ ... my Readers inspire my thoughts. Love.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2012-02-01T06:16:00.000-08:00

As Tech Boy reminded me yesterday, today is my birthday! I knew it was coming up, I’ve just been so busy with work and this blog that I completely forgot to, well, remember what day it was. It’s Today! So yeah, I made no plans, no parties, no celebrations. I asked Tech Boy if I should bring in cupcakes today or dye my hair instead. He told me to pamper myself since he planned to pick something up for me. Then he also surprised me by deciding to take me out to my favorite local restaurant after work today =) Aw. So now my hair is a lovely deep black cherry once again and I’m going to a beautiful Eastern Gothic restaurant for dinner.

I am officially one day older than I was yesterday and have seen my way around the sun once more. I don’t usually think birthdays are much of an accomplishment, but when you’re not always sure if you want to see the next one, it’s a bigger accomplishment than it initially seems.

Go, me.

If anyone would like to dress up like Marilyn and sing me Happy Birthday I promise to give you some executive orders.

That’s all I got. Cheers!

The “How’s” of Mindfulness: Effectively

2012-02-01T06:03:00.000-08:00

We’ve gone over how to be mindful Non-Judgmentally and One-Mindfully (is it just me or is this word a little cumbersome to place grammatically?) so today we’re going to finish up with learning to be Effectively mindful.

It’s exactly what it sounds like it is. Learning any new skill takes time, training, and practice. As you practice your proficiency becomes more refined and your ability to utilize those skills becomes more effective. This allows you to maximize the benefits of the skills you’re developing.

In short, to be effective you need to do what works. And developing the skills that will aid you in coping with life situations are what work.

In DBT the major skills that you learn are core mindfulness (which is what I’ve been talking about), emotional regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and distress tolerance. Your whole goal is to bring about the most positive outcomes you can and effectively implementing these skills are major aids in helping you achieve a more balanced, less stressful life. And let’s face it, living a life that is less earth shattering, and actually happier, is the entire point. Not traumatizing everyone else around us is also a pleasant bonus.

As I’ve mentioned though, it takes time and practice, and yes even patience, to really get a handle on some of these skills and ways of thinking. Being effectively mindful is not about the end result. It’s about the process. Every time you try and make these changes, and use this thinking you’re increasing the positive outcome of your mental journey. It’s about developing the skills, connecting to the moment you’re in, and focusing your mind on creating more positive outcomes.

In order to do this it’s important to not avoid the problems we face. This is something that is EXTREMELY difficult for me to do. I love to avoid my problems, bury my emotions, push them aside and leave them to rot in a dark hole until they fester and infect my psyche. This is bad. There are a lot of ways to learn to actively engage your problems that DBT helps you learn. One of the key benefits that I find with this is it allows you to gain control. This isn’t something that’s really talked about as far as I’ve seen, but I know my big issue is control.

I avoid things I don’t have control over. Lacking control creates an intense anxiety in me. Avoid problems and emotions leaves the possibilities open to endless ruminations and wanderings of the mind. You can’t see an end to the problem when you refuse to even look at the problem directly. One of the best ways to regain control and put your mind at ease, is constructive confrontation. Identify the problem, square up your shoulders, and pop it straight in the nose. Figuratively speaking (especially if your problem is a person – physical assault is also bad). When you confront your problem effectively you can begin to create constructive solutions. At the very least you can channel your emotions directly and release them in a healthy way instead of letting them fester. But you need to be WILLING to take a look at the situation. A willingness to change is key to living a healthier lifestyle. No one can make you change. Change has to come from within. You must be willing to take some responsibility for the life you want to lead.

Once you’ve made the decision to change you also need to be willing to follow through and do what needs to be done for each scenerario whether it’s something you want to do or not. As much as I would love for life to be all puppies and rainbows, sometimes we have to do things we’d rather not do because it’s actually in our best instance (like telling Friend how his actions hurt me, even though there’s the potential for him to be mad at me). When you are willing to face a situation, you are in a place to recognize the reality of it. Sometimes it’s painful, not everything in life is easy, but being willing to accept the distressing aspects of life, actually reduces the intensity of the loss and pain because you can see it for what it is. A problem with me, and many with BPD, is that our imaginations run the fuck away with us. The monsters in our mind are by far worse than the scrappy little mutt of reality. Being willing to face the pain, allows you to recognize that the monster isn’t real, and what you’re actually faced with is much more manageable.

“Act as skillfully as you can, meeting the needs of the situation you are in. Not the situation you wish you were in; not the one that is just; not the one that is more comfortable; not the one that… Meeting the situation you are in may require you to dismiss your wishes, abandon your ideas of justice, and leave your comfort zone.”

Wishing is a way to avoid. Wishes indicate that you are trying to solve your problems by magic not by using skills.

Thoughts of injustice provoke anger and increase stress. If the situation is not just, remember, life is not fair.

Comfort is temporary. Tolerating discomfort is much easier if you learn distress tolerance skills. [source]

And don’t forget to incorporate the rest of yourmindfulness into each situation. Observe what is happening. Don’t judge it. Decide to participate by effectively facing the situation and doing what you need to do to make the most of the situation. Not all situations turn out great, but they can certainly turn out better than you fear.

Because srsly, this guy knows what he's talking about.

The "How's" of Mindfulness: One-Mindfully

2012-01-31T05:27:00.000-08:00

Last time I talked about being Non-Judgmentally Mindful. Today I want to talk about being One-Mindfully.

"Mindfulness has to do with the quality of awareness that we bring to what we are doing and experiencing, to being in the here and now. It has to do with learning to focus on being in the present, to focusing our attention on what we are doing and what is happening in the present. We have to learn to control our attention. Many of us are distracted by images, thoughts and feelings of the past, perhaps dissociating, worrying about the future, negative moods and anxieties about the present. It's hard to put these thing away and concentrate on the task at hand.

So the One-mindfulness skill is an effort to help us focus our attention on the here and now, to be able to absorb the DBT information and take part in the present. Please do not judge yourselves about this. This can be a difficult skill for people to learn. It requires lots of practice and willingness. Be patient with yourself.” [source]

Put simply to be of one mind, means to do one thing at a time. If you’re like me your mind often runs at top speed, barreling through a dozen different issues at once. It’s no wonder everything always feels so hectic. One-mindfulness asks you to slow this down. All things will continue to be there in the future. In the now, right now, just pick one. If you’re eating, just eat. If you’re with a group of people, or having a conversation, just focus your attention on that moment.

DBT has roots in Buddhist meditation and this is one place I see it most strongly. If other thoughts or actions distract you, note them, but try to let them go. This is not easy. It takes practice.

One-mindfully is sustained attention in the present moment. This helps develop concentration. It also makes things more manageable. When you’re staring at a mountain of worries, it can be overwhelming. When you focus on one thing at a time, you realize that things are manageable. Doing one thing at a time decreases your anxiety by allowing your mind to focus on one thing, pushing preoccupation about everything else into the background.

Make no mistake. Letting go of distractions, distracting thoughts, intrusive memories, can be difficult. You may be only able to concentrate on one thing for a short time before some other thought jumps into your head unbidden. Push it away. Allow yourself to refocus on what you were previously doing. Do this over and over. It does take practice, but you can get there. And you’ll begin to see the calmness that comes with doing only one thing at a time.

“Awareness of your attention gives you the opportunity to direct it to one thing or another. Distractions will come from all directions. Let distractions go and turn your mind toward what you are doing. Returning to what you are doing is powerful. A deceptively simple strategy when you find your thoughts wandering astray is to say to yourself, “Be here now” and turn your mind toward what you are doing.

Concentrate your mind.

Concentration is the gathering of the mind, bringing all the parts together, uniting the mental faculties. Attention is focusing on a selected object. Intuition, desire, and curiosity naturally concentrate your mind. Concentration is one of the qualities of Wise Mind.

If you find you are doing two things at once, stop and go back to one thing at a time.

Focusing on one thing in the moment does not mean that one cannot do complex tasks requiring many simultaneous activities. Like the dancer on the dance floor, at one with the music and her partner, attend completely to what you are doing. Dancing integrates many processes – listening, moving, looking, and balance, but you are still doing only one thing.” [source]

You may think that just doing one thing at a time is easier said than done. In this day and age everything is so often hectic and rushed. You may feel pressured to multi-task and do many things at one time just to get everything in. I’m very guilty of this. However, the reality of this is, that when your mind is focuses on many things at once, your attention to quality is also divided. If you focus 100% on one thing, you are putting all of your effort into producing something with undivided quality. If you focus on 4 things at once, multi-tasking, it’s impossible to give each task the maximum amount of effort, and therefore the maximum amount of quality you would be able to give it if you were focusing on that thing alone. One project gets 100% of your attention. Four projects allow each to get about 25% of your attention. Math doesn’t lie.
Some Skills to work on:

Letting go of distractions – Thoughts, worries, strong feelings, fears, memories; all of these things may creep into your mind unbidden and unwanted. Try to let them go. Take a couple deep breaths and with each breathe let each thought or feeling be released. Often these return. So just repeat the process.

Concentrate your mind – Focus on one thing at a time. If you notice that your attention is divided. That you are doing two things at once. Stop. Choose one, and continue with that one thing.

Thought Stopping – If you have intrusive or bothersome thoughts or feelings, tell them to go away. As many times as possible. Actively stop yourself. Take note of the thought, tell yourself that it is not helping in this moment, this is not the moment to deal with it, and refocus on the task you had been previously focusing on.

Be careful not to invalidate your thoughts though. One thing that can be helpful is to actually worry. When you decide to worry, just worry. But do it on your own terms. Pick a specific time. Pick a specific place. Pick a specific duration of time. “I’ll go to the den at 7:00pm and worry for ½ an hour”. And for that half an hour let yourself worry about the stressors in your life. Give them their time so that you can take note of them in order to fix them, and once you have given them their time, let them go. Some worries you’ll realize are unfounded, just anxious ruminations of the mind running away with itself. These are unproductive. Others may be very valid life issues and now is a good time to think about them and come up with constructive ways to deal with them. Most importantly, when the time you have set aside to worry is up, stop worrying, and move on to another aspect of your life.

Start small. There’s no rush and no expectation that you will be able to transform your way of thinking over night. Pick a single task to focus on mindfully. One task. Do that one thing.

In time this will allow you to cultivate an inner calmness, away from the turmoil that often sweeps us away.

Will You Still Love Me?

2012-01-30T09:21:00.001-08:00

Thanks Themes <3

Ask Haven! Episode 2: Unstable Relationships

2012-01-28T18:50:00.000-08:00

Question from a Reader:

Can someone with Borderline Personality Disorder only have unstable relationships if they are intimate/romantic relationships and not platonic relationships?

While intimate and romantic relationships are often the most unstable for someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, it is very likely that any relationship will be affected. That doesn’t mean all relationships will be affected, though it is certainly likely, but it is definitely not limited to only romantic or intimate relationships.

Growing up my romantic relationships were always short lived and very turbulent. These were almost tame compared to the instability I had with my own family though. My brother and I fought constantly, my sister was actually afraid of me, and my parents and I probably woke the neighbors every night with the magnitude of the screaming matches we would have. Discipline didn’t work with me. I would always find a way around it. Things got so bad at one point that my father actually gave me an ultimatum; start paying rent or get out. I immediately went to my room, packed a bag and tossed it out my window. When I went back downstairs to leave my father asked where I was going. I told him I need to go to the bank if he wanted rent. He let me go. I didn’t come home for 4 days. I only came back because I thought my parents were at work and I needed more clothes. While I was getting my things my mom came home though. She’d been paging me incessantly for days. When she saw me she hugged me so hard and dissolved into tears. I remember my heart breaking for her while at the same time being pissed off that she caught me. I couldn’t leave again. Not after that. My parents never tried threatening me with things like that again. I was much too unpredictable.

They never gave up on me though. I know how rebellious, how vicious, how destructive I was. And they still loved me, even though I made them beyond angry. They never gave up on me. Something I am incredibly grateful for. I know how hard I was to deal with.

So, no, BPD doesn’t just affect romantic relationships. I would say it affects those relationships that are most intimate in the sense of closeness though. Family, friends, lovers… no one is immune if they are very close to us emotionally.

Roommate is one of my best friends. She sees me more than almost anyone and we are actually very close. She’s seen me melt down, she’s seen blood dripping from my arms, she’s held me as I dissolve in a puddle of despair. She’s seen this. But I’ve never, not ever, have I taken out my anger or aggression or hurt on her. I know I worry her sometimes, but I’ve never acted out against her. I’m not sure it’s possible to always hide the symptoms of BPD from someone close to you, but it is possible for us to have relatively stable, healthy relationships where we do not take out our emotions on other people. Of course, she’s never given me any reason to hurt. She doesn’t place pressure on me, I’ve never felt that she needed me to be something other than I am, she’s always supported me and been very understanding when I did need an ear. She’s an exceptional person and I’d venture to say, more understanding than most.

I also have many ‘friends’ that I am not close to, that would never guess I had a mental disorder at all. This goes for my coworkers as well. They see me every day and I’m able to maintain my professional masks. They’re not emotionally close to me though. They don’t know the real me.

I think what triggers unstable behavior in relationships is the magnitude of intimacy. The closer the relationship, the more invested we are, the more frightening the possibility of it ending becomes. Funny, that this is almost always a self-fulfilling prophecy. We become frightened something will happen, we act in ways to push people away, to distance ourselves from them, before they can hurt us, and this very act is what starts the downward spiral into the destruction of the relationship. It sounds clean cut when you look at it like that, but it never is.

The pushing away is gradual. Often we don’t even recognize the things we do that manifest as pushing people away. Our thoughts and actions seem quite rational to our traumatized mind. No one sees it coming, not even us most of the time.

No Trials in Therapy Today

2012-01-27T09:01:00.000-08:00

As you may know if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, I didn’t have therapy last night. Friday is usually when I do my Lucid Analysis – Trials in Therapy series and talk about what I did in therapy the night before, but well, Therapist is sick so she cancelled all her appointments.

This sucks. First of all, I immediately have thoughts of: Does she just not want to deal with me today? Maybe she’s disappointed because I’m depressed all the time and she doesn’t want to put up with me complaining. Second, it sucks because I think I’m finally starting to rely on her. One of the problems Borderlines often have is the inability to connect to their therapist. I have a problem connecting to anybody, so that I’m finally starting to look forward to therapy BECAUSE I want Therapists opinion and support (after a year!) is kind of a big deal for me. I often look forward to therapy just because being able to vent to an objective source really does help relieve the tension and pent up frustration I often feel. It allows me to unburden myself, even if it’s just to some small degree. I don’t usually go feeling a specific need for Therapists opinion on things. That’s been changing. She’s so patient with me.

Last night I wanted to talk about Friend. He finally wrote me back. As I suspected he was very gentle with my feelings and does want to work things out. However he misconstrued some things I said, which is partially my own fault for writing while emotionally fueled. So I need to clarify some stuff. I needed Therapists opinion on how to go about doing this. Our bullshit aside, he also wants me to sit down with his wife and “heal” my relationship with her. What he doesn’t understand is that I do not have a real relationship with her. I never have. There was a point where I tried to be friends with her. Even when this was occurring we never had any natural closeness or true interest between us. Despite the warnings of everyone around me I placed some trust in her… and she threw it back in my face and used it against me to victimize me emotionally. All that accomplished was to piss me off and gain her solid black split and complete devaluation. I remember the exact conversation, date, and feeling when it happened. My ability to see her otherwise has not wavered since. And won’t.

Friend on the other hand, I had a very long emotionally intimate and close relationship with. I idealized him to the point where I was absolutely falling in love with him before my first major devaluation of him. This makes things with him vastly, vastly different. There was a connection. Especially for someone like me, who has very definite problems with object constancy, actually feeling a connection is a big deal. I no longer feel a connection. Right now because we’ve barely spoken in over a month he’s barely a snapshot in my mind, but he’s there. His wife is like, an annotation, a side note pinned up next to his picture. I know she’s there, but it really makes no difference to me at all. I can feel nothing for her existence (other than the occasion anger and disgust – which more often than not is really just neutral acceptance of her presence).

Even if I wanted to “heal” things with her, I couldn’t. She’s a place holder in my mind. Not only that, but even when I was still trying to be friends with her, I observed her. I saw how she treated Friend, I saw how she treated the people around her that she considers friends, I saw how she gossips, instigates drama, and then cries victim when people call her on her bullshit. She has no integrity. She treats people very, very poorly. That’s not the kind of person I will ever willingly choose to have closet to me.

I don’t know if I should try to explain to Friend my psychological hang ups which would highlight my BPD and Dissociative conditions (which he is fully aware of, but obviously doesn’t really get). Or just tell him that she’s not the kind of person that I will ever choose to be close to and all I can offer is to keep an open mind going into the future (which unfortunately will be something of a lie because I can’t change how I feel about her) and will continue to maintain a neutral attitude towards her.

With Friend the thought of losing him is very scary to me. I will verge on panic and tears, and then, shut off. It’s very confusing because I feel little to no connection to him now. Yet I have these disembodied emotions that seem unconnected to an actual person. It’s an experience I’m having a very hard time reconciling. Cognitively I know what was once there though so there is still the potential for value. I think. Sometimes. When I can care. Because frankly, sometimes I feel like I could just walk off into the sunset forever and my life wouldn’t be any different. His wife, on the other hand, holds no potential value to me. Period.

I can be neutral towards her, but he needs to understand that my appreciation of him is not dependent on his marriage. I can be friends with someone, and not friends with their significant other. If he can’t accept this, than I think our friendship is over. So that’s that.

That’s what I WOULD HAVE talked about in therapy if I had therapy, but I didn’t. So now I’m just gonna stumble around and hope that I’m not screwing myself over since I have no guidance. My first letter was definitely a lot impulsive as I wrote it pretty drunk. At least I waited til I was sober enough to edit it a bit before sending. This response is a more cogent view of my current thoughts.

Oh well, at least I’m saying things that need to be said.

Hm. What else?

Tech Boy? Anyone interested? We’re still doing what we’re doing. I'm not sure how things are with us. I'm so, overly fucking cautious, that I can't attach in any way unless he's almost literally right on top of me. It's pretty maddening. I'll see him at work every day, he'll meet my eyes and smile extra wide or swing by my office to say hi and see if I'm coming down for break, but because I can't feel an attachment I second guess every second we're not speaking and wonder if he's actually into me, just pretending to be b/c we work together, or I don't even know what. Little paranoid. But when we do hang out just the two of us it's like fucking fireworks. It's not easy. Especially when all the while I look like nothing bothers me and I'm completely outwardly confident.

Lately I’ve been having small bouts of emotion, that quickly shut down. I don’t like this. It’s exactly opposite of what Therapist wants me to do. She wants me to let myself feel these things. What she says makes a lot of sense. The logic behind it all (which I even blog about) makes a lot of sense. In practice it’s not as easy to do as it seems. Open up. Let yourself feel. It’s not the same as opening a door or a window. There’s some weird combination lock and a bunch of laser sensors I need to maneuver first. While blindfolded. Groping around in the dark. ::sigh::

The “How’s” Of Mindfulness: Non-Judgmentally

2012-01-26T08:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I talked about the “What” Skills of Mindfulness, so today let’s talk about the “How” Skills.

The “What’s” are the things you want to do in order to cultivate mindfulness. The “How’s” are the way you want to look at things, the attitudes and route you want to take. They are:

Non-Judgmentally

One-Mindfully

Effectively

I was originally going to do all of these in one post, but there’s just too much so we’ll break this down into a nice little series.

Non-Judgmentally – In order to increase your mindfulness you must raise your awareness of what you feel and think. See your thoughts and emotions, but do not evaluate them. Do not place judgments on them. Thoughts and emotions are not “Good” or “Bad”, they are not things you “Should” or “Should not” feel or think. Accept the thought or emotion as it is; just a thought, just a feeling. You want to learn how to see things from a non-polarized perspective. People, especially those of us with Borderline Personality Disorder, have a distorted way of thinking and perceiving things. Often this is natural. As humans we label, magnify, polarize, filter, and discount certain things without giving them a second thought. We make assumptions about things in reality which close our mind to seeing what the facts actually are. Some examples of distorted thinking:

All-or-Nothing Thinking – Splitting. We know what this is like. It polarizes your viewpoint into an extreme. Good and bad, right and wrong, black and white, should or should not, etc. This kind of thinking is what contributes to idealization and devaluation. This creates so many problems, the foundation of which is; the world simply does not work this way. Things are rarely black and white, but filled in with shades of grey, and red, and yellow, and green, and blue! In the heat of emotional conflict we often feel that there is only one way to look at a person or a situation. We need to remember that there is always another perspective, another way we can look at a story, another view point to consider. When we are able to do this, we provide ourselves with the opportunity to find alternative solutions.

Labeling – Good, Bad, Scary, Disgusting, Right, Wrong, etc…. these things are judgments and opinions. Is a spider bad? It might startle you, but it’s probably not plotting against you. It’s just an arachnid trying to go about its little life. Labeling is like a quick fire evaluation. Once you evaluate and define something, the mind holds onto that label. This inhibits the ability to look past a split second judgment and find what else lies beyond the label.

Mental Filtering – This is when your mind automatically screens opinions that don’t fit in with your current belief. Think, selective hearing, where you only hear things you want to hear but ultimately you miss out on part of the story.

Over-generalization – This is common. When something occurs in a single instance, or a handful of instances, and you apply it across the board in all scenerios. Instead of looking at each case as an individual instance, you make a blanket judgment. Statements like “Always” and “Never” often accompany these thought process. “We always do things your way”, “We never do what I want to do”, “You never think about me”, etc.

Jumping to Conclusions or Mind Reading – Often this is a problem with being hypersensitive. Someone with BPD can be very aware of peoples tone of voice and expressions, so it’s natural to assume how they are feeling and try to interpret what they are thinking. The problem is, unless you ask that person, you can’t actually know what they’re thinking.

Magnification – This is exaggeration to the extreme. This creates mountains out of mole hills. This is often the distortion that occurs when we are in a very emotionally intense place, can’t see past the pain of our emotion, and it feels like the world is going to come crashing down around us. But unless we’ve jumped 4 Billion years into the future and the sun is going supernova, than odds are the world isn’t actually coming to an end. Intense thoughts create intense feelings. Being able to focus on just the facts of a situation, and not judging the emotional content of them, will allow you to see what is happening as it actually is.

Discounting the Positive – I’m really bad about this one. This distortion rejects affirmations, positives, and compliments as if they don’t count. You fear people are lying to you in order to manipulate you so you discount anything good that could actually be happening or said. Instead, just say thank you.

When you are ruled by your emotional mind, feelings become distorted and facts are lost. When you no longer have a clear picture of what is happening in the world around you, or even inside of you, of course you’re going to be overwhelmed and frantic. The trick is to regain a factual perspective on what is actually occurring. Don’t allow your mind to run away with you and create monsters under the bed where there are only shadows.

Be Mindful with Borderline Personality Disorder

2012-01-25T06:24:00.000-08:00

Learning to be mindful of our emotions, feelings, and thoughts is important for someone with Borderline Personality Disorder. Like any problem in life, it’s difficult to work through a sticky situation if you don’t know what the underlying cause for that situation is. Being mindful of yourself is where you need to begin. When you are mindful of your emotions it becomes possible to accept and tolerate the intense feelings that seem to emerge out of nowhere when we are presented with a stressful situation. Being mindful helps you find that origin, locate where they came from, and get to the heart of the problem.

Many of you may recognize this as one of the core concepts in Marsha M. Linehan’s Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. The goal of Mindfulness is to help you pay attention to what is going on around you and inside you; observe it in a non-judgmental way, and learn to live in the present moment by actually experiencing your senses and emotions fully, but with a reasonable perspective.

This is not a skill that can be developed over night. It takes time and practice, but it can work for you if you allow yourself to internalize the tenants.

Linehan breaks these down into two sets: The “What” skills and the “How” skills. These sets of skills, ultimately, will help you learn emotional acceptance. It’s very difficult to heal from a traumatic experience if you cannot accept how it actually affects you. In order to achieve true healing, you must accept that what is occurring within your body and mind is a real experience. Experience it, understand it, and then you can begin to heal from it.

For me this is difficult. I fight my emotions. I fight my feelings. I suppress, repress, and completely detach from the conflict occurring inside of myself. As I’ve mentioned though, this only works to make things worse in the long run. It may make the moment appear manageable, but eventually it catches up with you.

So how do you work on being Mindful? Today let’s look at the “What” Skills.

Observe. Describe. Participate.

Observe – This is the act of experiencing with awareness your feelings, thoughts, and sensations without trying to describe them with words. In order to observe yourself you need to take a step back in order to re-orient yourself into the present moment. Often people get stuck in their own minds; they become preoccupied with thoughts, ruminations, and distractions. These things inhibit your ability to see what is actually going on around you in the present moment. By simply observing how you feel, without judging it or trying to describe it, it allows you to become a blank canvas.

Describe – This is where you actually attempt to put into words the thoughts and feelings that you have observed in yourself. The words you choose should not be judgmental! Just describe the facts of what is going on, do not try to interpret what is happening yet. This helps cultivate self-control. Describing what you think in words, describing your feelings, your emotions allows you to become focused. This helps gain control over those distractions that take you out of the present moment.

Participate – This is when you decide to become involved in what you are working through and doing. To do this, you must allow yourself to experience.

Allow yourself to actually feel the emotions you are having. This may seem counterintuitive if you’re trying to get rid of painful feelings. But if you don’t experience and acknowledge the pain, all you will do is repress it and avoid it, which will not help you move past it. By observing how you are feeling, letting yourself feel it, you can then take the next step.

When you’ve allowed yourself to observe how you feel, have permitted yourself to actually accept how you feel, it can be very painful. However, it provides the opportunity to work on what is causing your this pain. When you recognize the source, and ultimately are able to begin a path towards healing from the pain, you will form a cognitive attachment to the fact that you have experience painful emotions, however, these emotions and feelings, are temporary. One of the biggest problems for someone with Borderline Personality Disorder is that, in the moment of painful experiences, it can feel like the world is ending. All that you know and feel is the pain you are in at the moment and it feels like that pain will never go away. When everything you do works to avoid pain, bury pain, hide pain within so that you do not experience it directly, it builds up and lurks below your surface. In this way it IS ACTUALLY ever present. It’s always there because instead of facing it, dealing with it, and ultimately healing from it, you’re allowing it to take up residence in the basement of your mind. Allowing yourself to experience painful emotions provides the ability to accept these emotions, work through them, and then let them move on, and move out of your life. It’s like mental housekeeping. Ultimately too, this will allow you to connect to happy and pleasurable emotions as well! Sound strange? When you attempt to cut yourself off from feeling, your body doesn’t work along a clear cut line. You can’t tell yourself, “Ok brain, I’m just not going to feel A, B, and C, but D, E, and F are good to go”. No. When you dull one mechanism you work to dull all mechanisms of feeling, which means it’s also harder to feel happiness and internalize positive emotions.

Often it feels like a compromise. In the past, and honestly right now in my present, I’m still fighting with a sort of stunted compromise. I may not be totally happy, but at least I’m not in devastating pain either. Does this sound pleasant to you? It doesn’t feel pleasant to me. In fact, it’s a pretty lame compromise.

Don’t compromise on having a fulfilling life.

When you don’t allow yourself to experience the pain you’re going through, you can not realize the there is, in fact, a finite resolution. When you suppress the pain, it continues to lurk. This is why it feels like the pain will never end… because you don’t give it the opportunity to! It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy of internal pain. And that pain can last indefinitely. You have to choose not to let it. It does mean opening yourself to some difficult emotions in the present, but once you do, you will also be opening yourself up to a wider range of happiness and unburdened living as well.

I’m still working on this. It’s not easy. It does take time, but it’s happening. Slowly. I think. =P

Emotional Suppression in Borderline Personality Disorder

2012-01-24T06:57:00.000-08:00

Emotional suppression is an attempt to regulate emotions in order to make uncomfortable thoughts and feelings easier to deal with. For someone with Borderline Personality Disorder this is not always easy to do, if it’s possible at all. I’m one of the lucky few (please insert dripping sarcasm) that was brought up to suppress my emotions. Even I have a difficult time of it though, unsurprisingly.

This probably sounds counter-intuitive to what most people know of BPD. After all we’re a part of that Cluster B Dramatic personality type known for our fantastic outbursts of emotion. That’s just the stigma. It’s the most noticeable attribute which is why it is highlighted, but that is not how we spend the majority of our time. Most of my days are spent trapped inside my own mind. It’s not until the noise and sensory perception becomes too great that it finally comes busting out.

As I discussed yesterday and as I talked about before with emotional Subjugation and Inhibition; I don’t believe that I have a right to feel the emotions that I feel. I don’t believe they are ok or will be acknowledged and accepted as valid experiences because my entire life I was told I should not feel this way. Talk about a complete cognitive dissonance for a child. How a person feels is a very real experience, but when you are told this is wrong it forces you to question your own ability to interpret your reality. I’ve mentioned before that I do not trust myself. I can quite logically work through any situation and foresee all rational paths and consequences, but then I also have an emotional response that can be in opposition to what I cognitively see as an outcome. I know one is right, but the other feels right. So which do I choose? I have no idea. My internal conflict quickly escalates. This is why emotional validation is so important. Validation should be coupled with constructive solutions if possible. Recognizing what you are going through as a valid experience followed by learning ways to deal and work through that experience is essential. For me this is what therapy is for.

Where was I?

Ah yes, so since I don’t believe my emotions are real, I can’t trust myself, instead I suppress what goes on inside me. At least I try. Unfortunately I believe this makes it worse. In fact, research has shown that the more you try to suppress a thought or feeling, the more likely you are to focus on it, because you know you’re not supposed to!

“Wegner called this the “rebound effect of thought suppression.” Essentially, if you try to push away a thought of some topic, you will end up having more thoughts about that topic.”

For someone with BPD that often feels so emotionally overwhelmed with distressing and negative thoughts, this means that attempting to suppress these emotions will actually magnify them for us. Instead of lessening or avoiding the painful feelings, they will be amplified instead, making that pain even greater! So you try harder to push it down, and the thought pushes back twice as much. Talk about a vicious, vicious cycle. It becomes much less surprising that we can’t get our mind of this kind of pain and that one incident can rapidly become overwhelming.

And then comes the shame. I don’t believe I have a right to feel this way, I try to do what is “right” by suppressing these emotions, they amplify within me, so I have to work harder, increasing the emotional pressure I feel to perform and perfectly, all the while I feel that control slowly slipping away from me. Frustration. Frustration with myself for not being how I “should” be. But if these thoughts weren’t natural, why would I have them? Shift. Resentment. I know it’s natural to feel emotions, who is anyone to tell me otherwise. I have a right to feel the way I do. The resentment begins to seethe. Anger. It simmers at a boil until one more thing, often something seemingly small, adds its emotional weight to everything we’re already trying to suppress and finally we pop.

It’s not that we’re blowing up over some insignificant problem, though it may seem like it and I can understand why our anger seems baffling and irrational. But more often than not it’s actually a buildup of suppressed feeling over a lot of time for many, many different issues.

Because I do not feel it is ok to feel or talk about or express my needs, it is often impossible for others to understand what has happened to create this build up. They don’t realize that often they may even be contributing to that buildup unknowingly. No, I’m not trying to blame everyone else and justify this behavior. However, I do think it is necessary to note that as human beings we often push each other’s buttons in ways we don’t realize and this does contribute to a buildup of frustration. Especially if you’re someone like me that does not believe I have the right to speak up and tell you that what you’re doing is causing me distress. Non-Borderlines often get very frustrated with us, and blame us for everything without recognizing that they may actually have contributed to the problem as well. There is a lot of blame that goes around here. And none of it, from either side, is helpful at all.

Did that sound invalidating? Blaming is, in fact, not productive. What we need to do as people that care about each other, Borderline and Non alike, is learn to communicate more effectively. And for us Borderlines we need to learn better strategies helping us deal with emotional regulation. Not suppression. Suppression only makes it worse! Even if for the time it seems like it helps in individual situations. It’s a very short term plug, not a long term solution.

We must learn emotional acceptance. This is where validation is especially important. We also need to express those emotions in a healthy and constructive manner. Easier said than done. TRUST ME, I know. I’m am far, far from good at this. But I’m trying. It takes time, but it’s possible.

I don’t know about anyone else, but once I do finally express what I’m thinking or feeling, it seems like a huge burden has been lifted from me. The simple act of being able to talk to another person, especially the person that directly effects me, is incredibly important. This is why I always try to write, or blog, or get out my emotions in some form. Even if it’s not possible to talk to another person. So why don’t I just talk to people about what bothers me more often? Well, one, I don’t feel I have a right to. But two, I am also afraid that I’ll lose that person because I might be perceived as making some kind of demand or request of them. Abandonment is always a big problem for us Borderlines. Again, this is where talk therapy can be especially useful.

One final note: Suppression can be especially dangerous if we turn to other means of suppression instead of simply trying to avoid or mentally push down how we feel. Drugs and alcohol are a serious problem. I’ve never done hard drugs, but I’m no stranger to alcohol. It numbs the pain and soothes the conflict. Effects of alcohol (and drugs) can be very unpredictable though. And in the long run can cause severe health problems.