My Mum, Dad and sister are doing a course at the moment called Family Connections which is for family of people with BPD. They learn about BPD and they get skills training and support. Dealing with someone like me who has a mental illness is tough and I admire them for being there for me, providing me with support and going along to get further educated, and get some support for themselves.
My family have seen me at my worst. They’ve had to scrape me up off the floor when I am drunk and covered in blood. They have been called the the ER after I’ve self harmed, tried to commit suicide, and taken an overdose. They have visited me when I’ve been in the psych unit. I have called them in tears telling them I am about to harm myself. I’ve turned up on the doorstep so emotional I can’t speak except to cry. They’ve held me as I’ve rocked, and sometimes been beside me as I’ve attempted to communicate with psychiatrists, nurses and the crisis team. They’ve looked after my daughter when I’ve needed help, cleaned my house, done my lawns and helped me get things back on track when I’ve fallen apart. They come over with dinner every Monday night to help me out.
Families get a raw deal. Mental health professionals often put the burden of care back on to families, without giving them any support or explaining the system to them. Families are sometimes limited in the amount of knowledge they are given due to privacy reasons, and they are expected to care for very unwell and sometimes suicidal people. Some of the things they have seen would probably cause PTSD in healthy people. They often exist under chronic levels of stress when the person they love has a mental illness, and I imagine often feel very helpless as well.
BPD itself is a disorder that causes chronic relationship problems. I can be extremely difficult, illogical, irrational, overly emotional and unstable at times. I know my disorder better than most people (I’ve done lots of research), and I still don’t know or understand where it stops and I begin. On top of that I have dysthymia (chronic depression) which means I am basically depressed to a greater or lesser degree all the time. Trying to communicate with me can be like walking on egg shells at the best of times, and I could explode with all of the best intentions from everyone.
This puts intense strain on the family dynamics. I am an adult, and I try so hard to be a complete and competent one. I am in my mid 30’s, I have a child, I have a professional job. But I also need a lot of help and support sometimes, due to my mental illnesses. I get mad about that. I hate asking for help. I try to be grateful that my family are there and that they are willing to help me and do things for me. But I wish that I didn’t have to put this burden on them.
I’m sure that on their side of things they probably feel equally conflicted. How to provide support when I am prickly and difficult, what they are supposed to do with me when I am very unwell and can be incredibly uncooperative, what level of support is appropriate - when to back off and when to help out. How they can have their own lives and be free of some of the stress.
So I admire them for all that they do for me, and especially for committing to 12 weeks of learning more and receiving some support through the Family Connections program.
A couple of helpful links:
Family Guidelines
Helping someone with BPD
For Loved Ones
Sunday, 12 November 2017
Sunday, 5 November 2017
The last few months part 4
Welcome to part 4...
Trigger warning........there’s quite a bit of cutting at the end of this. Please be safe and don’t read if this could trigger you in any way.
So back to August. I’ve got all this turmoil going on in my life. I’ve had a complete meltdown, discovered I hate myself, am slowly decreasing my dosage of all my drugs, and I’m still pretty bloody miserable.
Work stuff happens. So much work stuff. Stressful things like clients getting mad at me for things that aren’t my fault. Work piles up and I can’t get through it and don’t know what to do about it. I can’t seem to get anything finished and every day someone emails or calls to ask where another piece of work is that I haven’t finished.
Meanwhile, my daughter is having some issues of her own. She’s often very sensitive to my moods and for whatever reason she’s having some emotional issues of her own at the same time. She’s crying a lot, very clingy, wetting the bed constantly (not wholly unusual - she’s not nighttime toilet trained even though she’s 8 but she’s wetting through her pull-up) which is causing me a lot of washing, and she’s basically refusing to do anything she’s told. I know it’s a relationship/connection problem - she’s reacting to my mental unwellness But I can’t seem to get back on track to do anything about it.
Self harm is still calling to me all the time. Suicidal thoughts are constantly with me. I get in the car and think about what it would be like to gas myself in the garage. I drive down the road and notice stuff I could run my car into. I drive by the sea (which is everywhere as my city is a series of peninsulas) and think about drowning. I’m constantly thinking about cutting, drugs, electrocuting myself. It’s tiring, all these thoughts of self harm and death.
Alcohol is my nemesis at this point. My body physically craves a drink, but having one lowers my defences and is a slippery slope to doing something I’m trying so hard not to do. But, after achieving something at work I feel like I could do with a drink to celebrate. I call in to the liquor store on the way home on a Friday night and buy some vodka and e-cigarettes.
I always try to take the appropriate positive actions. This time I read books, had a bath, got someone to take my daughter so I could have some alone time. I tried to go to bed early and get more sleep, and listened to music I enjoy.
On Sunday afternoon my thoughts were all over the place. I would feel momentarily calm and then get worked up and agitated about something. At the time I wrote “I don’t want to be me anymore. All the stress and the constant struggle. I’m trying to do the right thing but it feels like no matter how hard I try I always fall short”.
One beer turned into two. One temazepan became two. I did some cleaning. Didn’t feel tired in the slightest so smoked, drank some vodka and had another temazepan. I was getting manic, cleaning the house and dancing around. This was the opposite of the sleep I was craving, so I took more temazepan and drank more vodka.
That’s when the blades came out. Just so I could get some relief. A bit of cutting, some more vodka and another temazepan or two for the hell of it.
Things get a bit crazy. I dance in the kitchen and the blood running down my arms goes everywhere. I for some reason think this is funny. More cutting, dancing, drinking and taking of drugs ensues. I don’t care about anything anymore. I don’t care anymore. I feel like I can see me from the outside and the absurdity of what is happening but I’m powerless to stop and I don’t want to anyway.
I start drinking vodka straight from the bottle and slashing myself randomly with the blade. Arms, legs and stomach. Take handfuls of drugs with the vodka. I am still trying to clean up the blood but I keep falling and hitting my head on the cupboards. I suddenly realise I have probably taken too many tamazepan and have a bit of a panic. I won’t be able to wake up for work tomorrow. That’s how screwed my mind is. I don’t want to live, and in fact am deliberately harming myself because I can’t cope, and then the responsible part of my brain is worried I won’t wake up for work. Never mind that if I was dead I wouldn’t make it in...
I rang the crisis team. I didn’t want to but I am started to get weirded out. My thoughts and my body aren’t connected anymore. The ambulance come and take me to hospital. For a while I refuse to let them ring anyone but when I start vomiting I want my Mum. She comes and sits with me. A nurses glue up the worst of the cuts while we wait for the crisis team. About 3 hours later they finally arrive. “There’s no beds so you’ll have to go home”. I feel weird about this. I don’t want to leave the safety of the hospital. Home is where people are, and the means to hurt myself. Mum takes me back to their place, I have the day off work and then back to work on Tuesday. No one from the hospital or mental health calls to see if I’m ok. I don’t know what to do. I still want to die. I feel guilty about what I did but not enough to regret it. Life goes on. Nothing’s changed.
Trigger warning........there’s quite a bit of cutting at the end of this. Please be safe and don’t read if this could trigger you in any way.
So back to August. I’ve got all this turmoil going on in my life. I’ve had a complete meltdown, discovered I hate myself, am slowly decreasing my dosage of all my drugs, and I’m still pretty bloody miserable.
Work stuff happens. So much work stuff. Stressful things like clients getting mad at me for things that aren’t my fault. Work piles up and I can’t get through it and don’t know what to do about it. I can’t seem to get anything finished and every day someone emails or calls to ask where another piece of work is that I haven’t finished.
Meanwhile, my daughter is having some issues of her own. She’s often very sensitive to my moods and for whatever reason she’s having some emotional issues of her own at the same time. She’s crying a lot, very clingy, wetting the bed constantly (not wholly unusual - she’s not nighttime toilet trained even though she’s 8 but she’s wetting through her pull-up) which is causing me a lot of washing, and she’s basically refusing to do anything she’s told. I know it’s a relationship/connection problem - she’s reacting to my mental unwellness But I can’t seem to get back on track to do anything about it.
Self harm is still calling to me all the time. Suicidal thoughts are constantly with me. I get in the car and think about what it would be like to gas myself in the garage. I drive down the road and notice stuff I could run my car into. I drive by the sea (which is everywhere as my city is a series of peninsulas) and think about drowning. I’m constantly thinking about cutting, drugs, electrocuting myself. It’s tiring, all these thoughts of self harm and death.
Alcohol is my nemesis at this point. My body physically craves a drink, but having one lowers my defences and is a slippery slope to doing something I’m trying so hard not to do. But, after achieving something at work I feel like I could do with a drink to celebrate. I call in to the liquor store on the way home on a Friday night and buy some vodka and e-cigarettes.
I always try to take the appropriate positive actions. This time I read books, had a bath, got someone to take my daughter so I could have some alone time. I tried to go to bed early and get more sleep, and listened to music I enjoy.
On Sunday afternoon my thoughts were all over the place. I would feel momentarily calm and then get worked up and agitated about something. At the time I wrote “I don’t want to be me anymore. All the stress and the constant struggle. I’m trying to do the right thing but it feels like no matter how hard I try I always fall short”.
One beer turned into two. One temazepan became two. I did some cleaning. Didn’t feel tired in the slightest so smoked, drank some vodka and had another temazepan. I was getting manic, cleaning the house and dancing around. This was the opposite of the sleep I was craving, so I took more temazepan and drank more vodka.
That’s when the blades came out. Just so I could get some relief. A bit of cutting, some more vodka and another temazepan or two for the hell of it.
Things get a bit crazy. I dance in the kitchen and the blood running down my arms goes everywhere. I for some reason think this is funny. More cutting, dancing, drinking and taking of drugs ensues. I don’t care about anything anymore. I don’t care anymore. I feel like I can see me from the outside and the absurdity of what is happening but I’m powerless to stop and I don’t want to anyway.
I start drinking vodka straight from the bottle and slashing myself randomly with the blade. Arms, legs and stomach. Take handfuls of drugs with the vodka. I am still trying to clean up the blood but I keep falling and hitting my head on the cupboards. I suddenly realise I have probably taken too many tamazepan and have a bit of a panic. I won’t be able to wake up for work tomorrow. That’s how screwed my mind is. I don’t want to live, and in fact am deliberately harming myself because I can’t cope, and then the responsible part of my brain is worried I won’t wake up for work. Never mind that if I was dead I wouldn’t make it in...
I rang the crisis team. I didn’t want to but I am started to get weirded out. My thoughts and my body aren’t connected anymore. The ambulance come and take me to hospital. For a while I refuse to let them ring anyone but when I start vomiting I want my Mum. She comes and sits with me. A nurses glue up the worst of the cuts while we wait for the crisis team. About 3 hours later they finally arrive. “There’s no beds so you’ll have to go home”. I feel weird about this. I don’t want to leave the safety of the hospital. Home is where people are, and the means to hurt myself. Mum takes me back to their place, I have the day off work and then back to work on Tuesday. No one from the hospital or mental health calls to see if I’m ok. I don’t know what to do. I still want to die. I feel guilty about what I did but not enough to regret it. Life goes on. Nothing’s changed.
The last few months part 3
So here’s part 3
After the major meltdown I had where I hit people and threw myself into the sea, I was still struggling massively with all these feelings. I worked through some of this stuff with my psychologist and tried to start identifying where it was all coming from and why I’d had such a major reaction.
I knew I did not have a good opinion of myself and that made me very dependent on feedback from other people. He helped me see that I felt that I was a horrible person (my core or true self) and I was unconsciously trying to cover this up all the time. I would try and try and then fail and beat myself up for not being good enough. I was looking for external validation, and when I was rejected it felt like my whole world was collapsing because that was reinforcing my core belief that I was a horrible person who didn’t deserve any better.
I don’t like myself much. I often feel like I am playing a part. Like the facade that I present to everyone is a cardboard cut out and I’m just hiding behind it, hoping no one will notice there’s no substance to the part I am playing.
This also contributes to my issues with identity. If you don’t trust yourself or your own opinions then how do you figure out who you are. I feel like I will put on a personality and try it out, adopting the clothes, music, mannerisms etc and then let it go. Like maybe this is who I am, oh no, maybe I’m like this person over here...
But here’s the problem. Knowing this stuff doesn’t make it any easier to live with. And in some ways it only makes things harder because I’m aware of how much work I still have to do. Just because I know I hate myself doesn’t mean I know what to do about it.
As time goes by and my experiences of being rejected get repeated, I build fences around my emotions to protect myself. The more times I’m smacked in the face by how much I hate myself, the more my subconscious does to not have to experience that again. I don’t get close to people. I don’t let people help me. And I certainly do not depend on anyone for anything. I don’t deserve anything from anyone, and other people have only let me down in the past and caused me pain. Better to be by myself.
Yes, I can see what a sad situation this is when I write it down, but it does make logical sense and it certainly makes a lot of sense to my subconscious.
And this is where self harm rears it’s ugly head again. There’s several ways it helps in this situation. I don’t want to feel painful emotions so I do something to cause myself pain. I hate myself, so I punish myself by self harming. And I feel pain emotionally and want to see it physically manifested, and I draw pleasure out of turning emotional pain into physical wounds.
Yes, I realise how unwell this makes me sound. But the drive to self harm is really really strong and this is why. It’s like an addiction. Feel a bad feeling = self harm and it will go away. Hate yourself = punish yourself by cutting and feel a bit better. Cut yourself = get satisfaction from having physical scars instead of pain inside your head.
I’m going to have to write part 4 I think. Still got more to say...
After the major meltdown I had where I hit people and threw myself into the sea, I was still struggling massively with all these feelings. I worked through some of this stuff with my psychologist and tried to start identifying where it was all coming from and why I’d had such a major reaction.
I knew I did not have a good opinion of myself and that made me very dependent on feedback from other people. He helped me see that I felt that I was a horrible person (my core or true self) and I was unconsciously trying to cover this up all the time. I would try and try and then fail and beat myself up for not being good enough. I was looking for external validation, and when I was rejected it felt like my whole world was collapsing because that was reinforcing my core belief that I was a horrible person who didn’t deserve any better.
I don’t like myself much. I often feel like I am playing a part. Like the facade that I present to everyone is a cardboard cut out and I’m just hiding behind it, hoping no one will notice there’s no substance to the part I am playing.
This also contributes to my issues with identity. If you don’t trust yourself or your own opinions then how do you figure out who you are. I feel like I will put on a personality and try it out, adopting the clothes, music, mannerisms etc and then let it go. Like maybe this is who I am, oh no, maybe I’m like this person over here...
But here’s the problem. Knowing this stuff doesn’t make it any easier to live with. And in some ways it only makes things harder because I’m aware of how much work I still have to do. Just because I know I hate myself doesn’t mean I know what to do about it.
As time goes by and my experiences of being rejected get repeated, I build fences around my emotions to protect myself. The more times I’m smacked in the face by how much I hate myself, the more my subconscious does to not have to experience that again. I don’t get close to people. I don’t let people help me. And I certainly do not depend on anyone for anything. I don’t deserve anything from anyone, and other people have only let me down in the past and caused me pain. Better to be by myself.
Yes, I can see what a sad situation this is when I write it down, but it does make logical sense and it certainly makes a lot of sense to my subconscious.
And this is where self harm rears it’s ugly head again. There’s several ways it helps in this situation. I don’t want to feel painful emotions so I do something to cause myself pain. I hate myself, so I punish myself by self harming. And I feel pain emotionally and want to see it physically manifested, and I draw pleasure out of turning emotional pain into physical wounds.
Yes, I realise how unwell this makes me sound. But the drive to self harm is really really strong and this is why. It’s like an addiction. Feel a bad feeling = self harm and it will go away. Hate yourself = punish yourself by cutting and feel a bit better. Cut yourself = get satisfaction from having physical scars instead of pain inside your head.
I’m going to have to write part 4 I think. Still got more to say...
The last few months part 2
I wasn’t going to post this but then thought this might give some perspective on how I was feeling back in August. Here goes:
I know I haven't written much recently, but it's not been because I haven't wanted to. I am currently struggling with an episode and it's hard to know what and how much to share. I started this blog to help people like me, to share my experiences in the hope that it might make at least one person feel less alone in what they are going through. And also to increase understanding and awareness of what it feels like to have a mental illness. Stigma is a very real problem and I hope that if more people have understanding and empathy then the shame around having a mental illness will decrease. But, I do have to be aware of the consequences of baring my soul to the world - on my job, my child, and my family. It is a scary thing to expose my innermost thoughts to scrutiny, and I have to hope that by doing so I don't inadvertantly hurt anyone I love.
So, with that in mind, here goes...
I have been very unstable for about the last six weeks. I'm not sure why, sometimes these things happen, but I suspect in this case it was a build up of a whole bunch of stressors. I have job stuff, family stuff, financial pressure, health issues, my daughter's challenges and some personal things going on, and my breaking point is a lot lower than other people's.
In addition to all that, my latest psychiatrist decided a while back that I was over medicated, and I've been on a plan for the last 6 months to reduce my medications significantly. I'm down from 1400mg of Epilim to 600mg per day, and 375mg of Venlafaxine to just 150mg. I'm completely off Temazepan and Quetiapine now as well. Whether that makes a difference is hard to tell. My psychiatrist tells me drugs are ineffective for BPD, though I have chronic dysthymia which is why I'm still on an anti-depressant. I personally think the Epilim (a mood stabliser) was actually helping flatten out the ups and downs in my mood, but I am willing to try and decrease dosages and see what happens. One of the side-effects of being on so many drugs at such high doses was the massive weight gain I've experienced, at one point I put on 30kg from Lithium in just 4 months (I was on Lithium before Epilim). I'm hoping that with a decrease in dosage I'll be able to drop some of the extra weight.
Whatever the cause, I've been very unbalanced in the last couple of months. I struggle to sleep at the best of times, and my sleep had got completely out of sync.
I know I haven't written much recently, but it's not been because I haven't wanted to. I am currently struggling with an episode and it's hard to know what and how much to share. I started this blog to help people like me, to share my experiences in the hope that it might make at least one person feel less alone in what they are going through. And also to increase understanding and awareness of what it feels like to have a mental illness. Stigma is a very real problem and I hope that if more people have understanding and empathy then the shame around having a mental illness will decrease. But, I do have to be aware of the consequences of baring my soul to the world - on my job, my child, and my family. It is a scary thing to expose my innermost thoughts to scrutiny, and I have to hope that by doing so I don't inadvertantly hurt anyone I love.
So, with that in mind, here goes...
I have been very unstable for about the last six weeks. I'm not sure why, sometimes these things happen, but I suspect in this case it was a build up of a whole bunch of stressors. I have job stuff, family stuff, financial pressure, health issues, my daughter's challenges and some personal things going on, and my breaking point is a lot lower than other people's.
In addition to all that, my latest psychiatrist decided a while back that I was over medicated, and I've been on a plan for the last 6 months to reduce my medications significantly. I'm down from 1400mg of Epilim to 600mg per day, and 375mg of Venlafaxine to just 150mg. I'm completely off Temazepan and Quetiapine now as well. Whether that makes a difference is hard to tell. My psychiatrist tells me drugs are ineffective for BPD, though I have chronic dysthymia which is why I'm still on an anti-depressant. I personally think the Epilim (a mood stabliser) was actually helping flatten out the ups and downs in my mood, but I am willing to try and decrease dosages and see what happens. One of the side-effects of being on so many drugs at such high doses was the massive weight gain I've experienced, at one point I put on 30kg from Lithium in just 4 months (I was on Lithium before Epilim). I'm hoping that with a decrease in dosage I'll be able to drop some of the extra weight.
Whatever the cause, I've been very unbalanced in the last couple of months. I struggle to sleep at the best of times, and my sleep had got completely out of sync.
The last few months
And here I am again writing about how I’m back from my extended break.... I actually wrote a draft post about this about 2 months ago and then never posted it. Things have been....complicated.
It’s hard to write when you are in a down and don’t know how to turn things around. It’s also hard to write when there is a lot that you want to say and you can’t say it for fear of hurting someone’s feelings or making a situation worse. There had been several big things happen in my life that I couldn’t write about and that’s blocked all my other thoughts.
One of those things has been my relationship with my sister and her now husband. I won’t go in to details, but suffice to say there was a breakdown in communication, several arguments with him and things haven’t quite been the same since. I got un-bridesmaided and in-invited from the wedding in Rarotonga....unfortunately I’d already brought tickets at that point. It wasn’t just me, the rest of my family were also tarred with the same brush, and things have been very awkward ever since. We attended the wedding but the relationship between us and my sister/her husband is still very much tentative and none of the issues have actually been addressed. I’m finding that pretty hard as I am normally a ‘hash it out’ type of person, but my sister prefers to brush things under the carpet and pretend they haven’t happened and she’s the one calling the shots here.
One of the big reasons this has triggered me so much is my particular sensitivity to feelings of rejection. Throughout my life I have often done things to upset other people and they have cut me out of their lives, without an explanation as to what I have actually done. Due to my mix of Asperger’s and personality disorder, I genuinely don’t know or understand what has happened to cause this, but I end up terribly hurt and feeling completely rejected. This is a repeating pattern in my life, and the more it repeats the more I am inclined to withdraw from socialising and put up walls to protect myself.
In my family I am known as very independent, but one of the reasons I am so independent is because I feel accute pain if I open up and then am rejected in any way. I find it incredibly difficult to tell other people what is going on in my head or how I feel, and I never ever ask for help. Partly because someone might laugh at me and partly because I need to prove to myself that I don’t need anyone else. If people reject me then who needs them? I can do it myself.
One of the ways this pain manifests itself is obsession with what has happened to cause the rejection. My previous psychologist fired me as a patient more than 2 years ago and I still frequently think and wonder what caused that and what I could have done to prevent it, and what I would say to her if I saw her now. It’s hard to let go because I opened up and told this person my darkest, innermost thoughts and then (for me) out of the blue she said she couldn’t help me anymore and that was it. After over a year of therapy. I ponder over this often. I get out the memories of our last few sessions and see if I can try and make sense of what happened. And I still can’t after all this time. But that doesn’t stop my brain from turning this problem over and over to see what the answer is. Time has dulled the pain slightly, but it still hurts a lot. Every time I think about this I feel a portion of that rejection all over again.
So when my sister, one of the people who is supposed to be there for me, rejected me it hurt an incredible amount. But what hurt the most was my perception that they (mum, dad and my other sister) cared about her much more than me. I’ve been in this position before where I had an argument with both my sisters and they didn’t speak to me for months, one of them even moved to another city in that intervening time and didn’t say goodbye. And no one seemed to miss me or care that much. But all three of them were deeply upset by this situation and pursued resolution with my sister. I felt that this meant they cared for her more than me. Another rejection, by my own family.
This boiled over one night when the four of us were having some conversation about this all and something got said about my behaviour. I know I am often completely erratic, I’m difficult to be around and I fly off the handle a lot (working on that), I know that’s part of my illness but I also know it hurts people and destroys relationships. I completely over reacted, hit my sister several times, punched my Dad, bit him, stomped on his feet. He held me in a head lock and I screamed right in his face. I was screaming and screaming, feeling a complete lack of any control. I just wanted to hurt and be hurt.
Later, I walked off into the night and got in the sea fully clothed (I did take my shoes off). It was the middle of winter and I had jeans and a t-shirt on, no jersey, and I was standing in thigh deep water thinking about drowning myself. A very low point in my life.
This incident scared me. I was completely out of control. I could see the red behind my eyes and all I wanted was to feel physical pain to match the mental and emotional anguish. I’ll never forget the look of terror in my sister’s eyes though as she cowered in the corner after I punched her and pushed her over. And my father physically restraining me.
I’ll continue this in a follow up post shortly.
It’s hard to write when you are in a down and don’t know how to turn things around. It’s also hard to write when there is a lot that you want to say and you can’t say it for fear of hurting someone’s feelings or making a situation worse. There had been several big things happen in my life that I couldn’t write about and that’s blocked all my other thoughts.
One of those things has been my relationship with my sister and her now husband. I won’t go in to details, but suffice to say there was a breakdown in communication, several arguments with him and things haven’t quite been the same since. I got un-bridesmaided and in-invited from the wedding in Rarotonga....unfortunately I’d already brought tickets at that point. It wasn’t just me, the rest of my family were also tarred with the same brush, and things have been very awkward ever since. We attended the wedding but the relationship between us and my sister/her husband is still very much tentative and none of the issues have actually been addressed. I’m finding that pretty hard as I am normally a ‘hash it out’ type of person, but my sister prefers to brush things under the carpet and pretend they haven’t happened and she’s the one calling the shots here.
One of the big reasons this has triggered me so much is my particular sensitivity to feelings of rejection. Throughout my life I have often done things to upset other people and they have cut me out of their lives, without an explanation as to what I have actually done. Due to my mix of Asperger’s and personality disorder, I genuinely don’t know or understand what has happened to cause this, but I end up terribly hurt and feeling completely rejected. This is a repeating pattern in my life, and the more it repeats the more I am inclined to withdraw from socialising and put up walls to protect myself.
In my family I am known as very independent, but one of the reasons I am so independent is because I feel accute pain if I open up and then am rejected in any way. I find it incredibly difficult to tell other people what is going on in my head or how I feel, and I never ever ask for help. Partly because someone might laugh at me and partly because I need to prove to myself that I don’t need anyone else. If people reject me then who needs them? I can do it myself.
One of the ways this pain manifests itself is obsession with what has happened to cause the rejection. My previous psychologist fired me as a patient more than 2 years ago and I still frequently think and wonder what caused that and what I could have done to prevent it, and what I would say to her if I saw her now. It’s hard to let go because I opened up and told this person my darkest, innermost thoughts and then (for me) out of the blue she said she couldn’t help me anymore and that was it. After over a year of therapy. I ponder over this often. I get out the memories of our last few sessions and see if I can try and make sense of what happened. And I still can’t after all this time. But that doesn’t stop my brain from turning this problem over and over to see what the answer is. Time has dulled the pain slightly, but it still hurts a lot. Every time I think about this I feel a portion of that rejection all over again.
So when my sister, one of the people who is supposed to be there for me, rejected me it hurt an incredible amount. But what hurt the most was my perception that they (mum, dad and my other sister) cared about her much more than me. I’ve been in this position before where I had an argument with both my sisters and they didn’t speak to me for months, one of them even moved to another city in that intervening time and didn’t say goodbye. And no one seemed to miss me or care that much. But all three of them were deeply upset by this situation and pursued resolution with my sister. I felt that this meant they cared for her more than me. Another rejection, by my own family.
This boiled over one night when the four of us were having some conversation about this all and something got said about my behaviour. I know I am often completely erratic, I’m difficult to be around and I fly off the handle a lot (working on that), I know that’s part of my illness but I also know it hurts people and destroys relationships. I completely over reacted, hit my sister several times, punched my Dad, bit him, stomped on his feet. He held me in a head lock and I screamed right in his face. I was screaming and screaming, feeling a complete lack of any control. I just wanted to hurt and be hurt.
Later, I walked off into the night and got in the sea fully clothed (I did take my shoes off). It was the middle of winter and I had jeans and a t-shirt on, no jersey, and I was standing in thigh deep water thinking about drowning myself. A very low point in my life.
This incident scared me. I was completely out of control. I could see the red behind my eyes and all I wanted was to feel physical pain to match the mental and emotional anguish. I’ll never forget the look of terror in my sister’s eyes though as she cowered in the corner after I punched her and pushed her over. And my father physically restraining me.
I’ll continue this in a follow up post shortly.
Sunday, 20 August 2017
BPD and identity
I've always had a lot of trouble figuring out who I am and what I like. In my life I've tried a lot of things but very rarely settled to any one thing for longer than a year or so. I constantly seem to question who I am, what I like, what my values are and what I want out of life. I often feel hopeless and directionless because I can never quite seem to grasp what the purpose of my life is and what I should be doing with it. This is not just about career direction, but hobbies, friends, relationships, goals and values.
This is a fairly common problem for people with BPD. When you oscillate between liking yourself and feeling safe and secure, and hating yourself and shutting yourself off from people, you feel like you can't get a grip on what your opinion of yourself is, never mind anything else.
I have a very short attention span and get bored incredibly quickly. I am lucky in some ways that I have been able to find a career that is mentally stimulating, and has just enough routine to make me feel secure and quell some of my anxiety while also offering enough variety that I don't get too bored and switch off. I have been at my most depressed and mentally unwell when I have had to work at jobs which were not mentally challenging enough. Strangely though I had no problem being at home on maternity leave, although I'd say that was because my daughter did a very good job of providing variety and challenge for me!!
One of the things I have found very difficult to live with is my inability to figure out what my purpose is in life. I have spent numerous hours devoted to trying to understand why I was put here on this earth. As is my habit I have researched this question in the library, and also spent time trying to understand and define my values, read up on altruism and gratitude, attempted to meditate on it, investigated various religions, and questioned a number of people about what they think the meaning of life is. Logically I understand the answers and points of view presented to me, but none of them spoke to me or felt like they were 'my reason'. This can be incredibly depressing, as my life is often a painful chaotic mess of emotions and their destructive impact on the people I care about. I need to feel like there is some reason for enduring it.
I see other people taking action for things they believe in, making a difference for others, practising their religious beliefs, following their dreams, or doing things they enjoy and I get jealous. I love that people I care about are doing these things. But I wish I had certainty about what I believe in or want, or enjoy. Sometimes I feel like I have a strong opinion, only to feel the opposite two hours later. I enjoy doing something but then never want to do it again. Or like the idea but feel no motivation to follow through. I'm capable of loving something one minute and then hating it an hour later. Or getting bored and abandoning in the process or project two steps in.
In the past I've often felt like I am acting a role, saying and doing what is expected of me. When I had my major depressive episode in 2013/14 I remember saying to my psychologist that I felt like a cardboard cut out. That I was presenting this face to the world but there was nothing behind it, no depth to it. I say things that are certainly true in that circumstance but not necessarily how I feel, because I don't know how I feel. Or how I feel changes like the flick of a switch so I can say something to one person that is the truth but regret what I said or feel like I misrepresented myself later. This can feel to people who don't have BPD that they are being lied to or manipulated. But for me, I certainly don't intend to lie, and at the time I am telling the truth. It's just that I'm erratic and very prone to changing my mind half a dozen times in the following few hours.
The stigma of BPD contributes to identity issues. There is the expectation that you just get on with life when you have a mental illness. You don't own up to it and you certainly don't make other people feel uncomfortable by explaining what is really going on or how you feel. You pretend that everything is fine and you suffer in private. This is seen as the acceptable way of coping with a mental illness. Then there's the argument that you can 'over identify' with your illness. That instead of seeing it as something you have, like a heart condition or diabetes, you see it as who you are. People with BPD often call themselves borderlines, defining themselves by their illness. I know I've done this myself in the past, and I think in part it's because having BPD is about identity, it is a personality disorder after all. Identity is all about who you are and what you believe in. But the danger is that in identifying with the illness that you negate the possibility of recovery. Recovery is possible for some people, and there is a percentage of people who do the therapy programs who will recover enough not to meet the diagnosis criteria anymore.
One of my goals is to not focus too much on who I am and what my purpose is. A little bit of self examination is a good thing, but too much navel-gazing makes me feel adrift in a vast sea of possibility and raises my anxiety level. Enjoyment of the journey is still a worthy accomplishment.
Ka Kite Ano
This is a fairly common problem for people with BPD. When you oscillate between liking yourself and feeling safe and secure, and hating yourself and shutting yourself off from people, you feel like you can't get a grip on what your opinion of yourself is, never mind anything else.
I have a very short attention span and get bored incredibly quickly. I am lucky in some ways that I have been able to find a career that is mentally stimulating, and has just enough routine to make me feel secure and quell some of my anxiety while also offering enough variety that I don't get too bored and switch off. I have been at my most depressed and mentally unwell when I have had to work at jobs which were not mentally challenging enough. Strangely though I had no problem being at home on maternity leave, although I'd say that was because my daughter did a very good job of providing variety and challenge for me!!
One of the things I have found very difficult to live with is my inability to figure out what my purpose is in life. I have spent numerous hours devoted to trying to understand why I was put here on this earth. As is my habit I have researched this question in the library, and also spent time trying to understand and define my values, read up on altruism and gratitude, attempted to meditate on it, investigated various religions, and questioned a number of people about what they think the meaning of life is. Logically I understand the answers and points of view presented to me, but none of them spoke to me or felt like they were 'my reason'. This can be incredibly depressing, as my life is often a painful chaotic mess of emotions and their destructive impact on the people I care about. I need to feel like there is some reason for enduring it.
I see other people taking action for things they believe in, making a difference for others, practising their religious beliefs, following their dreams, or doing things they enjoy and I get jealous. I love that people I care about are doing these things. But I wish I had certainty about what I believe in or want, or enjoy. Sometimes I feel like I have a strong opinion, only to feel the opposite two hours later. I enjoy doing something but then never want to do it again. Or like the idea but feel no motivation to follow through. I'm capable of loving something one minute and then hating it an hour later. Or getting bored and abandoning in the process or project two steps in.
In the past I've often felt like I am acting a role, saying and doing what is expected of me. When I had my major depressive episode in 2013/14 I remember saying to my psychologist that I felt like a cardboard cut out. That I was presenting this face to the world but there was nothing behind it, no depth to it. I say things that are certainly true in that circumstance but not necessarily how I feel, because I don't know how I feel. Or how I feel changes like the flick of a switch so I can say something to one person that is the truth but regret what I said or feel like I misrepresented myself later. This can feel to people who don't have BPD that they are being lied to or manipulated. But for me, I certainly don't intend to lie, and at the time I am telling the truth. It's just that I'm erratic and very prone to changing my mind half a dozen times in the following few hours.
The stigma of BPD contributes to identity issues. There is the expectation that you just get on with life when you have a mental illness. You don't own up to it and you certainly don't make other people feel uncomfortable by explaining what is really going on or how you feel. You pretend that everything is fine and you suffer in private. This is seen as the acceptable way of coping with a mental illness. Then there's the argument that you can 'over identify' with your illness. That instead of seeing it as something you have, like a heart condition or diabetes, you see it as who you are. People with BPD often call themselves borderlines, defining themselves by their illness. I know I've done this myself in the past, and I think in part it's because having BPD is about identity, it is a personality disorder after all. Identity is all about who you are and what you believe in. But the danger is that in identifying with the illness that you negate the possibility of recovery. Recovery is possible for some people, and there is a percentage of people who do the therapy programs who will recover enough not to meet the diagnosis criteria anymore.
One of my goals is to not focus too much on who I am and what my purpose is. A little bit of self examination is a good thing, but too much navel-gazing makes me feel adrift in a vast sea of possibility and raises my anxiety level. Enjoyment of the journey is still a worthy accomplishment.
Ka Kite Ano
Distress tolerance and crisis survival
I haven't written much recently as I have been very busy at work and at home, and very stressed. My brain feels like it's been scrambled up and on overload. I've been having a lot of trouble staying regulated and working really hard on my crisis and distress tolerance strategies.
It's the busy season at work and because this coincides with winter (not my best months) and winter sickness, I often end up pretty depressed and off balance during this time of year. For me, the combination of working longer hours, less daylight, colder temperatures, more rain/grey days, and the occasional virus mean I really struggle every winter. This winter started better than most - it's the first one in about 3 years where my daughter and I have stayed in our house all winter by ourselves. Usually I have an episode in May or June which ends up with the two of us spending a month to six weeks staying at my parent's place till I get myself sorted out again. But this winter I was determined to try and head that off before it started, and concentrated on using all my distress tolerance strategies I've learnt in therapy to stay well.
I feel like I am finally making some progress in learning how to tolerate and work through my emotions. I see my primary illness (BPD) in simplified terms as being emotionally immature. Meaning that I have these intense emotions and instead of accepting that everyone has emotions and letting myself feel them, I panic and try to push them away by distracting myself or using other crutches (food, alcohol, etc) so I don't have to feel anything. In the past I have massively over committed myself, or taken on huge projects, trained for endurance sport, over scheduled myself, worked large amounts of overtime etc in order to distract myself from thinking or feeling anything. Whenever something that made me upset or uncomfortable happened I would just fill my life with more stuff to get done so I didn't have to think about it. This worked about as well as trying to hold a beach ball under water. You can only do it for so long and then the ball shoots up, often hitting you in the face as it pops up.
One of the major parts of my therapy has been to admit that I have feelings just like everyone else, and try to tune in to what the physical sensations are in my body, and let them come. At some point in my past I have absorbed the idea that emotion (and showing emotion) is bad and weak and wrong, and have spent so long denying I have emotions I had become unaware of what they felt like. This is not to say I did not know sadness or anger, but that every time I had those emotions I subconsciously told myself there was something wrong with me and I must get rid of them, and did everything I could to do this. With my history of depression stretching back to late childhood, it is easy to see how every sad feeling might cause some panic in case it was a sign the depression was back. And in suppressing my anger I turned it in on myself, told myself I was unlovable and the cause of everything bad and wrong, thus causing myself to become depressed.
This is an extremely simplified version of some of what probably caused me to become the way I am. A sort of extraordinary response (due to genetics most likely) to things which for most kids would have been water off a duck's back. Like 'harden up' and 'don't be a cry baby' and countless other less than empathetic responses to a variety of situations.
It's taken me years to begin to unlearn my subconscious responses. First I had to start with recognising when I was being triggered. What sorts of things would trigger me. And then my body's physical reaction to being triggered. The problem with this though is that when you start to tune in to what triggers you, you then become hyper aware of when you are triggered. And that's where learning distress tolerance and crisis strategies come in. Once you have been triggered and you want to deal with your emotions instead of stuffing them back down, you've got to try and work out what to do with those emotions. Pages 10 - 30 of this workbook have a comprehensive guide to all the different strategies. There's a huge range of activities and strategies that you can try, and therein lies one of the problems. You've got to try them to see what will and won't work for you.
The thing with distress tolerance strategies is that you can't expect to feel better when you are doing them. You may not feeling better at all. The purpose is just to stop you from doing the self destructive or self harming behaviour you have been using to deal with your emotions up to this point. If you'd normally drink lots of alcohol every single night because you feel like crap, then distress tolerance will give you something else to do instead of drinking, but it doesn't remove the reason why you were drinking in the first place. It took me a long time to figure that out. The strategies that work are the ones that help you deal with your emotions in a more positive way, not take them away entirely.
For me mindfulness is probably my number one go to strategy. It's too big of a topic to cover right here right now but suffice to say that I find most of the other distress tolerance strategies work ok if I have just had a one off bad day, or have one or two things bothering me, but if things have built up and I'm having a particularly tough few days I need mindfulness first before anything else.
Crisis survival strategies kick in when I am so strongly triggered I want to cut myself, or am thinking about death/suicidal ideation. This for me looks like putting one foot in front of the other, just coping with each moment, each minute, each hour. It's focusing on the big four each day - eating, sleeping, exercise, hydration. If I don't eat healthy food, get enough to drink, get enough sleep or do at least a little exercise then I will feel worse and am more likely to make self destructive decisions. This is pretty hard when I'm unwell, but essential to focus on.
Then I have the things I do when I'm right at the point of doing something really stupid and distress tolerance isn't enough. This is called TIP and for me it's holding ice against my skin, submerging my face in a sink of cold water, intense exercise in the gym (intervals). It's designed to try and change my body chemistry and turn on the survival mechanism in the body by stimulating the "dive reflex" and shutting down functions not essential for survival (more on this here). I'm not a big fan of progressive muscle relaxation (the 'P' of TIP), mostly because I am usually far too agitated when I am in this frame of mind to use it. I seem to be unable to sit down and focus when I'm in this state as I'm often pacing, crying and muttering to myself. Other people seem to find it helpful though.
Anyway, enough from me for tonight. Ka Kite Ano!
It's the busy season at work and because this coincides with winter (not my best months) and winter sickness, I often end up pretty depressed and off balance during this time of year. For me, the combination of working longer hours, less daylight, colder temperatures, more rain/grey days, and the occasional virus mean I really struggle every winter. This winter started better than most - it's the first one in about 3 years where my daughter and I have stayed in our house all winter by ourselves. Usually I have an episode in May or June which ends up with the two of us spending a month to six weeks staying at my parent's place till I get myself sorted out again. But this winter I was determined to try and head that off before it started, and concentrated on using all my distress tolerance strategies I've learnt in therapy to stay well.
I feel like I am finally making some progress in learning how to tolerate and work through my emotions. I see my primary illness (BPD) in simplified terms as being emotionally immature. Meaning that I have these intense emotions and instead of accepting that everyone has emotions and letting myself feel them, I panic and try to push them away by distracting myself or using other crutches (food, alcohol, etc) so I don't have to feel anything. In the past I have massively over committed myself, or taken on huge projects, trained for endurance sport, over scheduled myself, worked large amounts of overtime etc in order to distract myself from thinking or feeling anything. Whenever something that made me upset or uncomfortable happened I would just fill my life with more stuff to get done so I didn't have to think about it. This worked about as well as trying to hold a beach ball under water. You can only do it for so long and then the ball shoots up, often hitting you in the face as it pops up.
One of the major parts of my therapy has been to admit that I have feelings just like everyone else, and try to tune in to what the physical sensations are in my body, and let them come. At some point in my past I have absorbed the idea that emotion (and showing emotion) is bad and weak and wrong, and have spent so long denying I have emotions I had become unaware of what they felt like. This is not to say I did not know sadness or anger, but that every time I had those emotions I subconsciously told myself there was something wrong with me and I must get rid of them, and did everything I could to do this. With my history of depression stretching back to late childhood, it is easy to see how every sad feeling might cause some panic in case it was a sign the depression was back. And in suppressing my anger I turned it in on myself, told myself I was unlovable and the cause of everything bad and wrong, thus causing myself to become depressed.
This is an extremely simplified version of some of what probably caused me to become the way I am. A sort of extraordinary response (due to genetics most likely) to things which for most kids would have been water off a duck's back. Like 'harden up' and 'don't be a cry baby' and countless other less than empathetic responses to a variety of situations.
It's taken me years to begin to unlearn my subconscious responses. First I had to start with recognising when I was being triggered. What sorts of things would trigger me. And then my body's physical reaction to being triggered. The problem with this though is that when you start to tune in to what triggers you, you then become hyper aware of when you are triggered. And that's where learning distress tolerance and crisis strategies come in. Once you have been triggered and you want to deal with your emotions instead of stuffing them back down, you've got to try and work out what to do with those emotions. Pages 10 - 30 of this workbook have a comprehensive guide to all the different strategies. There's a huge range of activities and strategies that you can try, and therein lies one of the problems. You've got to try them to see what will and won't work for you.
The thing with distress tolerance strategies is that you can't expect to feel better when you are doing them. You may not feeling better at all. The purpose is just to stop you from doing the self destructive or self harming behaviour you have been using to deal with your emotions up to this point. If you'd normally drink lots of alcohol every single night because you feel like crap, then distress tolerance will give you something else to do instead of drinking, but it doesn't remove the reason why you were drinking in the first place. It took me a long time to figure that out. The strategies that work are the ones that help you deal with your emotions in a more positive way, not take them away entirely.
For me mindfulness is probably my number one go to strategy. It's too big of a topic to cover right here right now but suffice to say that I find most of the other distress tolerance strategies work ok if I have just had a one off bad day, or have one or two things bothering me, but if things have built up and I'm having a particularly tough few days I need mindfulness first before anything else.
Crisis survival strategies kick in when I am so strongly triggered I want to cut myself, or am thinking about death/suicidal ideation. This for me looks like putting one foot in front of the other, just coping with each moment, each minute, each hour. It's focusing on the big four each day - eating, sleeping, exercise, hydration. If I don't eat healthy food, get enough to drink, get enough sleep or do at least a little exercise then I will feel worse and am more likely to make self destructive decisions. This is pretty hard when I'm unwell, but essential to focus on.
Then I have the things I do when I'm right at the point of doing something really stupid and distress tolerance isn't enough. This is called TIP and for me it's holding ice against my skin, submerging my face in a sink of cold water, intense exercise in the gym (intervals). It's designed to try and change my body chemistry and turn on the survival mechanism in the body by stimulating the "dive reflex" and shutting down functions not essential for survival (more on this here). I'm not a big fan of progressive muscle relaxation (the 'P' of TIP), mostly because I am usually far too agitated when I am in this frame of mind to use it. I seem to be unable to sit down and focus when I'm in this state as I'm often pacing, crying and muttering to myself. Other people seem to find it helpful though.
Anyway, enough from me for tonight. Ka Kite Ano!
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