Forgiveness

Saw my CBT therapist yesterday. Although, he’s not really my therapist anymore and more of a friend (I used to see him once a week but I ran out of money - it costs £65 an hour - so this was the first time in a month). 

He broke me. That was the first time he has really broken me down. The barriers just faded away and I cried and he held me and I cried some more.

He said: Sarah, why do you keep tormenting yourself? Why do you keep holding onto everything and punishing yourself for yours and other people’s mistakes? 

Me: I don’t know. I can’t let go. I am a sponge, absorbing every emotion from everyone, ever.

Him: You must forgive yourself. Think about this: what can you benefit from forgiveness?

He then leaves to get a glass of water and expects me to have listed those things down.

I find it difficult and squeeze this out of me: To move on; less tormenting of self; less chaos in head; freedom to live more in the present; make room for love.

He returns.

Him: Would you forgive your daughter if she did something bad?

Me: Yes, of course.

Him: Why?

Me: Because she is human and she is allowed to make mistakes.

Him: Apart from the fact that she is human… why?

Me: ……because I love her.

There is a silence

Me: They don’t deserve my love and they don’t deserve my forgiveness.

Him: So you have to love them to forgive them?

Me: No… yes… no. I hate them for what they did and what they do, they deserve to suffer.

Him: But are they suffering? How are they suffering by you not forgiving?

Me: ……………. 

Him: Ok, you hate them and you want them to suffer, so let’s go and buy some guns and shoot their heads off.

Me: I could never do that.

Him: And why not?

Me: Because I could never hurt somebody, not intentionally anyway. I’m just not like that. I could never make somebody suffer.

Him: Ok, so you don’t have the balls to shoot some heads off but they don’t deserve your forgiveness, so who is actually suffering?

Me: ………………… me.

Him: Precisely. You cannot go back in time. No matter how hard you try, you can not change what is already done. There is no purpose in holding onto everything. 

Me: I don’t deserve forgiveness. 

Him: Why?

Me: There is too much chaos in my head.

Him: There is only chaos in your head if you feel the need to hold onto it for a purpose. What purpose? Self hate? Why don’t you deserve forgiveness?

Me: ………..because I am bad. I am not worthy of anything. 

Him: You punish yourself day in, day out, it feeds the chaos in your head. Every bad thing that somebody does against you, you see as a reflection of you because you’ve already decided by not forgiving yourself that you’re on the road to self torture; you filter out the good. You take what people say or do as fact because you are not forgiving of yourself. You have no compassion for yourself.

Me: I don’t know how to have compassion for myself.

Him: (At this point he has come to sit down next to me on the carpet) Sarah, you have to let it go. Enough is enough. You have to let it go. Who is suffering? Who is benefiting from all this anger and hatred? It’s not even about anyone else, forget everyone else, it is about you forgiving yourself. It’s about saying that you didn’t know better then but you do now. It’s accepting that you cannot change the past. You have been punished enough, Sarah. It’s time to let it all go.

And I start to cry and he hugs me tight.

Him: Don’t punish yourself for other people’s choices. You have been punished enough. 

I hug him tighter: I’m tired of fighting.

Him: The only person you are fighting is you. It’s time to let it go, It’s time to forgive yourself.

After a while, the session came to an end and he drove me to the bus stop. Before I got out, he took my hand:

Sarah, it’s going to be ok. 

The Bernard Bert

Borderline Chaos

I'm going to carry on being honest and validate my own emotions, exactly as I feel them. I am owning them and not letting them own me, so to speak. I am not passing blame, I am simply acknowledging my emotions for what they are and dealing with them in a healthy way (yes, I know that was self reassurance in regards to what people may think of this). It is not my emotions that define me, but the way in which I deal with them.

And it's that time of night again when I get into bed, only to be up a few moments later. I'm too aware now to turn back. Too aware of everything not to get better.

I know the day will come during my treatment when I will have to confront all of the pain I have never gotten over but pushed deep down inside of me instead. I understand why I lost it during that part of my life now... during the aftermath of my actions. That feeling of worthlessness... self hatred... abandonment... disgust... They were all very real. I nearly took my life several times during that period of time. I would've been dead if it wasn't for my daughter. Everything was just dark. I was very ill. I didn't hate them, I hated me. They defined me with their actions. They unintentionally made me hate myself to the point of self destruction. It felt like they were all piling on top of me, strangling me: "Hey you crazy motherfucker, look how fucking weak you are. Here, eat this shit. No, that's not enough. Have some more".

I didn't deserve that. Borderline or no Borderline, I didn't deserve any of that. Regardless of what I did, I did not deserve it. Sure, I could understand it if all I wanted to do was purposefully hurt people, but I didn't. I wanted to love them and I didn't know how. My intentions were never bad.

When I look back on it, when I really think about it - I thought I had dealt with it, but it wasn't that at all, I just got used to it... it still plays a part in my life - it is still very raw. It's like an open wound, sensitive to touch, so I just don't touch it. But as I near closer to my treatment and the more research I do, the more my past comes back to haunt me. The more it screams at me: "SARAH. You know you're going to have to deal with it to recover" and that is scary because I never want to revisit that place.

Out of my entire life and I say this with complete sincerity, that was truly the worst I've ever felt about myself and it was one of the worst places I've ever been. My emotions were completely out of control and I didn't know why... people just blamed me... I was misunderstood and alone... I felt like they were laughing at me and to be honest I truly think they were. I'm glad I didn't take my life because where are those people now?

There is a hint in the name: Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. I was called crazy a lot... psycho... I wasn't crazy at all; there was chaos running through my head about myself, about others, about the world in response to their actions and I didn't know of any coping mechanism (save for a destructive one) to deal with it in a healthy light. Everything that happened after, was to me, just another way of saying, "You're a worthless nobody. Nobody cares about you. Why would they care about you? We'll lie to you. We'll hurt you. We'll piss all over you whilst you scream. We'll gag you and fuck you until you cry. We'll bleed the life out of you. We'll hate you. You are nothing. Nothing but a sad excuse for a human being. We'll cut you in two" and I let these emotions consume me. I let it happen. I was unstable. I was not strong. I was broken. I wasn't anybody. I truly believed that. I let their actions define me. I absorbed them like a sponge. If they were disregarding my emotions, my feelings, my existence, then it must be true? After all, I am a chameleon. What I failed to see at the time was that their actions were not a reflection of me but of themselves.

But it has still stuck. Like birthmarks all over my soul. I didn't know then... I didn't know why... I just got used to the idea that I was a nobody back then and I've been carrying that feeling around for nearly six years. The thing you have to understand about a Borderline is that they absorb everything. Someone once said that to me before they even knew I had the disorder... They cannot merely brush of emotions regardless of whether they happened two weeks ago or ten years ago. They stick to you and manifest themselves right in your core and it just feeds the cycle of self hatred and negative coping mechanisms shown through your behaviour.

Think of getting your heart broken, whether through a break up or somebody cheating on you... now think how fucking shit that makes you feel about yourself and how sad that has made you. That is 'normal'. Now, times those emotions by a million and you will have the Borderline emotions... but they are not clear, you cannot identify them, they are just chaos in your head. Like the devil inside of you, screaming in your mind. Constantly. And it is a series of problems within the Borderline that allow it to do that... that allowed my emotions to spiral out of control in this situation...

- Defining yourselves based upon your perceived ideas of what others think of you - we have no identity to begin with so we base it on other people's views of us or how they treat us or our idea of what we think they expect us to be
- Black and white thinking - that you must be either all good or all bad and in this case, all bad, there is no middle ground. You must be all bad if this is happening
- Flight or fight response which comes with a list of things: Dissociation - feeling detached from your mind, body, the world, as if you are not here; Impulsiveness which can lead to destructive behaviour; Anxiety and OCD as your mind's way of trying to gain control and protect itself; Detachment from people so no one can hurt you
- Self punishment for being such a loser
- Splitting - conflicting emotions about the people around you in response to how they treat you in that precise moment - going from love to hate, love to hate, love to hate... it is all very confusing for your brain. It's pretty much like saying, "Leave me alone, I'm lonely"
- Fighting off suicidal urges and that is a whole other battle in itself, especially if all you want is to make the chaos stop and not die
- All the while you're hurt and you feel abandoned and rejected just like you was as a child. You feel invalidated, that your emotions or being isn't worth anything

Even now, though I am tired, I still cannot articulate them clearly. But as you can see they are all pretty unstable emotions to be feeling all at once. It is complete an utter chaos and only feeds the distortion that you have of yourself: "Who, or rather, WHAT the fuck am I?"

When I think about that time properly, I get angry, an unbearable rage. I still blame myself for everything. Maybe it was my fault. But then I am not accountable for other people's choices? And then come some more conflicting emotions about myself. I didn't ask for these emotions or this disorder.

The scary thing is, I know I have the strength to revisit my emotions I felt after being raped, what it did to me, how it screwed me up... I know I am a survivor and I am not afraid. This, on the other hand, scares me shitless.

I can still hear the sound of my cries. The sound of my head banging against a wall. The smell of my vomit from punishing myself for all that I was. I can still feel the burn of the cuts. I can still see my legs giving way and watching me fall to the ground. I can still hear "psycho" ringing in my ears. I can still feel that desperation.

I know I will heal from this and I know it will take time. I know that I am now ready to deal with this and move on.

Bad blood that may never run clean? I think it will, for me.

Aaah. And that feels better. Goodnight.

The Bernard Bert

Parenting with BPD

I'm sick of this whole "tired so go to bed only to get up minutes later because I feel emotional" business.

My whole body clock is messed up.

I started to think about my daughter and it made me sad. It broke my heart; she's lonely :'(

I feel like a social outcast and probably through my own fault. Though I have mastered the art of putting on a front to mask my sadness around people, no one wants to be around a shy and awkward person, do they? So I withdraw from people. I don't feel comfortable around anyone, or rather I don't feel comfortable with myself around anyone and my defence mechanism is to just distance myself or cut myself off altogether. If I stay away from people they can't hurt me... they can't identify my flaws. Little did I know until recently the effect it may be having on my daughter; I don't have many friends with children, therefore she doesn't have many friends.

She's an only child. She must be so lonely. I used to hang out with a handful of friends that had children but then I went to university and they lost interest in me saying that I had to do uni work everytime they asked us to do something. It wasn't always an excuse. It was three hardcore years of work and before that it was college. But in the end, they just stopped asking me. I wasn't concerned about my daughter's social life because she saw a lot of children her age at the childminders', went on outings with them and she was in nursery and then school. Now though, I realise that that isn't good enough - she needs a social life and she needs to witness me having healthy ones too.

This half term (we are now coming into day 12) she has only seen three children, who are relatives; a niece who is 1 and two nephews aged 3 and 4. Not much for a nearly 8 year old. I feel so bad. It just breaks my heart that she doesn't have any friends. She is already a shy person (something that I have accepted not to be my fault, but part of her personality) and I don't want to turn that into a problem for her. As I was growing up, my mum did not have any friends. She wasn't sociable at all. We had friends - we made friends with our neighbours but I don't remember any of them coming round to play, she didn't like anyone around. We just witnessed my mum living her lonely life, surrounded by nobody but us (when she chose to be around us) and herself (and our abusive dad). It was completely natural to us, but it left a permanent mark on how we viewed the world and other people. We were never brought into the world of healthy social interactions which has left a hallmark on some traits of my personality. We didn't learn many interpersonal skills and the ones that we did learn weren't very positive.

It just breaks my heart.

Last week we didn't do much at all, we (I) just took advantage of having two weeks instead of one out of work so bummed around and planned to be proactive this week.

We've done okay... Yesterday, we travelled to Central London (she loves to get out and about and pass through London Victoria to get the good sushi) to get my tattoo. Last night I had my breakdown so woke up like a zombie, on edge, emotional... I told her I wasn't feeling too well and in the evening she went bowling with her stepdad. Still, no sign of other children in her life. Tomorrow we plan to go to the cinema with a friend (again, no children present...) For Thursday, I decided to bite the bullet and contact an old friend that I lost contact with in my uni days who has three children (two of which are close to my daughter's age). She said that we could do something but since hasn't replied to my message... makes me nervous as I've already told my daughter that she would see them and she got very excited. I hope it doesn't fall through. I don't want her to feel even more alone.

For Friday, we are going to see a friend in Kent (again, no children present...) I did contact another old friend who has a child. I went to uni with her but she didn't reply...

Maybe I shut people out for too long. If people are constantly reaching out to you and you keep rejecting, one day, they are just going to give up.

It makes me sad (more like rips my fucking heart into two) when she comes home from school and cries because she didn't have anyone to play with at lunchtime. When I see her hurt like that my defence mechanisms heighten, they are on full alert and all I want to do is grab her and flee. All I want to do is protect her from the world, from people... I don't ever want her to hurt. And I guess that's why I subconsciously surrounded us with a bubble. It was us and them. (I highlight subconsciously because I assume people will think I am selfish blah blah blah and I don't have the strength to fight that off at the moment. But yes, most things that I do are done subconsciously. I have good intentions. My brain has just been trained to function in an unhealthy way).

And that's what makes me think that she would be better off without me.

The emotions I am feeling right now are fucking intense. I can feel my heart breaking.

It's not too late to change. It's not too late to change. It's not too late to change.

Here's what I am going to do: I haven't met a parent at the school that I actually like or get on with - they're either superficial, stupid, rude or just want to bitch about the school (I also work there so it puts me in an awkward situation). BUT, it's time for my master of disguise to stretch even further in the day (I usually can only manage it when I'm at work and on occasion not even then). I am going to ask her who she classes as a good friend and who would she like to come round after school to play and have dinner, say once every two weeks and then I'll ask for the parent's phone number. I don't want to push it because I've got to use the SMART approach:

S pecific
M easurable
A chievable
R ealistic
T imescale

We use this in the CBT (which by the way I haven't had for a month due to the lack of money... that probably paid a part in my break down. Side note: If only I could afford the £65 an hour once a week, hey, I think even twice a month would work, then I know I would get better. And fast. We have an understanding and he is fucking amazing at what he does. Fucking depresses me even more that I can't see him). Anyway, we use this in CBT because it puts less pressure on you. If I said, "Right, you're going to have one friend around to play once a week and then you're going to meet up with a friend at the weekend too", then I pretty much set myself up to fail and then the cycle of self hatred will begin and you stay in the rut.

So, that will be my behaviour experiment.

I'm going to rephrase what I said about change... it is not about change. I don't need to change who I am. I am Sarah. I am me. It is about modifying and reparenting to enhance your quality of life and in turn enhance your child's life.

And you know what, all of the above is exactly what makes me a good mum.

The Bernard Bert

And We Fall Crashing To The Ground... Grounded

I was on Tumblr most of the evening, trying to compensate for the lack of involvement I have in the world right now. Thought it was time to go to bed after experiencing more anxiety, including OCD. Got upstairs, kissed my daughter goodnight and got into bed.

Was up three minutes later in tears...

Laying there, floating away into some other world, reality came to pay me a visit:

Reality: Sarah. Saraaaah. SARAH.

Silence

Reality: Sarah. You've got to come down sooner or later. You better make it sooner rather than later otherwise you will pay the consequences.

Me: No.

Reality: Sarah. Trust me.

Me: No.

Reality: Sarah...

Me: Yea... You have never lied to me before, Reality.

Uncontrollable crying

And upon that note, I stuck in my earphones and came downstairs where I sat and cried about all the pain and fear that I had been trying to protect myself from. And then the guilt came with the reality of impulsively spending money earlier that I did not have. And then came the worthlessness, followed by more pain... and then came the desperation.

I don't want to and I can't live like this anymore.

I picked up the phone and rang my ex that has known me for four years. We are still on talking terms but the barriers I have put up around myself refuse to let me open up to him. But this was an exception. And I cried and cried and cried. The one person who has stuck by me through thick and thin, consistently. That's when you know somebody truly loves you as a person. There must be something good about me if someone can love me and not be in love with me, right?

I know I am splitting right now because I feel invalidated. But I will write about that when I can stop denying its existence.

I am tired. My eyes are sore. And I need to be ready for another round with the chaos in my head.

The Bernard Bert

Dissociation

I woke up feeling like a pile of wank. The world scared me. I scared me. I could feel myself dissociating. It's very difficult for someone to comprehend if they have never felt that before... but it makes you feel like you are not here. That you're not in your body or this world, that nothing is real. Just completely detached from everything. Its scary because you feel like you're fading away, you aren't anything. No soul. No heart. No bones. No skin. No face. Nothing. It's as if you are watching yourself. I get scared because the OCD kicks in and then I torment myself about what I am capable of. It is not a nice place to be.

I know why I feel like this - because I haven't been at work for over a week and though I have seen people, it is not enough. I need structure, constant interactions with people. And though that sends my brain into chaos, at least I can feel something. At least I know that I am here. I am real and living in the world. I am grounded.

If only I had someone to catch me before I floated away, to ground me again.

At the moment, I am just floating somewhere in the air, watching myself carry out day to day activities. The worst thing about dissociation for me is that you don't feel in control and control is a big part of OCD and the borderline. We want control over everything in our lives because it is safer that way. The unpredictable unsettles me to the point where the OCD does kick in to help you deceptively feel like you do have control over something. But as I said, it is deceptive. Just another unhealthy coping mechanism that has been on automatic for as long as I can remember.

Control. What can we actually control in our life? We can't control our past or our future. We can't control other people's thoughts or actions. We can't control the world. Can we control ourselves? To a point. We have a choice: we can't control our thoughts, that is nearly impossible but we can control our responses to them. But you've got to have the tools; if you've been living a certain way for so long it becomes habit, automatic, it is just natural to you. And if you are completely unaware that your responses to your thoughts and feelings are unhealthy, then you inadvertently send yourself into a downward spiral of hate, worthlessness and the desire for control. It is a domino effect.

Borderline Chaos (thoughts, feelings, behaviour) ---> Depression ---> Dissociating as a coping mechanism ---> Anxiety ---> OCD as a coping mechanism to gain control ---> Anxiety ---> Dissociate further ---> Depression ---> And the cycle continues...

You get stuck in a rut. It's all about your mind trying to protect itself from all the fear and the pain. It's trying to help you survive - the fight or flight response - little does it know that it's only enhancing your initial problems.

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As I couldn't feel anything this morning, my mind tried to protect itself; the impulsiveness side of my borderline disorder came out. I know a little bit about where the impulsiveness stems from but haven't quite grasped it yet. More reading I think. But in layman's terms, it is another unhealthy coping mechanism. So I couldn't feel anything and I so desperately wanted to. Then an idea was planted in my head and then I couldn't let it go: to get a tattoo. I finally felt something other than emptiness. Adrenaline started to kick in at my genius idea. So my daughter and I got ready and made the 1hr 3/4 journey to my friend to get it done. I knew that I needed to get out of the house before I turned completely mad, I saw the signs, so I took the opportunity of my spontaneity. I wanted the tattoo to help ground me, to remind me why I was doing what I was doing, to help myself along the road of recovery. The last one I had done was of my daughter's name over the scar on my wrist where I had cut myself, to remind me why I am here.

It felt good to feel the fresh air on my face. The journey there wasn't great as I had to deal with panic attacks creeping up on me (I'll save that for another time), but it was an achievement to even be floating in the world.  It didn't hurt as I deserved any pain that was inflicted on me. I just took it and it was very ironic as Linkin Park's Numb came on the radio... I laid there, embraced it and my fear started to wash away in the words and the ink that was being imprinted on me... It was a moment that I will treasure.

I still don't feel great as that was a short lived moment and it will take a lot more to come back down to earth but I can look at the tattoo and it makes me feel like I am here. It urges me to just keep going.

Own your emotions, don't let them own you.

The Bernard Bert

Nika Cookie

Nika Cookie makes things better.

I love you Nika Cookie.

Nika Cookie + Bernard Bert = Nika Bernard Bert Cookie

Bernard

X Part Two

No wait. That was me trying to run away.

So I just spoke to X (see previous post labelled... well... X).

I called him 'cause I wanted to know that he was still around. We spoke, but of late, I always feel that he is distant when we speak.

I asked how he was, etc but I was getting one worded answers. Not much for conversing. So because I had nothing to bounce off of, I started talking about myself. Then later on in the conversation, he threw it back in my face:

X: Do you have a niece?

Me: Yea.

X: Is she is hospital?

Me: No.

Then he starts to say he's got a lot on his plate but I was just talking about me. 

Hold on. Am I a mind reader? And trust me, I was fucking trying to ask how things were with you for fucksake! Like, it was the most hardest conversation ever because you were not giving me anything to work with!! How am I meant to know?!

Then he got defensive when I explained that to him (in constructive terms may I add). He made me out to be really selfish and I pulled him up on it and he said, "But did I call you selfish?" Er no, but it is not our words but our actions that define us.

Seriously, get a grip man.

Trust me, when someone is reaching out to you, fucking take it. 

Bernard

Changing blogs.

Pointless Photo on Shitty Phone with No Flash

My evening planned.

Bernard

Emotions

It is normal for you to feel that way. Own your emotions, don't let them own you.

Nothing like a bit of validation to wake up to. I will forever hold these words close to my heart. No one has ever said that to me before... that it was okay to feel the way I do.

These are our emotions, they are part of us but they do not define us.

Side note: I want to get a tattoo. The last one I had done was five years ago of my daughter's name on my wrist where I had a scar from cutting myself. Whenever I feel that all is lost, I look down at her name and remember why I am here.

The Bernard Bert

To be borderline...

Gingerbread

What a beautiful day (weather wise) and yet I am bound to my bedroom because my daughter's father decided to show his face. If I could bitch slap that man, I would.

Ok, so I wanted to talk about isolation and withdrawing from people. Deep breath. The borderline cannot hold a healthy and stable relationship with anyone due to their own insecurities and their unstable sense of self (that whole sense of self business keeps cropping up a lot lately).

Now, throughout my life I have always been a loner - never friendless - but a loner, preferring my own company to that of others. I always thought it was because I was anti-people and that everything about them just wound me up. I'd said that though I have a lot of acquaintances, there were only a handful of people that were actually close to me and then not even really that. The 'anti-people' attitude stemmed from the idea that everyone just ended up hurting me and it was safer to be on my own; they were all cunts. Somehow, somewhere, no matter what I was doing, there was always drama in my face - drama seemed to find me everywhere. I could be minding my own damn business and it would still come and fly kick me in my face. But it is me that finds the drama in everything... It doesn't hunt me down at all. I create it myself.

Haha, and all these years I thought something was out to get me: "Why can't I just live a peaceful life? It's always one thing after the fucking other". I take a 'normal' situation and blow it a million times out of proportion with my negative thinking, feelings and behaviour. My mind is distorted in the way it handles things, pretty much everything actually, so it tends to turn situations into something that they really aren't. I always wondered why I was forever stressed out over everything. The thing is, I never knew that I was doing it until recently. I'm aware now and though it doesn't automatically change my retarded way of thinking, it is the first step to success...

Back to my original point - I do tend to ramble off on a side note, my mind can't stay in one place... Though protecting myself from any hurt is part of my withdrawal from people, I realised that it is more to do with being able to trust myself and trying to maintain the tiny bit of self I fooled myself into thinking I have; if I am around people, they disrupt any perception I have of myself and it becomes exhausting and tedious and discouraging and pretty much straps me in for another ride on the emotionally unstable rollercoaster:

"Who am I? Oh, I'm around this person, I must mould into the person I think they want me to be or that I should be. But what am I then? Sure, I have a skill - I'm a chameleon - but who the fuck am I then? Oh this person seems like they're a happy-go-lucky person who just wants to have fun... done! I am now (deceptively) happy-go-lucky and a person who just wants to have fun! Oh but this person hates people, the world and insists they are a recluse... done! I now (deceptively) hate people, the world and a person who insists they are a recluse!"

I think you can see where this is going...

So to save myself from all of the above and the questions they raise about myself, I choose to take people in small doses. I go away, come back. If something has offended me or I have felt unintentionally invalidated, then it will take me longer to come back. Sometimes, I don't know who you want me to be and because I cannot answer that for myself, it's unsettling. So to protect myself, I run (or it literal terms, I just don't really talk to you for a while and if I do, I keep my distance whilst absorbing my own company as I brew on shit that was planted in my head during my very short lived social interactions with you).

So, that is pretty much why I am one big, massive, fucking enormous contradiction. And also why my brain uses the unhealthy coping mechanism to protect itself by detaching from people. Then, of course, there is the opposite of detachment: attachment. Just as I unintentionally detach myself from people, there are the ones that I unintentionally attach myself to. All very subconscious and now brought to the forefront. But that is a really long one that I haven't fully fathomed out yet. Close, but not quite there yet.

To finally wrap up another post that does not seem to make any sense (only to me), I have detachment and attachment issues.

And yet, after all this writing and picking apart my poor brain, her 'father' is still fucking here. Time to throw a shoe at his head. I'm in a funny mood. I'll keep you posted on the events to follow.

The Bernard Bert

A Flow of Consciousness

I'm stuck in the past with my 13 year old self screaming at me: "Why won't you listen? Why won't you help me?"

If only I could hold her and tell her that everything will be okay. But I'm not sure how much truth that statement holds.

I look around and there isn't much on MBT therapy as a treatment for BPD, mostly on DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) being the successful treatment. This concerns me.

I read the information about DBT and it sits more comfortably than the idea of MBT. It feels right. It is in my gut.

Always trust your gut.

I want to be well now please.

That blissful moment when everything is beautiful. Things are good. You smile. Everything will be okay. And it lasts no more than a minute. Then you remember what you are and you come crashing right down to the ground.

I was reading another blog and it was about being a chameleon. I am a chameleon; moulding to the people around me. Always. Never being my true self because I don't have a true self.

Talked to my sister today about our parents (as we do most times when we speak) and how dysfunctional and basically fucked up they are. She came to the conclusion that neither of them have any self worth. I agreed and added, "I don't either. Just empty." And she replied, "But we must do. We must have something at our centre. We must have some self worth otherwise we wouldn't have got up from all the crap in our childhood and made sure we were something in life. We have self worth."

It really struck me. We came from such a disgusting place, all four of us, yet we are living in the world. We are all trying to be something other than our parents. It would've been easy to continue on the same path as out parents had, but we chose not to. I don't know what spurred us on, whether it was the terrifying idea of ending up like our parents or through sheer determination to finally mean something to the world... but we all  crawled out of the hole that they buried us in and said: "No. Fuck you. I will not succumb to this."

Yea sure, we all have our mental health problems... we're all "screwed up" in that sense. But we are dealing. My younger sister has three kids under the age of five and the amount of respect I have for her is unreal and I know she will find her path in life. My older sister is a very successful teacher and is climbing up the career ladder and I think it's only a matter of time when she decides to seek help for what I think is a mental disorder. My younger brother has surpassed any idea I had of him...

My brother. The little boy I wanted to protect from the world. I wanted to take away all of his pain but he didn't want my help. He didn't know how to accept help. He grew up being bullied by our dad. The mental abuse was disgusting, I am surprised he is still alive. We were not surprised when he started tormenting our mum after my dad was "removed" from our house; it was the only way he knew how to treat my mum after witnessing our dad do it. My dad had stripped him of a person. He was so lost. Everything he had learned was from our dad. Those traits were not healthy in the slightest. He was a shadow of a person. He wasn't living, just there. Dead. High. Recluse. Drunk. Violent. Abuser. A nobody and through no fault of his own.

And yet, I saw him yesterday after a year or so and the change in him... the change in his eyes. He wasn't dead anymore. He has a job, is looking for places to live so he can come out of the hostel, has friends and girlfriends, sociable, well-looked after... I was so proud of him but it was the confidence that choked me up. He believed in himself. He is turning his life around.

So yea, my mother sits there saying that she can't support us and that she is a bad mother, brushing off all responsibility for bringing us into the world. Abandoning all of us. No love, just guilt. Invalidating all of us and considering that our dad disowned us a long time ago... to know that our mother doesn't want to be our mother anymore...

We were all victims: me, my brother, my sisters, our mum and even our dad. But the difference between us and our parents is that we chose to stop being victims and become survivors instead.

The Bernard Bert

Let's Play Some Games

I've just realised that I felt superficially better when I didn't know my diagnosis.

Now I know my diagnosis, it's like running around with the crazy in my head, "Oh Hai".

The Bernard Bert

Origins

A breakdown of how The Bernard Bert came about:

I went through a crisis back in September (went to A&E, saw shit loads of mental health workers, was FINALLY assessed and diagnosed…)

I was off of work for 3 weeks. I work in a school. The people are very bitchy. They like to gossip about anything and everything just to make them feel like they have a purpose. There was a lot of gossip at the time about why I wasn’t at work.

So, to make myself laugh, I posted on FB that I was currently absent from work to have a sex change and was growing a willy in a plant pot. 

Lo and behold (just as I predicted which makes it even more ridiculous and hilarious), people at work started gossiping: “OMG, have you heard?!”

Then came the name change on FB. If I was having a sex change, I needed a name to match. I suggested Jim Senior. My friend wanted Bert. Another wanted Bernard. 

Thus, Bernard Bert Jim Senior III was born.

It will always remind me of a time when I decided to take my life back.

The Bernard Bert

Defective

Remember this exact moment when it comes to worrying about taking time off work for your treatment.

Remember it well because it's what's going to get you through.

Remember this pain you are feeling at being a failed mother.

Remember how much you want to self harm to punish yourself, to try and get these horrible emotions to go away and remember how much you are having to fight the urge.

Remember getting into bed an hour ago, only to get up crying and sobbing your heart out at 1:30am.

Remember how much you want to get better for your daughter.

Remember this feeling of desperation and self hatred and how much you want it to go away.

I cannot live like this anymore. I cannot.

Years ago, I predicted my suicide would happen at the age of 25. I am now 25. It will be the same year that I get treatment. I remember saying it, I remember the emotions I was experiencing... I was going crazy and I knew and said that it wouldn't get better if I didn't get help. The help that I so fucking wanted but fought to get. I knew it wasn't just depression and anxiety that I had. I knew it was more than that. But they fed me antidepressants that I constantly complained about because they didn't help. I always knew it was at the core of me but nobody listened.

I truly do ask myself: would she be better off without me in her life?

I always think about it but more so since I was diagnosed and recently somebody commented on it and I just haven't been able to brush it off. It has stuck. Like the devil at the back of my head, willing me to fail. Is that what people think of me as a mother? But how do they know? They are not with us day in, day out?

And to be fair, that is the only negative comment I've ever got about being a mother - every other single one has been praise... yet, I've grabbed onto this negative judgement and I can't let go. If someone defines me like that, then it must be true. I don't believe people when they say I am "good", I do not absorb their praise. I do not love myself so how could that be true? The "bad" on the other hand... that must be true. I know I am defective, I just don't need people pointing it out. I am trying to get better. I know my faults.

I'm just crying, crying, crying... if I could scream right now then I would. But I won't and I never have - I have a daughter who is sleeping.

She is better off without this defect of a person trying to raise her.

I am nothing.

The Bernard Bert

Am I doomed?

I don't feel very good.

I want to hunch over into a ball and hide under the table.

I woke up feeling emotional and troubled and now I can't brush it. The feelings followed me through the night until the moment I had to force myself out of bed.

Got to keep on a mask so my daughter doesn't know. Probably one of the most exhausting things.

I felt awful this morning when I woke up late and she started crying. I went to find her upstairs and she said she felt sad but didn't want to tell me why because she didn't want me to feel bad.

You don't ever want to to hear your child say that, especially at seven years old.

She finally told me... it was because it was Easter and that I had gone out to see a friend last night and woke up late and she felt jealous.

I found a ripped up card that she had made me for Easter hiding somewhere on the sofa.

I reassured her it was okay to feel jealous and mad but I'm glad she spoke to me about it and that we will work together to try and make that better.

It was really difficult dealing with the situation considering my unstable emotional distress right now. But I did it.

I love her more than anything in the entire world.

Seven more hours until I can crumble and cry. Countdown begins.

The Bernard Bert

X

I went out drinking last night. Was extremely apprehensive about doing it but wanted to try and have a good time. When I have known that I was going out before I've always been aware that the alcohol will only make my mood go down the next day, to a point of depression. I always managed to brush it off and tell myself "Ah well, we'll deal with it later". But, this was the first time I had been out having all this power of knowledge about the disorder and I got scared and really nervous.

Then I found out that the friend of the guy I was doing whatever with at work knew about us and it bummed me out (as I don't really know what to label this guy - he is neither an ex nor a friend nor a lover - I shall call him X... how creative...)  1. because I had been lied to as I had asked X if his friend knew and then I started questioning myself and feeling paranoid 2. because I didn't trust my gut - I would catch his friend weirdly looking at me when X was around amongst other things and 3. because I am now worried that his friend has told other people at work.

Now, this brings up a whole heap of shit/chaos in my head and it all links back to having a weak sense of self and worrying what other people think of me. I'm getting better at not giving a shit... but it is still there. When I compare myself to how I was back in September, I have come a long way; I am somewhat more in control of my thoughts. I would have been going crazy with worry back then to the point of feeling so damn 'down' and wanting to run. But now, although I am worried that other people may know and judge me, the idea that these people actually don't mean shit to me, nor do their opinions of me is starting to sit more easily. It is still a very unsettling thought that people may gossip about my personal shit but actually I go into work to work and if I make friends along the way then that is a bonus, but I'm there to do a job, not to make friends with these people. They can think just what they like because these people don't have to live my life.

I don't like being lied to because I think I deserve better but I understand why X chose to say otherwise. If I knew, it wouldn't have achieved anything, no one would've benefited from it. His friend said that he "just needed to unload some shit... get some stuff off of his chest" and now it's bugging me because I don't know exactly what was said... whether he was bad mouthing me... calling me crazy like people have done before... I suppose the question I have to ask myself is does it really matter? Probably not.

With the disorder, I have such a weak sense of self that I feel I don't have an identity so I give everyone else but myself the power to label me... to give me an identity... a sense of being... and when that idea is that I may be painted as a 'bad person' I feel that it must be true because what other identity do I have to hold on to? None. I let other people define me because at the moment I cannot define myself. I try, but my sense of self is distorted.. unsettled.. at times non existent.. contradictory.. inconsistent.. unstable.

I will get there. I can feel it.

I contacted X for the first time in a long time because I wanted to see how he was and I guess I wanted to know what he had to say for himself for telling his friend. But then I realised that actually it didn't matter and that it was between them; he is no longer part of my life so his friend knowing or not knowing doesn't change anything. I didn't get a response. I thought I would. It generated some negative feelings but I have to say - and this is how I know I am making progress - they were not nearly as intense as they were six weeks ago if the same thing had happened where I was ignored. I do feel invalidated but less intense.

"I know it is harsh but the reality is is that you are nobody to him. But, just because you are nobody to him, it doesn't mean you are a nobody".

I don't need him to define who I am. I have subconsciously spent far too long putting my life in other people's unwilling hands in hope they could tell me who I was because I couldn't.

X was right and I think I always knew that but denied it because I didn't know how to deal with; I was looking for something in him but he was not it. I was looking for someone to pick me up off of the ground, to understand me, to love me because I couldn't. I didn't know back then that it was me who had to pick myself off of the ground, it was me who needed to understand myself and it was me who needed to love me. It doesn't mean that my feelings for him aren't genuine because I care about him a great deal and I wouldn't want any harm to come him... I have a lot of love to give... but I need to turn that love inward first.

I'm feeling frustrated, invalid to him, hurt and slightly angry right now because I haven't gotten a response. It digs up unwanted feelings or shame, but that is for another time.

It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.

 We are our own worst enemy.

The Bernard Bert

Edit: I just tried ringing. I was going to send another message then thought "Hold on, you want to talk to him, just pick up the phone, stop beating around the bush". So I did and he didn't answer but then he called back. Was a very difficult conversation for the simple fact we had nothing to say. We spoke about the above and he said he never told his friend and that if his friend knew then everyone knows (because he is a gossip). Then he slightly blamed me because I told some friends but I know they would never say anything to anyone.

But as I said (and I am actually starting to believe it) - their opinion of me or him or whatever they want to say about the "situation" DOES NOT MATTER. 

I actually have a smile on my face.

Skeletor

Just to avoid any confusion for my fellow just-as-backwards-as-me friend:

Love right there.

It's strange how one word can evoke so many memories.

The Bernard Bert

It's only Tuesday?

The highlight of my day was accidentally walking in on my crush taking a piss.

You know when you see each other, just stare and time slows down and not because there is any sort of connection! But because you've just realised: "OH FUCK. I'm staring at him. He's staring at me. I am staring at him taking a piss. Quick shut the door. SHUT THE FUCKING DOOR. Oh shit, time is passing. Say something! ANYTHING!" Pretty much like Ross in friends when he comes on to his cousin...

Ross (thinking after just trying to kiss his cousin): Say something clever. Okay, doesn't have to be clever, it just has to be words. Any words will do. Oh my god! This is the longest that anyone has not talked, ever! There is nothing you can say to make this worse! So just say something! 

Ross (aloud): I haven't had sex in a very long time.

Ross (thinking): Yeah, you really shouldn't have said anything.

Made me laugh like a crazy woman all day. It's the little things in life.

The Bernard Bert

The Other Side

That feels a little better. I always beat myself up because I'm not the best at drawing. But hey ho. We can't be good at everything. I don't think... (self reassurance that in fact I cannot be good at everything). I have some books on drawing that I ordered a while ago. Will be spending part of my half term break living and breathing them...

Skeletor has returned. 

It is not finished but it will do for now. I'm tired. Or maybe I'll just leave it as it is. Spontaneous reflection of my emotions at this precise moment.

The Bernard Bert

Hold Your Breath

Hmm... I'm not really sure what to write. I just know that I want to write.

I haven't been feeling "ok" these past few days. I'm not sure why. I think it might be due to the fact that I am getting ill. Yay.

I woke up feeling very anxious today and I couldn't pinpoint why. Maybe because I was doing some hardcore reading on the disorder last night and making notes and continued at every opportune moment today. It made me anxious because... maybe because it's all hitting home... I don't know. It's a book my ex bought to "help him cope better" (I say that in quotes because it makes me mad and I can't be bothered to go into detail as to why) and reading it has shed some light onto myself - ways in which to explain my behaviours and feelings that I have never been able to do. I am making notes for him in the book, but y'know what, if I've got to make notes then really, he is never going to understand. It will always be a question of him asking himself: "Am I doing things right?" I can't be dealing with that shit. Just grow some balls and do it. Then I feel the guilt of thinking that. Looks like I'm getting to some of the root as to why I am feeling, well, blah.

I hate being in the middle of feeling something and nothing. It's like you're stuck in limbo for a while, wondering whether you're going to climb up or sink right down. The not knowing. If I felt good I would feel something. If I felt empty at least it would still be a feeling. But right now, I don't have a feeling; just waiting at the top of the rollercoaster, holding my breathe in anticipation of dropping back or going forward. Time will reveal all.

I wonder when things will be "ok" with me, where I can say "Yea, today was ok and I am ok" and then being able to feel ok with being ok... feeling comfortable with the absence of drama.

Of late, I have been here thinking what it's going to be like when I get better. It's as if I have this distorted image of me becoming this perfect person - finding a complete cure for this illness. I fail to see that this is not the reality. I will come to accept the idea that I will never be "cured". But I do often wonder what life would be like without the moods and the anger and the irritability and the chaos running through my head 24 hours a day.

Aaah.

I do hope that is possible because I so desperately want to be free of that. I want to be at peace with myself and I want to be the one to give it to me. I am sure that is possible: finding my identity after a whole life living as if I am somebody else or even worse, nobody. I am certain that I can find some sort of peace. I know things will never fully go away - it is part of me, imprinted - but I hold the thought close to my heart that I will cope better... I will be more at peace with myself, with others and with the world.

I think that is what Mentalized Based Treatment is all about. Finding your core. Finding you. Finding your sense of self. And then what follows is that life will become less strenuous for you.. you can cope better with it... you can almost be happy... (An underlying worry is about work and the treatment... another time...)

I so want to get better. I wonder what life would be like without this disorder. Just this moment, that hit me; I have an illness. It's a real thing. I wonder what it is like for an emotionally matured person to experience the world. I wonder. I long for but I guess I'll never know.

This is going to be part of me forever. I'm always going to have this. I cannot be cured. I don't like this person but I have no choice but to try and accept her. I want to shut her off, tell her to go away, tell her to change, tell her to just do one because I don't like her one little bit. But hey, I've got to live with her.

I've got to love myself.

I hope that one day I can learn to love and accept myself. Hating yourself is such a tiring game.

I guess that's what lies at the bottom of it all; you don't hate anyone but yourself with every fibre in your body.

The Bernard Bert

26

An insight into depression taking over and when you are living with Borderline Personality Disorder and never knew...

26/12/10

I just want to lie on the floor and stare into thin air. Furthermore, I want to lie on the bare ground, outside where it is cold and let the ice freeze my body until I am numb. But, I must write. I must force myself to type away when all I want to do is wallow in self pity. I have to because I have to learn from this. I must if I want to live for my daughter. I have been here so many times before. Countless times I have felt this empty hole in the pit of my stomach. Endless number of times I have cried and cried, not knowing when the tears will stop. There must be a way out. Surely. I can’t die. No matter how much I want to and believe me, I don’t think there is a day that goes by without wishing what it would be like if I died. But, I have to live for my daughter. I have to trudge through. I owe her a happy life. I brought her into this world. I can’t fail her. I wish I never brought her into this awful place. I really wish. She deserves much more than this pain and torture of this world.

I can’t tell you how it feels. There are no words to describe it. I try, but the words just don’t even come close to how it actually feels. No one will understand unless they have experienced this hell. But even then the experience is different. We are all alone. All alone with our thoughts. What complex and deranged human beings we are.

Just a moment a go, I was in the bathroom punching myself. I used to do that. You get caught up in a moment of madness and you crumble. You snap. It doesn’t even hurt. If it does, the pain feels good because you deserve to be punished. That’s how it feels; like you’re guilty of all of this. You must have done something wrong.

I believe I am crazy and that I am slowly but surely going to snap. I can’t remember when the depression first began but over the years it’s like it’s changed me into this person that cannot run away. Nothing feels real. I don’t believe I’m here. And if I’m here, I swear somebody is laughing at my expense. It’s such a complex place, how can it make sense? What is the fucking point? It makes me so angry. What is the fucking point in anything. We’re all going to fucking die. Why did my mother bring me into this world?

I sit here typing and my eyes won’t stop filling up. It’s like when the depression takes over I become a crazy person. I want to collapse. I want to fall onto the floor. It feels like I’m crumbling into little pieces, just breaking apart, my face falling off. Empty.

I DON’T WANT TO FUCKING BE HERE.

I want to cut my head off.

So much pain. I can’t explain the pain. It just hurts. It’s like a loss. Like you’re grieving. A darkness. So fucking dark. Like the world around you is empty and dark and there isn’t another soul in the world. Just you. Left all alone. Lost. Hopeless. Desperate.

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I'm posting these because it helps me realise how far I've come. 

It's time to give myself the credit I deserve.

The Bernard Bert

Too Long Just Getting By

I was going to write then thought I would transfer some shit from my old laptop to my current one... and I found lots of writing... this all makes sense now. Nearly FOUR years ago. 

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16.07.09

Oh how I love to put off writing. I don’t know why when I love it so much. I guess it’s just the thought of trying to get the cogs in my brain to stop for just a second just so I can actually hear, clearly, what’s going on in there.

Earlier today I was in such a state. I don’t know if I’m just fitting my symptoms to a mental illness just so I don’t feel as lost or whether I actually have it. I am now considering bipolar disorder.. I don’t know whether I have it or not. I have so much anger, which turns into rage, rage that I cannot help but take out on my daughter. And, that, I know, is very bad and believe me I feel immense guilt. She doesn’t deserve this. She deserves a loving mum who doesn’t get angry over the slightest little thing. Who doesn't shout at her for nothing. She’s only a kid and she’s learning and I can’t help but feel I am standing in the way of that. The last thing I want is her to turn out like me. I want her to have a happy life, I mean what parent doesn’t? I just don’t want her living a life like mine, where everything is a struggle. I hope it doesn’t run in the genes..

I had to call my mum at work today because I couldn’t take anymore. I was trying to avoid calling my mum and asking for help. I hate asking for help. I hate feeling weak and vulnerable. They know this all too well; I will call my mum, my sister will have my daughter for a few days and then things will go back to ‘normal’. Pft. What is normal?

I had let the feelings of loss build up inside me. The feeling of frustration and anger with the world, and most of all, myself. That burning hatred turning inward will only destroy you and rip you apart. That’s scary. A ‘darkness’ is one way I can describe it, a deep black hole and you’re just laying there, crumpled, at the bottom. You can’t see a way out. People always talk about this light at the end of tunnel. What fucking light? Show me the fucking light! Well, having said that, I guess that light comes from within. But how do you let it shine when you have this unbelievable and overwhelming feeling inside of you, one that is leaving it’s mark? I always wonder how I keep trudging on. Will I ever give up? The thought of giving into the darkness sends me into a frenzy.

Screaming helps. I always wonder whether I’m screaming at myself, or the world, or just screaming for help.. Sometimes I feel like a lost cause. I have been suffering with this depression or whatever it is for years, actually for the most part of my life. There aren’t any happy memories from my childhood, my teenage years or my life as a young adult. I suspect there probably is, but are overshadowed my these dark feelings.

When I was crying today, it was that empty feeling that got me the most. The only way I can describe it is when you are hurt, I mean emotionally hurt, like a break up with someone.. That knot in your stomach, that chokes you up when you try to speak.. The feeling of a big gaping hole in the pit of your stomach. I wonder what that is. I wonder what goes on inside my body to make that feeling.. I know it makes you hold your stomach and curl up into a ball halfway up the stairs.

I get fed up with life. I don’t deal with things very well, I’m the first to admit that. I’m trying to change things. I always beat myself up for falling (by falling I mean spiralling back into that deep, dark hole), the guilt pushing me down further. I mean, am I always going to be like this? I knew it was coming, I could feel it.. screaming inside to make it’s appearance. I don’t know whether I was just trying to suppress it or fight it. That’s all I ever seem to be doing: fighting. Fighting for my life. Yeah, it sounds pathetic, cheesy, whatever.. but that’s how it feels. Everyday is a new day, yes, but what will this one hold I ask myself? What am I fighting? Myself. I smirk as I write this because of the truth that this statements bears. I’m fighting to regain my right to live, my right to be a human being, my right to be sane. Everyday I have to fight something, whether it be the intrusive thoughts, the panic attacks, the sheer thought of stepping out of the house. It’s weird when I say that…should I really be fighting? I mean fighting it off.. Isn’t it just the same as suppressing everything? Shouldn’t the right thing to say be dealing?

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NOTE: This was never meant to be seen by anyone. It was my form of diary. I fear that posting this will make the people who actually know me think bad of me regarding me as a mother (defence mechanisms coming up because I feel so damn uncomfortable with the thought of people judging me, making assumptions, thinking I'm a bad person... just want to point out I NEVER hurt my daughter. Ever.)

I've come back a million times since I posted this and made another edit with the note. This is what happens. I can't just let things be and let people think what they like about me.

A weak sense of self.

The Bernard Bert

Rachel Getting Married

I watched Rachel Getting Married last night.. It's a film that is said to base Anne Hathaway's character on the Borderline Personality Disorder. It was strange (yet not so strange) how I could relate to the character's behaviour and her unsaid thoughts and feelings. It had me in tears. It was almost as if I could read into her thoughts when her behaviour changed as a result of her interpersonal relationships with her family. At times, she did not voice how she felt but I could see the cogs working in the back of her head that spurred on her reaction. It was uncanny at times how much she was like me.

She felt so misunderstood and that is a difficult feeling to explain to anyone, hence her destructive ways of trying to express that. A few scenes in particular really struck me hard so much so that it reduced me to tears because it took me back to a place.. a bad place. She'd had a run in with her mum (who is a selfish "role model" to her children and puts her needs before theirs, something that is all too familiar), they exchanged hurtful words and her mum didn't take responsibility for her actions in the past, always on the defence and then she punched her. Hathaway's character got up and punched her right in her fucking face (yes, you can sense that I felt her anger) and then left.

I'm not sure I would've punched her as the way in which I express my anger is usually through shouting - or at times screaming - and I've never physically hurt somebody (ruling out the few times when I was younger and one was alcohol fuelled..). But the way that she just wanted to get out of there and run away as fast as she could was an emotion I feel most times and usually I do run away or do everything in my power to try and avoid these feelings..to no avail. I have learned to cope with these feelings of avoidance of late, but it is no where near being completely modified. In time. Back to the point, she ran out of her mum's house, got in the car, crying, completely distraught - I could feel the pain in her head - and instead of turning off the road where she needed to, she put her foot down and drove straight into the unknown.. and crashed.

That feeling... that destructive behaviour.. that feeling of not caring what would happen next.. you're just going to do it, act on impulse because you don't know what else to do.. the running and going and going until there is no coming back from it, making a fucking mess on the floor only for you to have to try and clear it up afterwards (which is almost impossible for you because you can't take responsibility for your actions). My impulsive and destructive behaviour has been the bane of my life. It has caused me - and lots of other people - distress and hurt and anger... exactly what happened to her when she realised that she was going to have to face the consequences.

Another scene that got right under my skin was when she came back home after the crash, black and blue and her sister took her in with open arms. She bathed her whilst Hathaway's character cried in the bath tub. It was all very real for me. I've been there; you don't have any words anymore, just tears and it's sort of you saying "Help me... I can't do it anymore. I need you to look after me. I need to feel loved". You're just broken...dead...empty...exhausted... laying on the floor. You just need someone to take your hand and help you back up.

Anyway, I'll be watching this again. Wanted to type more but I just want to lay on the sofa. I want to write another post on how I'm feeling right now. After a smoke or two...or six.

The Bernard Bert

Just had to say...

"That awkward moment when your friend unknowingly rates your ex in front of you".

Too funny.

Makes me smile, so I will post. A good friend helping my brain to try and get off the rollercoaster. Laughter is one of the best medicines.

The Bernard Bert

I Would Be Rich

My poor head.

I don't mean a headache. I mean my poor brain is going on a rollercoaster ride after stupid encounters today.

Lonely.

My daughter is away tonight and it makes me realise how lonely my life is.

The Bernard Bert

Mind

From the Mind website.

Had to fight back the tears.

It makes me realise more and more what I need to do; take this treatment. Live it. Breathe it. Be it.

Dear borderline me...

Posted Tuesday 26 February 2013

I’ve been fortunate to take part in a research program exploringmindfulness. One of the homework exercises asked me to write a letter to my future self as part of an action plan for coping with a time when I may be struggling. 

It’s taken me a long time. It seemed an insurmountable task – I’ll never forget the feeling of living death that is depression and wondered if this was just an exercise in futility - but it’s actually done a lot to kindle real compassion for myself within me. This exercise, coupled with the mindful meditations I’ve learnt, has helped plant seeds of affection for myself, something I’ve never felt before.

Dear borderline me, 

Well done for digging this out. I know things seem pointless right now so thanks for giving this a go.

Chances are you’ve been slogging away and just realised that, instead of “getting through it”, you’re actually sinking. We’ve been here before, right? We know the signs: stuff gets top of you and instead of standing back and prioritising, you’ve tried to do it all and done none of it well. Everything makes you cry, the fear and negativity in the world seem overwhelming and you no longer find pleasure in simple things like a shower or fresh sheets. You wake in the morning exhausted wondering how you’ll get through the day. Your concentration’s shot and your inability to remember what you were doing two seconds ago is confirmation of your inadequacy.

It took me ages to write this because I didn’t think anything I could say would penetrate the cocoon of flaccid lethargy I know you’re sealed in right now. But what kind of a writer would we be if I believed that?

There are some important things you need reminding of; the first being: we make a great team, you and I – you feeling, me putting it into words. You might think you got the bum deal there but believe me, my part’s no cakewalk either. Now, if you haven’t already put this note back thinking, “Oh shuddup you arrogant twerp”, you’re already doing great. Just keep reading these words we wrote together before this black cloud descended.

Don’t beat yourself up for being a lazy-arsed waste of space. You’ve got a husband for that and you know in your heart of hearts he’s only winding you up, however much you want to latch onto something negative. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) means we live life as a performance and furtively view the world from backstage, constantly evaluating our execution. We’re our own harshest critic and this saps energy like nothing else. Its not surprising things come crashing down every once in a while, and people’s love feels like pressure or criticism.

We’ve come so far and learnt so much; don’t belittle it. For some, the world would be a hollow place without you in it, however much you tell yourself “They’ll manage.” Your husband and children unhesitatingly turn to you for love, support and advice. Your greatest fear of something terrible happening to them is also their fear for you. Don’t be the one to make it their reality. The words we write together reach others in lonely places all over the world. You make a difference.

You ask, “Must I keep pushing myself to be social, productive and successful my whole life, or can I just give in to my natural inclination to be a hermit and accept my fears instead of fighting them?”

The answer to both is “No.” You don’t have to keep forcing yourself to go against your instincts, but neither should you let fear limit you. That liberating feeling of “**** what everyone else thinks!” that depression’smaking you feel right now? Hang onto it. It’s right. It’s what’ll get you through this.

You need to put yourself first – it’s not selfish or arrogant like you were always told; it’s recognizing that you have as much value as anyone else, and having the self-awareness to own your needs; accepting them and dealing with them responsibly. That voice in your head… you know, the TRUE You? The one we try and get down on the page? You need to treasure it. The True You is far more valuable than anything you can construct. Trust it. You’ll be surprised. It actually has all the answers you’re looking for – you just have to listen.

That tenuous spark of connection you feel with the greater, wider world is the real thing. That’s why you feel better when you get yourself outdoors. The negativity you feel is something you’ve learned to manufacture for yourself; a poison originally administered by those who couldn’t or wouldn’t be true to themselves and sought to pass on their regret and disappointment so they could say they weren’t the only ones to foul up. Go for as many walks as you want, just do it – don’t wait for excuses to form. Depression detests fresh air!

You’ve learnt so much in the past year – you’ve really started to wake up. You’re writing, drawing and reading more – reconnecting with your true You, coming out of the trance. With BPD, identity is a stream of consciousness, not a solid structure. It’s difficult to pin down, but when you know who you are, you stop letting people's perception of you define you. Tune in to what comes from within – don’t take your cues from outside. You’ve learnt big lessons about the pressures of achievement, religion, gender and society and you’ve recognized they’re just paper cutouts that distract from the real thing. Remember what Bruce Lee said:

“ It is like a finger pointing to the moon; stare at the finger and you will miss all that heavenly glory.”

Hold on to all that you learnt about mindfulness. Take a break right now and do a 3-Minute-Breathing-Space. It’s three minutes. That’s nothing. You don’t even have to move, and you know you’ll feel better for it. It’s an easy achievement score. Go on, I’ll wait.

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Ok, good. Now, I want you to do something for us. In the days to come, revisit the mindfulness course, re-read the series we wrote on it. Make your vows afresh. Take small steps. Watch “What About Bob” with the kids; and baby-step like Bill Murray. For now though, go and do something that’ll make you feel better, even if it seems pointless; run a bath, grab a book, go for a walk and take the camera. THIS is where you need to put the effort in, don’t waste it keeping up appearances for others.

Don’t forget – everyone else out there is doing it too, conforming to expectations, measuring their “worth” against others – they’re all wearing the same mask. We’ve seen the magazines at the supermarket checkouts – everyone has doubts, worry’s they’ve missed the boat, fears inadequacy – they hide it just like you do. The minority are those with the awareness, strength and courage to refuse to do it anymore, we don’t hear so much about them.

Let go your belief that everyone else is better at “life” than you are. This is a tool you use to cause yourself emotional pain – it’s impossible for anyone else to hurt you in this way. You’re not that world away from perfection you think you are. It’s just an illusion. No one finds it easy.

Remember your negative thoughts are not facts. So just stop. Catch yourself and stop. All that mindfulness practice means you can spot it a lot more easily now. This, my friend, is progress. Remember how excited that realization made us feel? It’s still there, even if you don’t feel it right now. It hasn’t gone; you haven’t lost it. We can continue exploring it together when you’re ready. Hang in there. Like everything, this will pass.

Ok. That’s all. I hope it helps, but more than that, I hope we don’t have the occasion to find out.

Love and loyalty,

Your optimistic other You 

Aisha