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

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