It’s Not All About Me

Recently I had cause to want to say something to someone, who like me, has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), or the new name Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD).  I wanted to say to her “It’s not all about you.” I could see her doing, what we with BPD always run the risk of, in taking a situation that wasn’t anything to do with her, and making it all about her.  I quickly came to the conclusion that it was best to keep my thought to myself this time, as otherwise it would have indeed, become all about her.

I should say that I know us well, and so if you have BPD and are thinking that I’m talking about you…  I’m not.  You know that song “you’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you“?  It’s true.  This is nothing about you.

That said, all of us with BPD will know our tendency to think that the world revolves around us.  Whatever is said, must be about us. Whatever is said, must be confirmation that we have just been, or about to be, abandoned.  Whatever is said, must be an indication that the speaker doesn’t like us.  We use it to feel rejected, hurt and abandoned.  Every time.

The problem with it is that not only do we take the wrong message from what has been said, but we also run the risk of making that rejection happen.  People get tired of us taking things the wrong way.  They get tired of us making what has been said, all about us, when really it has nothing to do with us.  The ultimate is that we end up abandoned, as we feared, because of out own actions.

This is something I know about, because I have been doing it for years.  I could have gone on doing it too.  I could just say “it’s just my BPD that makes me do that“.  I might not be popular for saying it but BPD can be used as an excuse way to easily.  For me, I know my BPD makes it likely that I will interpret situations/conversations to be all about me, but I’m trying to make it different.

I’m trying to say “hang on a minute, this is not all about me.”  Actually, it’s probably got nothing to do with me and I would be a much better friend to myself and those around me, if I could distance myself from the automatic reflex of ‘it’s all about me‘.

I know what I am suggesting is not easy.  Actually it’s really hard to un-do a lifetime of reacting this way.  But I realise that while BPD is part of my personality, I don’t have to let it rule my life.  I don’t have to let that reflex kick in.  It is possible to do things differently… if I try.

BPD isn’t something that can be cured.  We know this, but I don’t believe I have to be permanently disabled by it either.  I can teach myself to react differently.  I can tell myself “hang on, this isn’t about me, how about I react differently?“

Maybe you have BPD, and disagree.  That’s okay.  I know that this is really difficult to do, and maybe you’re not in a space to be able to try.  This is just something that I have been trying for myself, for about six months now, and while no one else might be able to see a difference (and that’s okay), I know that for me, there is a huge difference to how I react to the things that happen around me.

I admit it’s still not an automatic thing for me.  I think it takes time to make things automatic, and maybe even the existence of my BPD will mean it’s never automatic.  But I’m not going to let that stop me.  I know that if I am to have a good life and healthy relationships I had to make a change.

It’s about self-talk.  There are no miracles and each time I see or hear something I consciously have to say to myself ‘it’s not all about me‘.

It’s hard, and it won’t happen for me unless I make the conscious decision to do things differently. When the person I referred to above tried to make a conversation all about her, I too (and I know that sounds crazy) had to then tell myself that her response was ‘not all about me’.  It ran the risk of snowballing for me, but this time I was able to stop myself and remind myself to do it differently.

Now, a reminder for readers who have BPD.  What I have written is ‘not all about you’.  What you choose to do with this information is your choice.  I have not written this about you, or even for you.  How do I know that?  Because this written ‘all about me’.

And if you don’t have BPD?  Believe me, that this is a big issue for us.  We struggle with it in every connection we have.  It’s disabling to the point that it prevents us communicating with others.  But I’m not willing to let it disable me anymore.  If I want to have healthy relationships then I have to find a way to beat this aspect of my personality.

“It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” 

―    Abraham Maslow

Invisiblity

I started this post a while back now and like many things at the moment, I just never finished. The good thing about that is that it has given me time to think and reflect. What’s really going on here?

I have got the distinct feeling that I am invisible.  I could have got a role in Harry Potter or similar, because somehow it seems that while I think I’m there in reality, I’m not there at all.  I am invisible to all those around me.

A visit to my doctor (my GP) was the start of all this a couple of weeks ago.  He was seemingly uninterested in my reality.  While I talked of having trouble getting to sleep because of pain, all he was interested in was that I was apparently using too many sleeping medications.  I wondered why he couldn’t take interest in my pain.  I wanted him to ask about the type of pain I was experiencing, and how bad it was for me.  In over a year of having a chronic pain condition he hasn’t once asked me to describe my pain.  That seems odd to me.  Maybe he could suggest some ways of managing it.  But as usual, there was no apparent interest.  I guess his bigger interest was getting me out of his office so he could move onto the next person.  So I left, invisible…

My mother has been in hospital over the past couple of weeks, and somehow I have turned into her next of kin.  The night of her operation the hospital staff rang me to ask if I would come into her during the night if she continued to be confused (a side effects of her anaesthetic).  I felt I had little option but to say yes.

Actually I find going out at night difficult.  I guess you could say I am a little ‘scared’ of the dark, so the idea of driving across town in the middle of the night was daunting.  It also meant that I would have to go without my night-time medication, because I would never to drive.  That was all okay except that no one was actually interested in how I felt, and how I would cope if I had to do this.  Invisible again, this time in favour of my mother’s needs and the hospital’s needs.

As the week went on, there were more and more demands on me.  And that’s okay, because my mother was not well and needed my support.  I guess it just felt like it would be nice if my needs mattered somehow, somewhere.  Instead I was just a daughter, serving a purpose.

At the same time as this, I have been reading a very good book about Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) called The Buddha and the Borderline by Kiera Van Gelder.  One of the things I have picked up in reading this book is the Borderline’s tendency to all too easily feel abandoned.  The lack of a stable sense of self see us take all these things as a kind of rejection of us.

When those I am in relationship with have other priorities, or simply can not be there when I need them, I think that I have lost that relationship.  They have abandoned me.  And so when I am not the priority in my mother’s care, I also feel like no one cares about my needs.

I can choose to go down the track of believing that I am invisible and that no one is there for me.  I can choose to believe that the relationship is gone, simply because I can’t always come first.

Or, I can recognise this as Borderline thinking.  I can tell myself it’s not necessary to think my world has ended because I feel invisible.  Even as I write this I can see that is an extremist view, as well as one that will destroy me if I let it.

I am not invisible.  Sometimes I might need to remember my own needs so that they don’t get lost in other’s needs, but it doesn’t mean that my needs are not important.

If that sounds easy, it’s not.  Especially for a Borderline.  We are constantly trying to hold onto a shaky sense of self, and we have to work hard to see ourselves, rather than believe we are invisible.  Even if others don’t have the ability to give my needs priority, I can work on doing that for myself.

It doesn’t mean I get walked on, or ignored.  It’s just that I recognise that it’s okay for me to put my needs first, even if other’s don’t, or can’t.  A Borderline is likely to tell you that they can’t do that, but I am one who is determined to find a way.  I’m not going to give into my Borderline insecurities.  It might be the natural response for me, but it doesn’t have to be the way.

I remember in psychology lectures at University, object permanence was discussed.  At a certain stage of human development we learn that even though we can’t see something, doesn’t mean it no longer exists.  It’s something that I need to remember in my relationships with others.

Even if they can’t, or won’t be there for me, doesn’t mean they don’t still love me, or care for my needs.  Maybe just for now, I need to take care of my own needs.

♦

“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.” 

―    Donald Miller,    A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What
I Learned While Editing My Life

Pure BPD

Who I am changes like the wind. Sometimes I’m nice, and sometimes I’m not. That must have started right from childhood because it seemed my mother’s favourite rhyme to quote to me, from a very young age was:

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

‘Good’ and ‘horrid’… all in one

It seems that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had written it with me in mind, even though he wrote it a good 100 years before my parents even thought of me.  It was always made to seem like it was an appropriate rhyme for me because I had curly hair, but I knew better.  And so did my mother.  I knew my mother was saying that sometimes I could be nice, but other times I was horrid.  There, it’s said.

I knew I was marked for life, even at the age of around five.  Although it would be around another 40 years before anyone could give me an explanation of just why I was like that.  Why was it that I was at least two people?

I’m not suggesting I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).  I don’t, although it was something psychiatrists wondered about it for a while (for reasons other than this, that I promise one day I will find the courage to talk about).

There have simply been several versions of me.  A nice Cate and a bitchy Cate.  If you don’t know me well, and I like what I see of you, you have probably only ever seen nice Cate…  because I know how to behave nicely when that is required.  That said, it’s not something that I consciously choose which I will be.  Sometimes I don’t know until I open by mouth… and see what comes out. Unfortunately that can sometimes be vicious, even though it is still coming from me.  Interestingly it is usually those I love (or hate) who bear the brunt of this.

I have written about this previously in (At Least) 67 Seasons In One Day, and is something that people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) do often.  While sometimes I am embarrassed by my inability to stay ‘nice’, I also like being both people.

“I’m scared that the ‘bad bitch’ me is gonna stay permanently, she, is the only me that doesn’t give a fuck, and that’s wonderful.”

Actually, that’s me.  To be honest, those aren’t my words.  I borrowed them from another woman with BPD because they just fit so well.  There’s the dichotomy of feelings.  I am scared of being the bad one, but I also love it.  That is pure BPD.

I guess the issue is, what do I do about it?  Do I need to do anything about it?

My therapist reminds me that these are just different parts of me, and I shouldn’t try to squash either.  There is a place in this world for both apparently.  But then if that is truly so, why was I being labelled as horrid as a young child?

To borrow the words of a friend, this bitchy Cate is a “petulant child act”.  Sometimes I love her rebelliousness, but other times I am embarrassed by her attitudes and behaviour.  Can she be tamed perhaps?  I don’t know.  She hasn’t been yet.  She continues to be a good, little minister’s daughter who needs to stamp her foot occasionally.  And that’s all it is usually, it’s just sometimes I feel sorry for the people who strike her repeatedly.  Worse still the people who strike her regularly but see me being a totally different person to others at the same time.

Does that make sense?  I know that those who have BPD will understand this splitting that goes on.  I think we all do it in different ways, some more dramatic than others.  Perhaps that’s why some have unpleasantly labelled us as ‘drama queens’.  Perhaps also, is why the DSM-V will label us differently.  Instead of BPD we will have Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD).  Maybe it’s accurate but I’m not impressed.

♦

“Look at children.  Of course they may quarrel, but generally speaking they do not harbor ill feelings as much or as long as adults do.  Most adults have the advantage of education over children, but what is the use of an education if they show a big smile while hiding negative feelings deep inside?  Children don’t usually act in such a manner.  If they feel angry with someone, they express it, and then it is finished.  They can still play with that person the following day.” 

―    Dalai Lama XIV

Related articles

• (At Least) 67 Seasons In One Day (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)

Is There a Sign On My Back?

I am seriously wondering if someone (who doesn’t like me) has, unknown to me, stuck a sign on my back saying “pick on me” this week.  Mysteriously, each time I change my clothes, I still seem to have the sign plastered there for all to see.  Having spent time with my brother this morning, I sent him a text a few hours ago to ask whether he noticed the sign.  So far he hasn’t responded.  I’m not exactly sure what conclusion I should draw from that.

Some weeks seem just determined to make things hard, and this week has  achieved that for me in so many ways.  I thought bad things were meant to happen in three’s, but so far I’ve counted six.  Here’s a run down (and I promise it’s the short version):

1.  My trial to come off lithium failed (as I told you in Ten Years Later, And I Have My Answer).  You’ll be pleased to know that I am back on the original dose.  Just waiting for it to kick in.

Actually the day after my psychiatrist told me to start the lithium again immediately, my GP (General Practitioner who handles day to day medical issues) objected, and wanted me to wait another week “just to be sure”.  Basically I quoted my last post at him and explained why waiting wouldn’t be a good idea…  and then I ignored him.  Meanwhile as I wait for the lithium to kick back in, I have all the usual symptoms of depression.  It’s a few years since I was last depressed.  I hate that it is back.

2.  The implication of my inability to get off lithium now means that I can not get medication to treat my fibromyalgia (the whole point in trying to come off).

3.  A further implication of my inability to get off lithium is that I can not get adequate pain medication for fibro symptoms that can not be treated.  All I can use is paracetemol (an over-the counter analgesic) and a very limited amount of codeine.  Neither of these do anything for the worst problem, which is nerve pain.

4.  An implication of my inability to get adequate pain medication takes a blow at my intention to use  extra medication so that I could deal with the extra pain caused when I try to giving up smoking again.  (See  Unseen).  Actually my GP denied any knowledge of this issue, and had no willingness to hear me on the issue of pain caused my nicotine withdrawal.  He basically told me to “toughen up and try again“.  I can’t say I was too impressed by his lack of compassion, empathy and helpfulness.

5.  Totally unrelated to  numbers one to four, I saw my endocrinologist yesterday for a routine check-up for my auto-immune condition Graves’ Disease.  This has been in remission for about 10 months now, and I half hoped that he would discharge me from his care and send me on my way (on the understanding that the disease could come out of remission at any time.).  What he told me instead is that it looks very likely that the disease is coming out of remission.  It’s a wait and see game now.  More blood tests in a couple of months to draw a definite conclusion, and a reminder of what to do if acute symptoms return in the meantime..

Grave’s affects a number of areas in the body, but the biggest impact is on the thyroid gland (producing a pretty serious condition  called thyrotoxicosis), the eyes ( I won’t tell you what it does to the eyes simply because the thought of it turns my stomach), and speeding up the heart rate beyond healthy.  It’s not a pleasant condition to have, nor is the treatment particularly appealing for this ‘nuclear-free’ kiwi.  More about that if, and when it happens.

6.  Just when I get to Friday and really think I’ve had enough… today the Pain Management Clinic, a public health service designed to help me find alternatives for pain management has refused to see me.  Apparently I am simply not a priority, to the extent that they haven’t even put me on a waiting list.  Being unable to get off lithium, this referral was essential, but it seems it’s not to be.

So what do you think?  Is it reasonable to conclude that sign is on my back?  Are my stars just not aligned this week?  Is it one of those weeks when I should never have got out of bed? Hmm.

Image credit: farm4.flickr.com/3140/3103360425

What do I choose?

•

Despair or Hope?

I’ve been struggling to do much reading this week, finding it too difficult to concentrate even on a short blog post.  I manage the first couple of paragraphs and then drift off.  It’s a symptom of depression.  One thing that I did manage to read, made me stop and think.  Hope Is A Choice.  Actually, if you’ve got the time, and the concentration, there is a lot written on this premise.  I’m inclined to think it’s true, that for me hope is a choice.

Hope is an easy word to say, and I know I use it a lot in my writing, but actually it’s pretty hard to practise, especially when times are tough, and there is a ‘pick on me’ badge on my back.  Actually there had been a fair amount of despair going on here in the last few days.  All these health (including my mental health) issues I’m dealing with are chronic, with little to no hope for complete recovery.

When I said in my last post that I had proven to myself that lithium kept me out of prison and out of a grave, I wasn’t kidding.  That’s the reality, especially if I choose to go down the road of despair.

One of the extra difficulties I’ve faced this week is what Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) adds to this scenario.   BPD enables me to split too easily between my emotions.  What that means is that one minute I can be happy and full of hope, sure that all this will work out.  But shortly after I can be completely depressed, despairing, withdrawn and without hope.

Actually it is this reason that has stopped me from posting this week.  If I post when I’m feeling good, you will get one impression which might be quite different from what reality is.  That has consequences for you, as the reader, trying to understand but it also has a habit of kicking back at me.  It’s hard to explain but I’m sure fellow BPD sufferers know the issue well.

What I really need to say is that this week has been really hard, and it’s not over yet.  I have some practical issues that I am going to have to try to resolve, but as yet I don’t know how I will do that, and frankly it doesn’t seem like I have a lot of support from the medical fraternity.

Sometimes this week, I have seen very little hope.  Other times,  I have had to go back to borrowing hope (see Borrowed Hope).  I felt disappointed to have to do that, but it was necessary because I had lost sight of my own hope.

As for now?  Deep inside I have a sense that this will work out, that my health can be revived and that hope does exist for me.  Although I’m not sure how it will look.  Sometimes I have to look a long way to find that sense of hope and in the meantime I guess I’m suspending judgement.  I’m not choosing despair.  No matter how bad I feel, I refuse to go back down that road again.  I can’t afford to do that to myself.

“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.” 

―    Ellen Bass

Related articles

• Ten Years Later, And I Have My Answer (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Unseen (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Borrowed Hope (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Hope Is A Four Letter Word I Use Now (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• The Anatomy Of Hope [BLOG] (positivelypositive.com)
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Careless Words

Image credit: flickr.com/photos/nicasaurusrex/6158445762

“Sticks and stones may break my
bones but words will
never hurt me!”

Believe this?

These are the words I remember shouting out at kids in the playground who called me names.  I was taught this rhyme, and at the time I think was probably convinced that it was true, but only because I didn’t understand that harm other than physical harm existed.  I thought that “words would never hurt me” because, well how could a word trip me over and leave me bleeding on the pavement?

Now I know better.  Now I know that words often hurt.  Too often words are spoken (or written) without thought for the possibility of hurt being caused.

In the last few days I’ve been reminded of this over, and over again.  For myself, I have been called names that I’ve never been called before, sparked by my expressing an unpopular opinion.  I’ve been labelled with labels I’d rather not have, and you probably wouldn’t want them either.  I’ve had strips torn off me repeatedly, by many different people, all by words reacting to a comment I made.

For a while I was able to take a ‘healthy approach’, which I admit surprised me because in the past such things would have destroyed me for at least a day.  This time I was actually able to separate myself from what was being said, and I could believe that just because these people (who didn’t know me) were saying these things about me, that didn’t make it true.  That was the difference.  Just because they said it, didn’t make it true.

By the second day of this, the words were starting to hit.  I could still say that their words didn’t make it true, but it was starting to hurt to be thought of that way.  The people expressing these words clearly thought I was the lowest of the low.  The labels they attached to my name weren’t comfortable.  I knew I wasn’t the person they assumed but somehow just their assumptions hurt.  They might not be true but they were digging deep into my insecurities of myself.

I took the best course of action considering the circumstances.  I walked away.  Permanently.  For someone with a history of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) that is actually quite hard to do, and I congratulate myself on that.  You see, not only do we get angry and want to fight back, but also we struggle with our sense of self and have to fight in order to preserve what little there is.  Being told I was all these things was difficult to manage.  I’m learning though that walking away from a fight can actually be the healthiest thing to do, and I’m glad I chose to do that before getting myself more hurt.

What strikes me though is that the words that were slung at me, were never considered in terms of what damage they might do.  They were perhaps just thrown without a thought of how they might be received.

I have seen that in more than just my own personal experience in recent days.  I have seen other people have very harmful words thrown at them recently, much worse than what I encountered.  My own experience simply served to highlight to me what damage could be done.

Words are just thrown like mud.  The only thing is that while mud sticks, it will also wash off.  Words are more like a dirty, serrated knife that cuts deep into the victim.  Then more words are thrown and the knife is twisted.  The damage is immense and long-lasting.  Yes, stick and stones may break my bones but words have the power to destroy me (or you).

“Words are like eggs dropped from great heights; you can no more call them back than ignore the mess they leave when they fall.” 

―    Jodi Picoult,    Salem Falls

It’s a good reminder for me of the power of our words.  Words can be good, they can be encouraging and healing, but it seems that more often words are flung without a thought of how they will land, or what damage they will do.

I am well aware that it was a few words from me that caused the flurry of attack on me this week.  Words, which I knew what they meant, but apparently caused an  emotional trigger reaction in the recipient.  And then it grew from there, as a very fast growing and large mushroom.

There was little way that I could have predicted what reaction my words would have, nor do I believe that I can take responsibility for another’s reaction.  But perhaps I didn’t stop long enough to consider the possibilities for hurt.  Actually in hindsight, I’m sure I probably didn’t although it was a quick comment that I didn’t think about much.  And I guess that’s so often where the problem lies.  We speak before we think.  I can’t take responsibility for how another reacts to my words, but I do believe I have a responsibility to do all I can to ensure my words hopefully avoid hurting another.

What I experienced personally this week was not pleasant, nor was what I saw hurled at others in different circumstances.  But it has made me think about my words and how I use them.  And as a writer that seems an important lesson.  It’s not just how I understand what I am saying, but there are a myriad of possibilities of how my words will be interpreted.  I can’t mind read.  I can’t tell exactly how a person will react, nor am I responsible for their reaction.  But I’m sure I can do my best to show compassion in the words I speak, or write.

Maybe the approach to take is that of kindness.  Are my words kind?  I can still express a different opinion to the masses, but have I done all I can to try to avoid causing unnecessary hurt?  That’s what I’m going to try to work on.  I can’t guarantee the outcome because there is always a recipient of the words who will determine that outcome, as well as onlookers who take the chance to throw in their five cents worth, but I can do my little bit to make this world a better place.

“I always surprise myself on my ability to turn a phrase. Words are, in my not so humble opinion, the most inexhaustible source of magic; capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it.”

―    J.K. Rowling

Related articles

• Bad Press In Black & White (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Cate: 1 BPD: 0 (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
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• Words (whatthemuffin.blogspot.com)
• Words Hurt 3 (mickeysayhello.wordpress.com)

Deceived

“Nothing could be taken for granted. Women who loved you tried to cut your throat, while women who didn’t even know your name scrubbed your back. Witches could sound like Katharine Hepburn and your best friend could try to strangle you. Smack in the middle of an orchid there might be a blob of jello and inside a Mickey Mouse doll, a fixed and radiant star.” 

―    Toni Morrison,    Song of Solomon

I have said before that I spend a lot of my time involved in running two on-line mental health support groups.  This is something I purposely keep very separate from my blogging, so it doesn’t get mentioned very often.  But in order to understand some feelings going down, it is necessary for me to think through some things that happened at the end of last year.  That’s when I was deceived.

Over a year ago I joined a support group for people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).  It was run by a man who lived on the west coast of the United States.  It seemed a really good, supportive group and I quickly made friends with a lot of great people, including the man who ran it.  Some time later I was asked to become an admin on this, and several other groups the man ran.  I liked what he was doing and felt I was in a good position to do this, and so agreed.

To cut a very long story short, time eventually revealed that this man wasn’t who he said he was.  Actually he was a woman, living in another part of the United States, creating an extremely fanciful, but false story of who she was and why she was running these groups.  Mayhem quickly followed and people who I thought I knew, and people I thought I could trust, suddenly turned against each other, including against me because I was now involved in running the groups.

On top of this I had become (what I thought was very close) to another woman also involved in running the groups.  I had believed everything she told me about herself and we had chatted for literally hours over some months.  Unfortunately I seemed to be perhaps the last person to realise that actually it was mostly lies.  Because I had believed her what she had told me, I lost other friends, some of whom I have since re-connected with.   I lost her frienship, because I couldn’t accept the way that she lied to me.  It turned out that she was in on the whole scam with the original woman.  To my horror, some thought I was in on the scam.  I wasn’t.

I now run groups away from these original groups, but including some of the people badly hurt by this whole deception.  I set them up because I was concerned about the hurt that people were feeling but thankfully am pleased to say that these groups have now pretty much moved on from the hurt of last year.  Although I think it is fair to say that it made us all more cautious of whose story we believe.

On-line support groups are a very important means of support, communication and connection with the outside world for many people isolated by mental illness.  Unfortunately there will always be bad groups around and it becomes essential that those who join are very careful in who they trust.  The thing is that for many people with mental illness, and especially for those with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) who find it difficult to trust people at the best of times, it is already hard to trust.  That’s usually one of the reasons they lost connection with the non-cyber world (I hate the term real world).  The other group that I run is for people working to recover from self harm, and those people also tend to be vulnerable and in need of a safe place where they can be understood.

I am committed to what I do but I have to admit that I sometimes find myself a little skeptical now until someone proves to me in some way that they can be trusted.  I find it sad that I have become that way.  I don’t want to dis-trust people.  I never have.  I hate that I have to try to check people out before they join my groups, but last year’s events aren’t an isolated case.  There are constantly people who want to wreck something that for so many people is a good, and sometimes life-saving thing.

It was a long time ago that a friend gave me some very good advice, which I hold to today.  At the time I was concerned that another friend had been lying to me and asked him how I should treat what I suspected were lies.  He told me to treat the person as if what they say is true, until I had clear evidence that it was otherwise.  It was simple, but very valuable and it has stayed with me for many years.  I have used it in my working life, and in my personal life, and now I try to always use it in the groups I run.

Being deceived can be a sure-fire way of shutting us down and making us refuse to trust anyone.  When I was deceived last year, especially by the second woman who I really thought had become a true friend, it was tempting to simply retract myself from all social media.  Not trust anyone who I couldn’t see standing right there in front of me.

I think now days that I am pretty careful about who I connect with on social media.  I don’t see the point in connecting with total strangers just for the sake of adding more ‘friends’ or ‘followers’ to my list.  I don’t need hundreds of so-called ‘friends’.  I get concerned for people who do.  And I hate how Facebook use the term ‘friend’. While I am fortunate to have many who I know I can trust, I regularly encounter people who have hundreds of ‘friends’ but not one they can turn to in a moment of need.  To call these people ‘friends’ is just crazy.  Facebook is simply fooling people.

How do I tell who is worthy of my trust?  A very unscientific means of gut feeling.  Sometimes that gets it right, a few times it doesn’t because there are constantly people out there who want to deceive.  But I’m always learning and always delightfully surprised when someone turns into a true friend.

I could have turned my back on all this last year, and I know many who did.  Many people were very badly hurt by people they thought they could trust, some to the point of harming themselves over it.  It has been hard to keep going at times, because sometimes instinct tells me to guard my heart and mind almost over zealously.

People will continue to hurt me whether through social media or in day to day life.  Unfortunately it seems to be human nature, but the gains I have made through staying on-line have been amazing.  The good people far outweigh the bad thankfully, and so I choose not to harden my heart but to continue to treat people as I would want to be treated… with the truth.  The good I receive from connecting with people on-line far outweighs the bad.  I choose to be careful, but open to the goodness that comes my way.  And right now, there is lots of goodness.

“What actions are most excellent? To gladden the heart of human beings, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the sufferings of the injured.” 

- Bukhari

Related articles

• Bad Press In Black & White (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• Cate: 1 BPD: 0 (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)

I’m Just Plain Weird

The Butterfly Emerges                         Image credit: imgpress.com

Yesterday afternoon I had an appointment with a new psychiatrist.  My last one, who I hadn’t seen for two years, had flown the nest and because I needed some advice on medication I was referred to this new one.  Now I don’t have a lot of faith in psychiatrists (no offence intended to my friend who used to be one) because in my experience they leap to the wrong conclusions about me.

I have never been a textbook case of anything, so I guess I make it difficult for them.  And then they are always pressed for time so don’t have the time to really find out what it is that makes me who I am.  So I was a little hesitant and stress levels were rising in advance.  That said, I was also curious because I know I have come a long way in my recovery and I wondered what a psychiatrist would make of it.

What I wanted to do (and got the okay to do) is to come off lithium (gradually), which I have been on for about 10 years.  I want to come off it because it is standing in the way of getting some reasonable medication to treat fibromyalgia, which was diagnosed earlier this year.  I talked about this in To Earn Trust After Past Mistakes.  While lithium has created some real problems for my physical health, it has been great for my mental health and my concern was for what might happen if I came off it.  Would my level of mental health go downhill?  Time will tell.

But of course seeing a new psychiatrist involved the full psychiatric assessment. One and a half hours later this new psychiatrist, who seemed to know his stuff, and I felt comfortable with, told me his conclusions.

I’m weird.  I actually already knew that, but it’s interesting to be told that by a psychiatrist.  Next time I’m asked for my diagnosis, do I say ‘weird’?

He also told me that while he could see I was severely depressed in the past and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) he didn’t see that there was any label he would give me now other than having some serious attachment issues.  As for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) he could see that there were aspects of this in me but he didn’t accept that it was ‘the issue’ for me now, as diagnosed two years ago by the last psychiatrist.  We talked about the eating disorder but he didn’t seem too interested in that, accepting that I seemed to have it pretty much under control now.  One thing that he did say is that there were perhaps five or six labels that could be assigned to me, but he didn’t think they are necessary now.  I’m just weird.

Wow!  It’s nearly nineteen years to the day since I was first diagnosed with a mental illness.  I have been collecting numerous labels ever since, although struggling a bit because no label ever seemed to fit me perfectly.  When I was given the dreaded BPD label two years ago it actually felt a bit of a relief, because I could finally see something that actually fit.

Now it seems I don’t have any labels.  This is very odd.  I’m sure ‘weird’ is not in the DSM-IV, although I prefer it to some other labels I’ve had.  Maybe it is in the DSM-V, which is on it’s way.  Obviously (as he said) I still have some issues, that I’m working on in therapy.  And while he was happy for me to wean off lithium he wanted me to stay on the anti-depressant I have also taken for 10 years as a precaution against the depression returning.

This has completely blown my mind.  I think he expected me to dance for joy and I can see that element, but my first statement to him was “so you’re saying I’m nothing“.  Of course he hastened to assure me that wasn’t the case, and then wanted to understand why I would think that.  He then suggested I shouldn’t think too hard about it, and in that he summed me up perfectly.  It was exactly what I was inclined to do.

I am only too well aware that BPD is a personality disorder and is such part of who I am.  My understanding of that has always been that it is not something that one recovers from.  Yet perhaps I have.  I don’t know, and part of me wants to race to another psychiatrist and check that the first one is right.  But as I paid NZ$345.00 for this information today, I won’t be rushing to another any time soon.  At that price once in two years is quite enough.

This information is still sinking in and weird is exactly how I feel.  One on hand it is great news to not have those labels and to know my hard work has paid off, yet for nearly 20 years I have been labelled a psychiatric patient.  And believe me, I did it in style.  If one can call it that.

So what am I now?  Other than weird?  I’m not sure.  Time will tell.  Life is far from perfect, but it is so much better and the butterfly is finally emerging.

“I am spinning the silk threads of my story, weaving the fabric of my world…I spun out of control. Eating was hard. Breathing was hard. Living was hardest.

I wanted to swallow the bitter seeds of forgetfulness…Somehow, I dragged myself out of the dark and asked for help.

I spin and weave and knit my words and visions until a life starts to take shape.

There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever.  There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn’t matter anymore.

I am thawing.” 

―    Laurie Halse Anderson,    Wintergirls

Related articles

• To Earn Trust After Past Mistakes (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
• What’s in a label? (infinitesadnessorhope.wordpress.com)
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Cate: 1 BPD: 0

Image credit: D.Hilgart/Flickr.com

I’m celebrating a victory today.  Small, yet still very meaningful to me.  Personally I think celebrating the small steps is just as important as the major break-throughs.  Always.

Someone swore at me today on my Facebook page.  This was a first, although it is something I am used to in the support groups I run (although only when trolls sneak in).  I can handle that when it happens  I have a responsibility to protect members of the groups from these people and so have come to accept that it is simply part of the job.

But to swear at me on the Facebook page associated to this blog was new to me.  I immediately recognised the name as a friend of a friend, but had no reason to think why this person would do that.  The victory though, was that I didn’t immediately take it personally.  Actually my first thought was that the person didn’t agree with the quote I had posted, and it wasn’t until later that I thought that perhaps it was aimed at me.

Now I know this stuff goes on in social media all the time, and I have handled it so that it won’t happen again (from that person anyway).  But let me explain why this happens to be a victory.  Firstly I need to put it in the context that I’m not someone who swears often.  When it happens (like when a family member accidentally lost control of their car and tried to run me over recently) there is usually a pretty good reason.  That said, I accept that unfortunately, for a lot of people swearing is almost second nature.  I find that sad.  Why can’t they find some real words to express themselves properly?

People with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) invariably assume that everything is directed at them personally.  We can have paranoid thoughts (although that has never been a great problem for me) but more so, we have a very unstable sense of self.  That means we take things personally.  We have a tendency to assume everything is about us, although I hasten to add that isn’t some sort of vain pride but rather the inability to separate ourselves from the situation.  Anyone who has BPD will tell you that it is a constant battle to achieve this separation.  While we are great at splitting, realising that the whole world is not about us is a little more difficult.

But I did it.  My automatic assumption was that this torrent was not aimed at me but rather at the quote.  This is big!  It is very big for me.  Actually in hindsight I’m sure it probably was aimed at me, although I don’t understand why, but it doesn’t actually matter and I can shake it off and not let it wreck my day.  Actually the person who posted it is the one with the problem and this is not all about me.  It’s time to celebrate.

Oh, and if you were wondering what the quote was,  it was something very relevant to me right now:

“We need others.  We need others to love and we need to be loved by them.  There is no doubt that without it, we too, like the infant left alone, would cease to grow, cease to develop, choose madness and even death.”

 - Leo Buscaglia

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An Idealist

Image credit: Iguana Jo flickr-15601096 – fotopedia.com

On more than one occasion I have been labelled an idealist, and I don’t care.  I would rather be called this than have my mind so closed to the difference of others around me, and around this planet where we live.

This morning I woke to disturbing news that three more kiwi soldiers have died in combat in Afghanistan, including our first female soldier ever killed in combat.  I know the numbers of soldiers lives lost in New Zealand is negligible compared to other countries but we are a small country.  Our population is only 4.5 million and every death is a big loss, of course especially to the friends and families of these people.

I have written about my feelings about war before so I won’t repeat myself.  I don’t claim to have a firm grasp on the subject of international relations but I find it so difficult to accept that death in the name of war is necessary.  When will it be that we learn to talk rather than fight and kill?

I was taught to live on the basis of ‘love your neighbour as yourself’, and while I don’t accept all the teaching I was given as a child, this is one that I firmly hang onto.  Simply because my neighbour might be a different race, religion, gender, culture or even sexuality gives me no right to judge them as being wrong.

I also read other news this morning that disturbed me.  Here in New Zealand church and various moral groups are arguing over the proposed marriage amendment bill that, if passed, will allow the way for same-sex marriage.  While it is an entirely different subject than war, I am inclined to think that the issue is the same.  The inability to accept the difference of others.

It is not my place to judge anyone as right or wrong.  I am simply another human being walking this planet and I have as much right to freedom as anyone else.  I believe that if I should choose to marry another woman I should have that right, and should have that legally recognised as a heterosexual couple would be.

More and more, I find myself objecting to what so many people say is simply ‘right’.  I’m not convinced that right and wrong is that clearly cut, and that is coming from someone with the black and white thinking of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).  There is hope for my adoption of the colour grey  after all.  I know that I have family and friends who might disagree with my views but that is okay.  I think it’s a whole lot better that I stand for what I believe.

For so many years I couldn’t care less.  Don’t get me wrong, I have always cared about inequality and fairness,  but because of having my head so far into that mental illness fog, it was impossible to stand for anything.  Now though, I get too disturbed by  that inequity and judgement to just simply accept it as life.  People dying at war, whether soldiers or civilians is unnecessary.  People being denied the right to live as the people they are to is also unnecessary.  For that matter people (like me) being judged for having a particular kind of illness and being unable to get the job or the home they need?  It is also unnecessary.

Somehow we need to find a way to live together in harmony.  I might sound like I’m left over from the 1960′s but I will never accept that we can not achieve this.  So call me an idealist. I’m a proud one.

“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

 - I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
- I shall fear only God.
- I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.
- I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
- I shall conquer untruth by truth.

And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.” 

―    Mahatma Gandhi

Related articles

• NZ soldiers killed in Afghanistan (tvnz.co.nz)
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• Head to head: Same-sex marriage (stuff.co.nz)
• Catholic Bishops’ Letter On Marriage Amendment Bill Rejected By Leaders In Other Denominations (stmatthews.org.nz)
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• Idealist (rekindledflame.wordpress.com)

Bad Press In Black & White

Image credit: wordle.net

A young woman goes from doctor to doctor asking for help.  She knows there is something terribly wrong but she has no understanding of what it is that makes her feel the way she does.  She desperately wants someone to love her, and is terrified that those around her will abandon her because she seems to have no way of reining in her emotions. 

The doctors eventually all tell her the same thing.  She has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).  She is told they can do nothing for her.  It’s just the way things are and she will have to live with it.

She goes home and searches ‘BPD’ on her computer, desperate for an explanation to how she feels.  The words above leap off the screen.  ‘Manipulative’, ‘attention seeker’, ‘drama queen’, ‘child-like’, ’mentally tormented’… and more.

 Some of it sounds like she feels.  Other words sound pretty cruel.  She feels hopeless.  She assumes she must be a really bad case if doctors can’t, or at least refuse to help.  She concludes if they can’t help, no one will be able to.  Life doesn’t look too good.  She is doomed to a hell of black and white.

True story.  It’s not me, although my experience wasn’t a whole lot better.  Doctors told me they could do nothing more to help me… before any diagnosed me correctly with BPD.  I had, what they assumed, was treatment-resistant ‘treatment-resistant depression’.  Does that make sense?  They couldn’t, or wouldn’t, treat my treatment-resistant depression anymore.  It was hopeless.  I was supposed to just go home and live the way I had been living for the rest of my days (quietly presumably).  The problem was that depression wasn’t the issue.  I had BPD, so I found out several years later, but meantime I assumed that this would just be my lot.  I assumed there was no hope.

I fought back eventually, thanks to encouragement from a loved one who wasn’t prepared to let me accept it as an answer.  I eventually sought yet another opinion.  Thank  goodness I did, because the previous doctors just hadn’t looked far enough, and hadn’t listened to me enough to understand what was going on.

But the woman above wasn’t so lucky.  She gave up because so many doctors had told her the same thing.  There was no hope for her apparently.  She believed she was hopeless.

If you go searching for information about BPD, it’s not a pretty picture that is painted.  There is some good stuff out there but other writers are pretty cruel.   Perhaps they have valid reasons for that, but it makes it very difficult when you want to understand yourself, or you want to help a loved one who has been diagnosed with BPD.

It’s true that there doesn’t seem to be a medication that can specifically treat BPD.  What’s more, therapy is fraught with complications when you struggle to trust the therapist (or anyone), constantly fear that they will leave you, and seem to be one thing to one person and a completely different thing to another.  Therapists do have their work cut out and so it seems that many have just chosen to either refuse to treat people with BPD, or run a mile as soon as BPD is mentioned.  Another problem is that some styles of therapy just leave the patient totally flumaxed.  It makes no sense.  A therapist can assume the patient isn’t trying hard enough and give up.  The patient can assume there is no hope for them.

I was told I wasn’t trying by staff involved in trying to treat my depression and my eating disorder.  They told me they had done everything possible to help me.  Actually they hadn’t.  It might have helped if they’d got to know me well enough to diagnose me correctly.

As for a therapist, I have been fortunate (finally), although both my therapist and I know that we are in it for the long haul.  After years of seeing him, and him never letting me down, I still constantly fear that he is going to abandon me.  Everytime he has a holiday I prepare myself for the fact (well, I think it is a fact!) that he won’t come back.  Everytime he comes back  anyway, but my fear remains.  Everytime I go to see him, I expect he won’t be there, even though he has done nothing to make me think that.  I accept that I am not the easiest patient but I very much appreciate that he has stuck with me, and not just said “I can’t help you.”

“People with BPD often have an unstable sense of who they are.  That is, their self -image or sense of self often rapidly changes.  They typically view themselves as evil or bad, and sometimes they may feel as if they don’t exist at all… Relationships are usually in turmoil.  People with BPD often experience a love-hate relationship with others.  They may idealize someone one moment and then abruptly and dramatically shift to fury and hate over perceived slights or even misunderstandings.” (1.)

All this makes it difficult to work with us, but I can not accept when relatively functioning people are told there is nothing that can be done.  I say relatively functioning because many people with BPD hold down jobs, are in relationships and have children.  Mostly people with BPD are not hallucinating or delusional, but they do need help.

Do you know that approximately 10 per cent of people diagnosed with BPD end up as suicides?  That’s a huge number and I’m not going to be one of those, nor do I want any of my BPD friends to be either.

While I was researching for this post, I read a lot of negative material about BPD and actually had to take myself away from it a few times.  I was left thinking ‘how could anyone bear to be in any sort of relationship/friendship/connection with me?’  But I also know enough to know that while I might not be the easiest person to deal with some times, I am not how I saw myself being described.  But then I know I am working hard to correct the way I think, so that makes a huge difference.  The stigma associated with this particular disorder, which isn’t even often talked about, is immense.  What gets printed doesn’t help that, all it does is add the the growing mountain of criticism, judgement and hopelessness.

Actually there are some positives to BPD, which aren’t often recognised.  I had to dig a long way to find anyone prepared to say that actually people with BPD have good points.  And I suspect I’d have to dig even deeper to find a person with BPD who had ever had this pointed out:

Image and copyright owned by Kiera Van Gelder.

If you don’t have support, and you don’t have the motivation to learn new skills for yourself, then it’s pretty impossible to function adequately, although a surprising number manage to muddle on, and just assume somehow that they are terrible people.  The ‘bad press’ circulated (not just on the internet) just makes things horrendously difficult for the some two per cent of the general population who have this disorder.

I know we can be difficult to understand, and I know it can be hard to predict what we might do next.  I know we have a strong tendency toward self-destruction but actually what we need is just the same as what others with other mental illnesses need… hope.  And yes, we are good people.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could get spreading some good press?  It does exist.  I don’t believe we just have to accept the negative things said about people with BPD.  It’s just that those people have gone to the trouble to write it.  It would be easier just to accept it as status quo, but I’m not prepared to.

Susanna: [reading from a book] “Borderline Personality Disorder. An instability of self-image, relationships and mood… uncertain about goals, impulsive in activities that are self-damaging, such as casual sex.”
Lisa: I like that.
Susanna: “Social contrariness and a generally pessimistic attitude are often observed.”
[pauses]
Susanna: Well that’s me.
Lisa: That’s everybody.”

 - Excerpt from Girl, Interrupted, Movie (1999) by Susanna Kayson

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• The Mystery of Borderline Personality Disorder (time.com)
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