In and Out

If you die you're completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I'm not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I've got.
- Kurt Cobain


 My mind plays tricks on me.  I can't decide if things are getting better or just staying the same or maybe becoming worse than ever.

My weeks have been peppered with good days.  Sometimes these days last two in a row!  What are "good days"?

A very good day would consist of the absence of sadness, pain, anxiety, shame and anger.  On these days I am able to smile and sometimes even laugh with those I love.  I have patience for my children (and others) and I feel competent.  I feel like I can really get things done.  I am able to look forward to the future and I am pretty optimistic.  I can be optimistic because I usually forget how bad it was when I was down.

I find it hard to remember how it feels to be in my emotions.  I am only reminded when I am in the thick of it.  I do however remember the "high" of happiness.  To me it has become a drug that I want more of.  I rarely get even a small dose but when I do experience it I truly put myself in the moment.  This is a DBT practice that I usually have to work very hard at unless I am having an exceptionally lovely emotion.  It is then that I soak it up rather than being soaked up by it.  I'm not too sure if that makes sense to anyone else but it does to me.

Today I am full of shame and anxiety.  DBT is teaching me the importance of labeling my emotions and then describing them.  It helps if you can figure out where they are coming from.  Two days ago I attended a wedding reception.  I drank a little more than I should have and now I worry that I said or did things to offend those around me. Possibley the bride and groom.   My boyfriend says I didn't but he wasn't with me all of the time.  I tend to misbehave more when he is absent.  Wedding's always bring up negative emotions for me.  When I pair them with alcohol it's never good.  I hurt myeself that night after everyone left the house.  Why do I do that?

My AHA!!! Moment

 Artwork by: Angelina Wrona (this one is my fave.) "Psst"




I've been dealing with my mental illness for so long that it has become who I am.  Everyday, every where I go it's there with me.  I suppose this is why I just assume that other people see it.  That they see there is something not quite right.

Today that assumption changed.

I was on the 9th floor of the hospital which is the Acute Mental Health level.  While waiting for the elevator (the very slow elevator)  a pair of paramedics with a stretcher came out of the locked area where they keep the admitted patients.  The elevator doors finally opened and we all piled in.  I always feel akward when other people get on the elevator with me.  They know what floor I'm coming from and I have always assumed that they know I'm a patient.  I am embarrassed by the fact that I'm a patient.

I pressed the button that would take us to the first floor and the doors closed.  It was silent for a little while.  You know what I mean.  That strange kind of silence that feels very uncomfortable because you are all in such close proximity.  The younger of the two men looked at me and grinned.

"did you sign yourself out?"

He laughed at his own joke.

At first I thought that I should take offense.  I mean really. It's not something to tease a person about!

"remember you have to stay on hospital property"

Again, he found himself very funny and laughed.

It was then that I realized (I think this is due to my DBT group) that he wasn't making fun of me at all!

He was being a bit flirty and he didn't realize or even think that I was a patient!  He was treating me as a "normal" person and that I was a part of an "inside joke".  He was making fun of the mental patients with me as if I wasn't one.

I usually judge the other people that come into my DBT group.  I usually judge anyone coming from the 9th or 10th floor.  A lot of the time I can (or I think I can) peg who is a patient and who is a visitor.  The patients usually look a bit rough, out of place or somewhat poor.  I realize that this is a horrible judgment as I am one of them and I realize that I am awful for secretly thinking that I am better than most of them.  This is something that I would NEVER openly admit.  I guess I have been feeding into the stereotype that I have been fighting so hard to dispel.

Don't get me wrong.  There are occasions when I meet patients that I feel are more like me.  They look like everyone else.  They appear to "have it together".  I have always tried very hard to obtain this type of appearance but was never sure if I was pulling it off.

Today I found out that I am.

It felt good.  Really good.

Now I know that I don't appear to be "defective" to anyone.  I blend in.  That's all I ever wanted to do.

I have learned a lesson.  I am going to make a conscious effort to refrain from judging others based on their appearance.  I was wrong and ignorant.  Mental health can affect anyone from every walk of life.  There is no "face" to Borderline Personality Disorder.  There is no standard "look".  We are simply people just trying to feel better and struggling to survive.

It's hard enough living with this illness without having to worry about what clothes you are wearing or if your hair is out of place. 

Lesson learned!

Failure

Artwork by: Angelina Wrona  "Sakura"

One of the medications I'm taking is making my head feel fuzzy. I feel restless and cannot sleep without taking Seroquel. I used to sleep a lot so this is a huge change for me. I'm glad I'm not so tired anymore but I can't stand the feeling of fuzziness in my brain.

My son is not doing well in school. He says he doesn't care. He says he wants me to stop caring about what he does and that he hates coming home. He is complaining that I'm trying to make our family perfect by cooking meals and insisting that we eat together at the table. It's upsetting me. I am getting frantic and I am having drastic idea's of what I need to do next.

I keep telling myself that I need to sell the house and go back to where I started. It was safer in subsidised housing. If I got sick, my rent simply went down. Now I'm VERY sick and the mortgage just stays the same. My boyfriend cannot pick up the slack and I don't think I should expect him too. He entered this part of our relationship with the understanding that we would both be working and that I would pay my share. I cannot expect him to take all of the financial burden. I am going to be getting long term disability from work but it's not nearly as much as what I was earning. I feel sorry for him and have thoughts of running away to save him.

I believe that I set myself up for this. I set my goals high, wanting to prove to my family that I could be somebody. My dad died before he could see what I had accomplished however I felt proud of myself regardless. Now I fear that I took on too much. I fear that I'm about to lose everything. I think my mother and brother were just waiting for this to happen. They always expected me to fail.

As for my son, I think I messed up. My daughter is very smart but she is displaying signs of low self esteem and a negative attitude towards herself.

What have I done?

I don't deserve to have children.

I should let my boyfriend go. No one deserves this life. It's not his fault I have this sickness.

I am a monster.

Panic Time

Art Work By: Angelina Wrona "Dee Dees Hideout"


Do you ever have those smack yourself in the forehead moments?

I had one last night.

I have not told my employer or employees why I am off sick. All they know is ...I'm off sick.

I have been using Twitter as a means of meeting others with my illness. I have been posting my blog link there. I did this all under my real name. Anyone could look me up, ANYONE!

Last night this thought occurred to me and that's when I did it. I smacked myself in the forehead and under my breath muttered the words "what have I done"?

I mean really!? What was I thinking. I am now convinced that someone from work has looked me up and the "story of my life" has been spread throughout the store. This realization is not working so well with my BPD way of thinking. I am FREAKING out. I have now deleted my beloved Twitter account and started a new one under a new identity. It won't be easy rebuilding but it's all I could do.

I was not ready to go back to work as it is but now, I feel I just can't.

Perhaps I should request a transfer to another location?

I'm not really sure what to do at this point. Any suggestions?

3 Days of Hell

 Artwork by: Angelina Wrona  "Water Lily"



All I can say about the past few days is that I rode the storm hard and fast and seem to have made it out with little damage. Apart from some minor cutting ( just enough to get the edge off) I am unharmed.

By today I thought it was over. There was no way out of this horrible, shitty hand I've been dealt other than death.

What kept me here? My boyfriend is away on vacation. I have no one to turn to where we live as this is his city, not mine. Who would take care of my kids? Did I really want one of them to find me? What if I didn't finish what I started, end up in hospital and they take the kids away forever? No, I just couldn't deal with any of those options. It seems that I am still waiting for the perfect time. When all of the pieces are in the right places.

I will never escape BPD. All I can do is try to survive it everyday.

Tonight I did the housework while ranting and yelling. I managed to cook dinner and around that time I finally, after my 3 day "episode" began to feel the calm.

Now as I type this I am optimistic about tomorrow. Another DBT class. And who knows what else. I pray I will be content. I'm not even asking for happy anymore. Just to be content.

The Beginning of Something Bad

Artwork By: Angelina Wrona "Framed"



Empty. A shell of a person. That is who I am.

I just came home from my DBT group. I am broken after what happened at Thanksgiving dinner. I have decided to cut myself off from that part of the family. I no longer feel that I can trust my son. He is on their side now. I've lost him forever.

If my boyfriend was here, if I had anyone here to care for my daughter...I would be gone tonight.

Thanksgiving???

So I think I need to take a breath before I put what I'm feeling down in writing.

inhale.....exhale....inhale...exhale....(this is a DBT skill) :)

OK

I reluctantly went to my mother's (non-biological) house for Thanksgiving dinner tonight. I never enjoy attending these functions because they usually end up badly. Come to think of it, any event where my family gets together usually ends up with me running away in tears, pledging to myself that I will never, ever talk to any of them again.

I realize that I have irrational thoughts. Sometimes I realize that when I'm thinking them.

But that doesn't stop me from believing they are factual.

The slightest thing can trigger my emotions to go "off the wall". Once I'm there, there is no turning back. I say and do things that I will later regret and then have to suffer through the shame and self hate.

Tonight my family accused me of "looking for things to fight about". I NEVER search for a fight because it feels so awful to have those emotions. If they would only try to understand what is really going on in my head then maybe, just maybe things could be different.

Sometimes I resent them because I believe that I have BPD because of them. Is that even right? With all that I have read, it seems to me that there are many factors involved in someone becoming Borderline. Patients are born already overly sensitive. Then the environmental factors come in to play and determine how good or bad it's going to turn out.

Me? I'm a classic case. I was born in 1976 to my young married parents. Within about a year they were divorced. My father, being a very powerful person gained custody of me and quickly whisked me away from Canada to Scotland to live with my Grandparents. That was it I think. The first strike. I had lost my mother and father. I was too young to understand that at least my Dad would come back but by the time he did, my Granny tells me that I didn't remember him anymore. He took me away, back to Canada and there it was again, already before the age of two. My Grandparents whom I had come to be very attached to, were gone too. It's not that I never saw them again. I did see them about once a year when I was small. But they, in that short time had become my parents. When we got back he had a new woman to take my birth mother's place. They eventually got married and she adopted me. She raised me to the age of 14. I'll get into what happens after that another time.

Over the years my father became increasingly abusive both verbally and sometimes physically. While all of that was going on, I was being relentlessly teased in school. We moved almost every year as my father was a pilot trying to gain momentum in his career. I was always the new kid and I was always disliked. It got to the point where I did not have a "safe" place to go to. Both home and school were a bad place to be. The kids would follow me home from school, teasing me about this and that and then I would arrive home to be picked on some more. I think this is why I began to dissociate from the world.

I have only just discovered the world of blogging and at the moment I am using it as a form of therapy. It calms me (DBT says to distract yourself from the emotion) when I write. Whether or not I am good at it is a different story. I will perfect it as I go along. I logged on today, pleased to see that I had my first follower! And from the UK to boot! The place I love because I have the best memories there. Thank you for following me and for your comments:) It means a lot.

20 minutes ago I was considering the worst things imaginable. I now feel like I'm in a safer place where I can manage this safely. I do feel shame though. Everyone is upset with me and I left my son with my mother because I felt that he took her side.

I'm sure tomorrow everything will be back to the way it always is. Just pretend it never happened and "get on with it" as my Granddaddy always said.

"this too, shall pass"

xoxo Granddaddy, I miss you

Alone again, for the first time in a year

I stayed up too late last night. That's a big no no for me. I had a friend over. She's a new friend to me and I was having plenty of irrational thoughts. I am usually able to realize when I'm having irrational thoughts because of the Dialectical Behaviour Therapy group I have been attending 3 times a week. That being said, I still can't stop myself from believing them and worrying about them. All could think of was that I was boring her to tears and that she was never going to want to hang out with me again. At least not in a one on one situation. I couldn't fall asleep when I got to bed at 4am and was afraid to take my meds that help me sleep because I didn't want to be groggy all day today. The problem is that I can't fall asleep without my meds. It takes hours without them. I take Seroquel at night. It helps quiet the thoughts and worries that flood my head all of the time. It allowes me to stop thinking so much and fall asleep quickly.

Today I am feeling some anxiety for no reason at all. Other than that my emotions are pretty stable. The meds are starting to work I think. I take Wellbutrin during the day.

I was a single parent for most of my son's life. I met my boyfriend 5 yrs ago. My daughter was only 3yrs old so she has known him always as far as she is concerned. Since we moved in together a year ago, I have realized the relief of having another adult in the house to help out. I have lived with other men throughout my son's life but they were never helpful and really just made things worse. As this year has gone by, I have given up a lot of the duties I used to do on my own. I allowed my boyfriend to take over. I allowed him to take over everything. Slowly I have become co dependant. He left yesterday for a vacation that I just couldn't face going on. I am now alone again in this house with my two kids. I'm scared. I now have to do everything myself again and I'm not sure that I can do an effective job. I'm really going to try though. Wish me luck;) I'll keep you posted.

My first disclosure

Today I'm feeling content. I have had very little anxiety and I think the medications are kicking in. Some days are not so great. Some days I feel like dying.

I have Borderline Personality Disorder. It's still difficult for me to say out loud. I have told some close friends and posted a few things on Facebook but other than that, it's my secret.

I do not remember exactly when my emotions started to become so over whelming. I do remember having what I call "episodes" early on in life. I have done extensive research on my disorder and I can tell you that after doing so, I started to listen to my doctors. When I was finally diagnosed properly a couple of months ago I thought that maybe they were just wrong. After all, they had been wrong before. I was once told at the age of 15 that I had Multiple Personality Disorder. HA!

So here I am today. I'm supposed to be an adult. I have two children and a boyfriend of almost 5 years. I see my friends and how they handle everything so well. Everything just seems harder for me. Most days just getting out of bed is hard for me. I realize that sounds like I'm full of self pity but I'm really not. I'm just speaking of my reality, the truth for once out loud.