I've been so busy!

This is absolutely the first moment of reflective quiet that I have had, where I am at home, with access to the laptop - since my last post.  And so much has happened.  To be honest, having read that last post right now, I don't know that my partner and I have really done that much work directly on our issues, or the relationship - but we really have made an effort at just being good to each other, and being loving, and close, and yes, talking - when there is time!

Crazy crazy times.  There was the week of having my mother here.  Then there was an entire week of training for my new job.  My job is part time, but the training was full time, and stretched into a second week as well - and some of it was conducted in the CBD - so it was back to massive days & long commutes for a few days there.  I have my part time roster now.  Yesterday & the day before I did my first two real shifts, on my duties, in the store.  It was really fun.  I have today & tomorrow off, then another 4 hour shift on Sunday.

What else is going on in my life?  I haven't progressed very far with my FLYlady baby steps - but I've been mostly managing to polish the sink and leave it clean and clear each night.  There have been a few exceptions, but not many.  One of the nice things that has happened is that without any prompting, the au pair has been mirroring the sink behaviour - so if he washes up, he goes through much the same process, which is excellent.  Most days I remind myself to get up and get dressed, all the way down to my shoes.  I haven't today.  I've snuck out in my dressing gown.  But I might actually sneak back to bed for a little bit once I've finished this post.  Not sure.  I got up when my partner headed off to work for the day.  I'm not sure if I've slept enough - but - he gets up then, and works a full shift, so in some senses I feel like I should be up and doing things too.

As I exited the bedroom (in the dark) this morning, I could see a little patch of something on the floor.  I flipped on the light to see what it was.  My partner has left me a little notebook (I've still been forgetting lots of things) and he's written my first few reminders/things to do in there.  It's very sweet.  I really do need a little tool like that.

So am I back from the brink?  Yes and absolutely.  Will I go there again?  Sadly, history seems to indicate that it's highly likely.  Have I learned any coping tools?  Maybe.

Here's a bit of a list of what seems to be working so far:

• the Naturopath - I think those supplements have been HUGE
• the Chiropractor - but not just any old chiropractor, it needs to be a really good one
• routine, such as the FLYlady
• reading about BPD, but not allowing myself to associate as THAT person too much
• friends - close ones, who I've told what's going on, just being supportive, accepting, and loving

Funny, but I'm reluctant to put the psychologist on that list.  Of all the tools and support I've played around with, I've felt the least helped by that - but the world is a funny place and help can be a subtle thing, so I don't want to write it off completely - but it's definitely not in my top five.

Oh - CHANGING JOBS!!  Getting out of a toxic and exhausting environment, and then finding work somewhere positive and fun, where employees are treated not only as human beings, but as people with enormous (and varied) potential.  THAT is huge.

OK - well, it's nearly enough from me for one post.  I haven't made a lasagne since the crock pot cheese and spinach one.  We have been doing a lot of crock pot meals though.  The oven element is broken at the moment, so hooray for the crock pot!

I've gotten really quite enthusiastic about meal planning, and meal preparation, which is kind of nice.  We've been eating really well & lots of variety with lots of great leftovers to take for work lunches.  A must, now that the budget is so much tighter.  

We will survive.  I will survive.

The Brink Again

I'm right back there, looking at the abyss.  Theres a big black hole just beckoning me, calling me come in. I just want there to be nothing.  No-one.  No tomorrow.  No bills, no stress, no pressure, none of these feelings of absolute despair and worthlessness.

I woke this morning and I just lay here, wishing I was not awake, wishing that I was NOT.  When I feel like this I just don't want to exist.  I want to cease.  I want to be swallowed, by the jaws of the malevolent universe, and drawn into it's acidic stomach, and melted to nothing, with no memory or pain left behind.

The only thing that holds me on this earth is my kids.  I so wanted to go, even this morning.  I have the opportunity.  My partner has gone out to golf, the au pair is not awake, and my son is still sleeping also.  The only thing that stays my hand is the thought of my beautiful ten year old son finding me, and the trauma that would cause him.  I don't fear what his life might be like without me, he has an excellent father, and lots of loving family and friends around him, he would be fine.  But I don't want him to be scarred by finding a bloody or mangled body and realising that I was dead.

I do worry about my daughter, and who would be there for her if I were gone.  Her father is far away, and she is not completely independent yet.  She's very good, and has another job now - but she still comes to me for help, and for food.  I helped her to pay for something for her car the other day.  My partner was angry, I'm sure.  He's angry and resentful about all the money I spend, but I don't know what else to do.  How can I refuse her when I have money in the bank?  She is my child.  She is trying to make a life for herself, but isn't quite there yet.  She does so much for herself and it's been so long since she's been under my roof.  She shelters elsewhere, only eats with me sometimes, mostly clothes herself, and manages to be independently mobile nearly all of the time.  When she does come to me for help, I am just grateful to see her and that she feels she can ask.

My big son is overseas, and he is fine now.  He's pretty much completely out of the nest, and has a life of his own.  I don't think my presence or absence on the planet would affect him very much at all.

So I live for the younger two.  I go to the naturopath, the doctor, the psychologist and the chiropractor, and even to my chinese lessons, to try to make myself well enough to continue to exist on the planet, to do the things I need to do for them.

Up until recently, I had worked to pay my passage on this planet, for the time I need to stay here.  Then I became so unwell that full time professional work was no longer an option.  It was going to kill me.  So, by agreement with my partner, I stopped.  And now it's an issue.  I spend too much.  I earn too little.  I don't budget.  I have no thought for the future.

Of course I have no thought for the future!  It's a miracle that I am alive today.  The statistics for BPD sufferers are not that great.  Death by suicide is hundreds, if not thousands of times more common for Borderlines than it is for the general populace.  And I'm here to tell you, it's a huge temptation.  The pull of the knife, the bathroom medications, the cord, the veranda rail ... the road, the sea, the rocks and forest offering up spiders and snakes ... it is great.  The wish to slip away into nothingness, to not have to deal with any of this anymore, it is strong.

I've been trying.  I feel like I've been trying so hard.  And up until last night, I had been feeling that my partner has been really there for me, really supportive.  Last night, I felt like he felled me like a tree.  Then he walked away.  At the time when I needed him most, he walked away, saying "I can't handle this" and he closed two doors between us.  

I was trying so hard not to self harm.  I lay there and told myself: nononononononononononoo.  I gripped my hands between my legs to try to stop from hitting myself.  I clutched the pillow.  I cried.  I was alone.  I felt completely abandoned and worthless.  I hate myself enough, without having the person I need approval from more than anything else in the world denounce me, then walk away.  

I did go to get him, in the end.  I had to.  I was going to really hurt myself.  I went to him and cried you are supposed to help me!!  He did.  But somewhere in all of this, he also booked in to golf for this morning.  When I went to bed last night, I asked him: 'what are you doing tomorrow?', and he replied: 'I don't know'.  Yet somehow, today, he got up and went.  He says I am better off without him around when I am like this.  Perhaps there is some truth in that, but I always come back to that saying:

IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE ME AT MY WORST, 

THEN YOU DON'T DESERVE ME AT MY BEST.

I keep thinking - we can avoid this all we like, but it's not the same as dealing with it.  He can go away and wait until I am feeling better, and come back when the coast is clear.  It works, in the immediate term.  He can slink off and leave me to sort out the mess of my feelings.  Sometimes I really do work through some stuff, while he skirts around it.  But there's not much point me being whole and healed if the relationship is still bent and broken.  It won't do us any good.  It doesn't work that way.

If the relationship is my biggest trigger, then the relationship is what needs to be worked on, even if my partner feels like he is not the one with the problem.  He does have a problem, a really big one.  ME.  And the fact of the matter is, if he wants to keep US, then WE have to work on fixing ME.  If I do it all by myself, it will only work when I am all by myself.  He can give me the time, and the shelter and the financial support for me to heal myself, and perhaps to a degree I will be fixed, but WE will not be fixed, and so the relationship will have no substance, or meaning.

I've walked that road before.  I've accepted in a past relationship that I was the problem, and I worked and worked and worked, to fix me.  I had tried to fix the relationship prior to that - but I was doing it on my own, and as the (another) saying goes, it takes TWO to tango.  When you do some things alone, they are meaningless, worthless.  There's not point fixing myself by myself if the only (or major) bit of myself that is broken is the bit that has relationships with significant others.  That's something I can only work on in PARTNERSHIP with a partner.  

If I have to fix it by myself, I may as well be by myself, and then I wouldn't need to fix it anyway.

So what am I doing?  Sitting here with a raging headache, a sore, raw throat, and a wish to die, faced with sorting it out by myself, yet again.  It gives me no hope for a future, or any desire to be with the partner who abandons me at my times of greatest need.

Where do I go from here?

No Photos!

I've just this instant realised none of us took a single photo while Mum was here.  How completely remiss of me.  She's just left, this morning.  She and my partner have gone down to the airport by train, and he will go on to work from there.  It's so much easier than driving.  I'm going down this afternoon.  There's some things I need to do, and then my partner and I are meeting up with friends, for dinner.  It should be really nice.  I guess I'd better sneak back to sleep for a little while if we are going to be out late this evening.  I'm still fairly fatigue prone at the moment.

We had a nice final evening with Mum last night.  We opted not to go out for dinner.  It's easier, and more enjoyable with the kids, really, just to stay at home.  I did end up doing lamb shanks with red wine.  I did them in the slow cooker.  They worked out really nicely, though probably could have done with another hour of cooking.  They were done, and tasty, but not falling off the bone.  I did a tray of baklava as well.  My (Greek) partner (I am not) didn't even blink.  I was a bit miffed.  Oh well, so it goes.  He did oblige me and make us some Greek coffee, to have with it, which was really lovely.

I want to try making baklava with some macadamia nuts, and some leatherwood honey.  I think it would be really unique.  I think maybe just using macadamias in place of the almonds, rather than the entire nut filling being macadamia.  And I think I will use a bit more clove powder than yesterday, and more orange peel .... but just for now, there's plenty of baklava left from last night.  I crushed the nuts just a bit too much too - but it's still really nice.  I hadn't made baklava for years.

My sink is still shiny this morning, though I haven't read my flylady instructions since about the first day that Mum was here.  Time to get back to them I think.  I've got this huge list of things to do that I didn't address at all during Mum's visit.  It was lovely to have her here - but it is time consuming having someone around all the time, and I do (for whatever reason) find her really quite demanding.  A couple of times I just felt completely exhausted.  At one stage one evening, when I came upstairs to use the toilet, I was just so relieved to be in a small, quiet place by myself, I just put my head on the sink and sat their for a while.  Mum pretty much never shuts up.  She loves to talk, to whoever will listen, about whatever crosses her mind, and her voice is really quite strident .... generally I'm OK with it, but while I'm so fatigued, I do start to find it really quite wearing.  How selfish of me!

Oh well, it's over now.  And now I will miss her.  And I'm sure it will be quite some time before she visits again, or we visit them.  The distances are really quite great.  Not like having them overseas, but it is a long way.  And with everyones other commitments, like work and school - it gets hard to coordinate things, though always worth the effort when we do, despite the little strains and tensions.

I've spotted another great link today, that I thought I would like to explore - it was a 100 day happiness challenge.  I've just had a closer look and realised I missed the start date for that particular program.  I'll have to keep a lookout for similar things.  It does seem like every little action is a building block for happiness.  I guess one of the realisations I need to come by is that to a degree, happiness is made.  You can manufacture it.  I'm not sure, at this stage, that I can just sit on my butt and wait for happiness to come to me - I have to get out there and MAKE it.  To me, it looks like some people just are, or just get, happiness, quite naturally.  Perhaps it is just an illusion.  I'm not sure.  But for me, right now, at this stage in my life, attaining happiness requires effort, and MAINTAINING happiness requires effort.  Perhaps, with practice, I can make it seem, and maybe even feel effortless too - but not right now.  Right now it calls for serious work.

Excuse me, I'm off to do my happiness work.  LOL.

Today, what might be required?

• review the Fly Lady's instructions
• catch up on the washing
• take some serious time out for ME
• put away the clean clothes waiting in the baskets
• look at the program for the local festival that is on this weekend

and that might be enough - by the time I catch trains to the city, visit my boss, and meet up with my partner to go out to dinner tonight.

I have to keep reminding me to be kind to myself.  But I have to also keep reminding me that being kind to myself doesn't necessarily mean sleeping, or slumping in front of the computer all day!

Have a wonderful day.  I'm planning on it.  (Gee - I think the supplements from the Naturopath might be working!)

Red wine repair job?

Our net connection and this week seem to have inversely proportionate speeds right now.  The week if flying by & the net connection is absolutely crawling!  What crazy universal rule governs that?

My mother is here with us for the week.  She had not met my partner before.  In fact, since the wedding of my brother, which will be three years ago this year, I think I've only seen her once, for a couple of hours, as she passed through on her way back from an overseas trip.

It's really good having Mum here.  I wasn't really looking forwards to it that much, one way and another.  For a start, it's been a bit too long between visits, so I felt tense about - just things ... having the house clean enough, having a room set up for her to occupy, what to do with her while she is here .... all the things that when you are a bit all over the place, you can start to inadvertently fret about.

The funny thing is that, once she arrived, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world.  My son & I did spend a fair bit of Sunday racing around madly cleaning and putting away, and a bit of re-arranging, but it was actually fun.  There's nothing like a visitor to give you the impetus to spruce up the house and plan some decent meals!

And we have had some lovely meals.  Sunday evening my partner, my daughter and myself ate out in the city, while we waited for Mum's late(ish) arriving flight.  We went to a favourite Turkish haunt of my partner's and mine, where my daughter had not been before.  It was fun.  Monday we had pesto pasta and salad, accompanied by some kofta sticks that Mum found at one of the local butchers.  Both of my kids who are currently in the country adore pesto.  One of my other lasagne plans is to make fresh pesto, then mix with ricotta as one of the filling layers.  I do cannelloni like that and it's delicious!  I keep wanting to do a tricolour one, maybe basil pesto, sun dried tomato pesto, and .... it's the third layer colour that I'm not so sure about - pumpkin?  Or maybe olive pesto.  All the pestos need to be mixed with ricotta, and I'm sure it would need a layer (at least one) of tomato sauce, or it would be too dry.  I would want it to look really good when cut.

I bought a second hand pasta machine yesterday too.  I haven't read the instructions fully yet, except to notice that it shouldn't be cleaned with water at all.  Lucky I saw that, I was just about to dump it in the sink with bleach and water, for a good soak.  It's a bit grubby.  I'll have to clean it up with oil.  I'm sure lasagne made with home made pasta sheets would be amazing!

Last night I made spanakopita, which I hadn't done for a while.  It was delicious.  We had it with a tomato, onion, basil & boconcini salad, and some little Italian style sausages.  A wonderful meal.  Thanks to Mum, who put the spanakopita in the oven while I was at a chiropractic appointment.  What a relief that is!  My back had been in so much pain - both lower back and up in my neck.  Mum had shouted me a neck and shoulder massage on Monday, which really helped my neck, but my lower back was exhausting me.  It's bliss to not be in constant pain!

I'm going to keep on seeing the chiropractor for a while.  I've got a sneaking suspicion, based on the discussion I had with my friend last week, that it might help with my feelings of depression.  It's definitely the multi-pronged approach that is helping, at this stage.  It was just so severe that no one simple solution was going to make much difference at all.  But the combination of counselling, high dose vitamins and minerals, stopping work, focussing on a clean, tidy, welcoming and inviting home (in baby, baby steps), and now getting my back/neck/spine sorted .... together these things are making a tangible difference.

Tonight Mum is going to make some satay chicken sticks and fried rice.  I said that I'd make a crunchy noodle cabbage salad.  Tomorrow night I was thinking of doing something with red wine - maybe lamb shanks.  That's mostly because I opened what was probably a forty or fifty dollar bottle of wine on Monday night, with dinner, and then on Tuesday morning I found it (way less than half consumed) in the pantry, with no cork or seal of any kind.  The au pair had tucked it away & then I'd forgotten about it until the morning.  I was so upset.  It really was a lovely bottle of wine.  I decanted it into a screw top bottle and put it back away while I tried to calm down.  Mum quite rightly pointed out it is still good enough to cook with - so I guess we should use it up before it gets any worse, now that it's started to vinegar, sometimes I think it's hard to actually arrest the process.

So - no lasagne while Mum is here, it seems.  That definitely makes us quite overdue for one.  Maybe on the weekend ....

Gratitude

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” — William Arthur Ward

I'm thinking it has been quite a while since I've made a lasagne!  I've been working on other things.  Still - lasagne is definitely something to be grateful for, so I'd better make sure we've got one on the menu this week.  I found an excellent looking recipe a little while back, that I haven't tried yet:


http://www.closetcooking.com/2011/01/chicken-roasted-red-pepper-and-goat.html


I think it definitely sounds worth a go, and Mum is visiting this week, so we'll have an extra set of hands and also a call for some really nice celebratory meals at home.


Today I've been thinking about gratitude.  That's largely because one of my friends encouraged me to take up a project based on the 365 Grateful project.  Her version of it (I'm not really that that familiar with the original project) is to post 7 things for which you are grateful, on Facebook every Sunday.  They can be photos, or just words.  I've done my seven for the week.  The point of doing all 7 together on Sunday, apparently - is to contemplate all week what you are grateful for, before posting them all together on one day.  


Here is a link to the 'original' project:


http://365grateful.com/original-365-project

I guess at some stage, I might explore that a bit more myself.  Right now there seems to be a whole lot of stuff to explore!  I guess that's a huge movement from feeling so depressed and confused and dark that I could hardly move.  Maybe the supplements are working?  Definitely not going to work is working!!  I know my partner is trying really, really hard to be incredibly supportive and understanding.  That helps an enormous amount.  It's a combination of everything I guess.  There's so many aspects to the "get well" formula.  If I had to pick my top five hints for today, to remind myself, I might choose these:

1. Don't spend TOO much time on the computer
2. Take your supplements
3. Shower, and dress from head to toe, to get your day started
4. Don't drink more a glass and a half of wine (if any at all) and only with dinner
5. Shine the sink again, it is an "inspiration point"

It's funny, the little things that can really get you going.  Or get me going, in any case.  Discovering that FlyLady website has been really helpful.  I get so excited to see my shiny shiny sink.  I want to keep it up for as long as possible.  Two nights is nowhere near enough.  She says it should be a lifetime habit.  I wonder how long I can keep it up for.  It's great because seeing the sink that shiny inspires me to clean other things - like one of my targets for today is to get in and clean underneath it, because relative to how great the sink looks, the cupboard underneath is disgusting.  And I KNOW that looking at a bright, neat, sparkly cupboard under the sink will make me feel good too!

So - am I going to become some kind of domestic goddess, in my battle to conquer depression?  Probably not.  It's just not deep seated enough in my nature.  BUT - if I get a cleaner house, and a halfway decent routine, and some shiny spots and good meals thrown into the mix, it can only be a good thing, and it does help, enormously.

I have to go now, because I snuck in another sleep in this morning, and my son is on the x-box right now, but we have a deal, and he has to switch off soon, and help me with some chores.  In the past, it has often been me who allows his time on the game console to run over, so that I can blob out and do my thing (which is often some kind of avoidance).  In the end it makes him irritable and rude, so it doesn't pay anyone decent dividends.  So, I guess I have to step up and be a better mum, along with all the other things on my list.

Breathe, breathe .... I am grateful for my home, I am grateful for my family, I am grateful for the love we share and the meals we lay on the table together.

My daughter came over for dinner last night.  It was wonderful.  She even stayed and helped wash up, and I got to show her my shiny sink trick.  

These are the things that feather the nest of my soul.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy

The flylady says that today I should shine my sink, and get dressed, all the way down to lace up shoes.  Well - I didn't shine the sink properly last night, again.  The au pair washed up.  I'm not sure whether it's a fair thing to impose flylady techniques on him.  It's pretty cool just having clean dishes.  I figure I just need to shine the sink once in every 24 hour period - and admire it for a bit.  Lace up shoes presents a bit of a problem in that I'm not sure that (apart from my work boots) I own any.  I'll have a dig on the outside shoe rack later.  I'm not sure I want to spend my days stomping around the house in my steel caps!

I've finally dipped in to the DBT book.  The first paragraph of the introduction tells me that:

Dialectal behaviour therapy ... is extraordinarily effective at helping people manage overwhelming emotions.  Research shows that dialectical behaviour therapy strengthens a person's ability to handle distress without losing control or acting destructively.


Is this what I need?  Am I so unable to deal with distress and conflicting emotions that I lose control and act destructively?  Yes, I think so.

Just this morning, I got up with my partner as he was getting ready for work.  I made us a cup of tea and put together some lunch for him to take to work.  I was already feeling a bit shaky because I felt he was dismissive about me making his lunch (he said: 'whatever' when I checked in with him about what to give him), and then as we were sitting drinking our tea, the subject of my mother and next week's sleeping arrangements came up.  It was enough to throw me quite off kilter.

For a start I'm nervous about my mother coming to visit.  I don't really want her to see me like this, or to have to try to explain Borderline Personality Disorder to her.  Then: we don't know where she is going to sleep.  Apparently I told my partner last week, that mum will sleep in my son's room.  I don't remember this.  My recollection is that I have stated, all along, that I will clean up both rooms & then offer her a choice, depending on which bed she prefers - so that she gets decent sleep, and doesn't end up with a sore back.  This conversation caused tension.  I don't think my partner wants my mum to sleep in his daughters bedroom.  His daughter hasn't visited us for months, but recently, it seems (without my realisation) it has become HIS bedroom.  He did move his clothes in there - but I thought that was to deal with a cupboard space issue.  He has been spending more and more time in there (a source of distress for me) - but I had not realised until this morning that he had shifted the locus of his belonging into there.  I don't like it.

I guess it doesn't matter what I feel, in this case.  If it has become his sacred space, and sanctuary - I just have to deal with that.  It doesn't make me feel very good at all.  When he decided to move his clothes in to there I did suggest we both put our less used clothes in there & keep our commonly used items in our bedroom - but he didn't like that idea.  I think there's some underlying stuff about it being his daughters room and that she still needs a space, when she comes to stay.  I know I have some resentment around that, because I feel like she has lost her right to have a space here anymore, by neglecting her father so much, and 'stringing him along' so often.  I hate the way she calls and says she is going to come and visit, and then lets him down, over and over again.  However - they are MY issues, so I just need to work through them and leave my partner and his daughter to get on with their own relationship I suppose.

I brought up with him (my partner) again last night that my psychologist says that if he and I don't get joint counselling of some sort, and some separate work - probably each individually with the therapist who does our joint counselling .... nothing else that I do will make very much progress.  She sees the relationship issues as one of my root cause problems and dealing with them as imperative in my recovery. Nothing came of that conversation.  My partner barely acknowledged my psychologists viewpoint and instead went off on the tangent of I don't know where my referral is because my room has been disturbed.  It's true - the au pair did clean, tidy AND re-arrange the room, which suddenly, to my surprise, is "my partner's" room.  I'm altogether not comfortable with that - but I don't know why - so I just need to let that one rest.  The au pair did tidy and re-arrange.  I didn't ask him to.  I asked him to vacuum and shampoo the carpet.  I think he just thought he was taking some initiative.  The room actually looks really good.  I don't think I can possibly reprimand him for what he has done, but now I feel uncomfortable about complimenting him on a job well done.  Damn.

Anyway - apparently my partner's mental health care plan - with the referral for counselling, was in the room & now he doesn't know where it is.  I can't imagine that the au pair would have thrown it away, so I'll just have to get in there later and have a search around and see if I can find it.  I don't think I can afford to take the risk of letting obstacles be thrown in the way of us going and getting joint counselling.  We will not survive, as a couple, without it.  It's as simple as that.  We can't do this on our own.  It's too far gone.

And in the meantime, there's DBT.  Another paragraph on the first page of the introduction to my skills book tells me:

Dialectical behaviour therapy teaches four critically important skills that can both reduce the size of emotional waves and help you keep your balance when those emotions overwhelm you.


Bring it on!  Not the waves, the learning of the skills!

It's a journey.  I've taken some first steps.  I think I'm going to be on it for a very long time.  I'd better learn to like it and start enjoying the view.

What does wellness look like?

Just now I've been chatting online with a friend who has been diagnosed just this week as bipolar.  We've known each other a long time, I guess it must be going on 20 years.  Anyway - we were discussing a few things - like: how long have we been "ill" and when is it that being different, or more intense, or impulsive, or whatever ... became pathologised?  That made me think - well, it's a bit like alcoholism I guess - your mental state is a problem when it is causing harm to yourself, or others.  Being moody, labile, excitable, low - or whatever ... it's just not a problem provided you continue to have a life you feel is worth living and to be able to support yourself and be there for your family, to have positive friendships and all that stuff.

I guess that's a bit how Kiera's story finalised at the end of The Buddha and The Borderline.  She concludes, if I'm getting it right, that she still has BPD, but that she is by then, in control of her life, happy, and making positive progress.  It's not about not having the 'disorder' - being "cured" is more like: attaining wellness, on your own terms.  The label ceases to matter so much if you have your life in a place that you want it to be.  Then you are just a person, with some, I guess you could call them - tendencies.  BUT - while the think is in full swing, and has you by the throat, and is tearing all your relationships, especially the one with yourself, apart - then you are in a very bad place.

I feel like I'm in that very bad place at the moment.  I am tearing me apart.  I am tearing my relationship apart.  I fear I am damaging my relationship with my son.  I am jeopardising my right to be a parent.  I have relinquished a really well paying job.  I barely know what to do when I get out of bed in the mornings.  In fact, some mornings, I struggle with getting out of bed at all.

The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) used by psychiatry, defines Borderline Personality Disorder like this:

A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:


1) frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

2) a pattern of unstable & intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation

3) identity disturbance: markedly and persistent unstable self-image or sense of self

4) impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g. spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)

5) recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures or threats, or self-mutilating behavior

6) affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

7) chronic feelings of emptiness

8) inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)

9) transient, stress related paranoia or severe dissociative symptoms



So for me, those symptoms, or some of those symptoms, is what sickness looks like.  The big task then, is to home in on those things and seek the other end of the spectrum ... or at least to slide myself along the scale as much as I can.  Perhaps examining all 9 of those today is a bit much - maybe it's something I can do one at a time, especially with the ones I think apply the most to me.

I think I do have abandonment issues.  It's confronting thinking about what the 'frantic efforts' are.  Oddly - I do a lot of 'pushing away' behaviour - which my doctor thinks is to subconsciously prove a point, and to fulfil a pattern, like: there, I knew I was unloveable, and that no man would ever stay with me, and it's happened again.  See?  I DEFINITELY have intense and unstable interpersonal relationships - primarily with men, partners - and occasionally with someone at work, where I do a 'demonisation' thing, from time to time.  Yes to impulsivity - I'm the queen of quitting (jobs), and occasionally there have been other things as well.  Maybe more than occasionally, LOL.  Yes to recurrent suicidal gestures/threats & to self harm .... oh dear, how many is that so far?

I'm not so sure about identity disturbance, so maybe I'll give myself 4 out of 5 right now (she says, crossing her fingers behind her back & certain that some of her friends are chuckling at this denial).  A big YES to affective instability/marked mood reactivity.  At the moment yes, yes, yes to chronic feelings of emptiness - though this is one that has come and gone, and not been huge at other times in my life.  It gets really bad at the moment though.  Yes to inappropriate/intense/difficult to control anger.  My partner copped some of that, swung and strung wildly between batches of tears and silence, just last night.

A big 'not sure' to criteria number nine.  Perhaps, a little yes, a little bit of the time (hangs head in shame). I don't like that one at all.  I don't think it's big, for me.  Maybe just a little bit ... just sometimes.  I think that's one I could control, fairly easily - and that if it's there, even just a little bit - it will automatically go away/diminish as I get other things in hand and feel happier and more stable.  I don't feel like it's one I need to work on specifically or intensely.

So after having said I wouldn't look at them all today - I just have, though not in depth.  But - that's what I've got to work with I guess.  Intuitively - I feel like my journey of exploration needs to be about working AWAY from the low/bad/destructive end of each of those aspects and TOWARDS the dialectal opposite - the positive end of each spectrum .... the place in which, while that thing is still an aspect of 'me' - it becomes a good aspect.  Because - I think the reality is: it can't be made to go away.  A leopard is still a leopard, even if it does change it's spots (or shorts, if you are a Terry Pratchett fan).

More on this to come, I hope.  Now it's time to get up and get my son moving, and then to dive in to The Dialectical Behaviour Therapy Skills Workbook and to see what the FlyLady has to say today.  I somehow stumbled across this site, through searching for housework tips .... and though I felt a bit dubious when I clicked through from somewhere else, I was delighted to find that 'Fly' is actually about FINALLY LOVING YOURSELF, and so I've decided I like her a lot, after all, and I have shone my sink!  It gleams.  It's not all neat all around, and dried on the inside, like she suggested, just yet (things fell apart again last night, before I got to that stage) - but it IS shiny.

http://www.flylady.net/d/getting-started/31-beginner-babysteps/

I'll be turning to those baby steps as much as I can manage.  It's exactly the kind of direction and guidance I was hoping for.

I've got a friend to meet up with as well, today.  I forgot to tell my partner that.  I'm sure he'll be annoyed that he was 'the last to know, like always' and will interpret that as evidence that he is the 'least important person in my life' - but that's for him to grapple with, right?  I have enough shit of my own right now.  And I know how ungrateful that sounds at this precise moment, when he has been so incredibly patient, and loving, and supportive, and is basically making the ultimate sacrifice (allowing me to give up work, in order to try to get well, while he supports us all).  But even so, in the interest of not losing myself completely (to death, or madness, or whatever) I still have to be a bit self focussed right now, and I'm sure that seems very very selfish.

Sorry world.  I have some very deep needs I have to address right now.  I'll be back, in full form, when I can.  Until then, I'm going to be a bit erratic and seem unfocussed/self absorbed/unproductive.  OK?  It doesn't mean I don't love you.  I just means I need to learn to love me.