#57 I Have Always Been Afraid of Spiders

#56 My Mother's Inheritance?

It is difficult to separate my mother’s experience from my own when I look at my view of the world.

My mother’s childhood was filled with loss, sickness, poverty, and insecurity. Her mother died when she was just 7 years old and she tried to care for her two little sisters, but the Children’s Aid Society had to step in and remove them all from my Grandfather and put them in an orphanage for several months.

My father got sick when I was 7 years old and we left a very comfortable military life to live in broken down farmhouses filled with bugs, spiders, and dirt; without electricity, heat or bathrooms for the next 7 years. I was physically and sexually abused by people who should have been protecting me from these things. (I don’t know if my mother was abused or not.)

But she constantly told us that, “life isn’t fair,” and “expect that there is always a disaster coming around every corner and you won’t be disappointed,” and “we are not as good as other people so know your place and stay in it.”

Maybe because I was only 7 when things got really bad for our family, I swallowed these toxic messages like they were the gospel truth. I worry all the time, that whatever is happening, is the beginning of some awful catastrophe. I feel like I don’t belong anywhere. I know that I am not as good as/ as smart as/ as nice as/ as brave as/ everyone else I have ever met.

I am lonely, don't like myself and I am usually scared to death!

#55 What is the Connection?

If suicide is murder delayed, what is self injury? We refuse to recognize that suicide is rooted in personal history because the perpetrator is long gone when the actual dying occurs.

If we can't make that connection, how do we connect the act of self injury to the long ago abuser of the child?

For the most part, my attacks have been against my arms and hands. But for the worst two years of my life, I swallowed a corrosive substance about 25 times. So I was burning my 'insides.'
I don't remember finding any logic in what I was doing. I do remember a near hysterical voice shouting, "You swallowed what?", but I had not felt so calm in quite a while, and I didn‘t see why they couldn‘t appreciate that. Unfortunately, the effect didn't last long, and I had to keep repeating the procedure, increasing the amount every time.

I think now that something was 'gaining' on me and this was my attempt to outrun it. But I don’t understand how the particular method I used connects to the original crime (or criminal.).

Nonetheless, each time I experience the pain;
I can float away and forget again.

#54 Face To Face With The Next Step

#53 Forgetting

For some reason, that I have never really understood, my sister and my mother used to reminisce about the time my mother nearly killed me. They did this in front of me but, as if, it was something only they shared.

In my twenties and thirties, I got to hear about one incident in particular several times. My father was in the hospital. My mother heard my sister screaming upstairs and ran up to the bathroom. I had undressed for my bath and my sister had discovered that I was covered in bruises.
They always said it the same way..."Rylee was black and blue from her hairline to her knees."
Then my mother admits that she had lost it and nearly killed me.

(Today I have an untreated wrist fracture and a broken L5 vertebrae.)

Although I was about six years old at the time, I have no actual memory of this beating or any of the others. How can this be?
One possibility was that I knew I could not tell my father because he was sick and there was no one else to help me. Much as I might have fantasized about it, I could not kill my mother.
As time passed, I must have thought it would be easier if I just forgot .

#52 Back From Hell

I told myself that I would never blog during a firestorm. (#22 Firestorms - An Attempt to Explain). And I haven't. But today I am in recovery.

Yesterday my frustration with something physical triggered a terrible storm. It is often a difficulty with something that I can't make work, that releases the feelings stored in my body. Suddenly, there is not a millimeter of space left. The tank is overflowing!

I got up this morning to survey the damage...to my body and to my soul. Minor cuts, nothing like past events. What did I write? Can I find the courage to read it? There are a lot of four-letter words. Flashes of memories that I can usually keep in the box. A great deal of pain. The desire to survive once more.

This time, I gave conscious space to the injured five year old. The writing shows that she used her voice. And, as hard as it was, I listened.

We both survived.

#51 I Am Invisible!

I used to think that I am good at being invisible when it suits me, but that I can be visible when I feel safe enough.

WRONG!
I am never visible.

I have just discovered the term, "acting in" borderline (as opposed to "acting out" Borderline). I have used almost all my energy, since I was about 12 years old, to keep it all inside.
In other words, to hide. The shame of my over the top reactions, my out of control feelings, and my bizarre acts of self-injury has made me run all the way home and slam the door behind me, before I let it happen. Dissociation was the safety valve if I could not get home fast enough.

So thanks to this program, no one knows me. Family, friends, co-workers, even health professionals were not allowed to see the real me.

I wear a paper bag over my head with a smiley face painted on it.
I am invisible!

#50 New Information!

For some time now, my BPD has been running amuck. The problem is that there is no problem.
There is no crisis in sight.

There is not much wrong in my life right now, so I am dealing with pure, unattached anxiety and impending rage. I keep wanting to blame something or someone in the vicinity but, even I am not convinced that I should be in tears because I have run out of milk.

I suppose the information here is that this is the way it has been since I became a so-called adult. The anxiety and anger of my childhood have always been transferred to the issues of my today life. It made sense. It was my problems with people, job, therapy, relationships, health, or finances that were the cause of my meltdown or firestorm.

Now it looks like the bread crumbs lead right back to my six-year old self.

What do I do with that information?

#49 My Family Tree

#48 What Did You Say?

Today I was climbing a mountain when I slipped and started to fall. Grabbing wildly at everything and anything, I found myself dangling 1000 feet in the air hanging onto a tree root.

I cried out for help.

A voice from above answered me, "Rylee, do you believe that I can help you? "
"Yes, yes I do. Please, please, help me."
The voice said, "Then let go. Don't look down, but let go."

"Are you crazy? Let go???"

"Does anyone else up there have any better suggestions?"

#47 Mad or Scared?

For several months, I have been increasingly anxious, but now the roller coaster is nearing it's breaking point.
At any time I can break down or blow up about something that is happening or, even, just something that I am thinking about.

Am I scared or mad? Does it matter? Some might say, it is enough to acknowledge the big feeling. But if they were inside where I am, it would be important to know what the hell is going on. I don't want it to impact other people, so I have to define it so I can develop a strategy to protect others.
But it is mute. Words are missing. Just this grinding in my stomach, difficulty breathing, and a pounding in my chest. Not to mention that my brain feels jumbled.
I am afraid to talk to anyone. How do I explain what is going on with me? If I open my mouth, what is likely to come out?

Something about
..."not being able to take it anymore"
..."no one wants to be around me anymore"
..."I need to hurt myself to get it to stop"
..."everyone is mad at me"
..."I am such an idiot"
So I dare not talk to anyone.

I wish I could know what it is that is making me feel so crazy. I understand now why I would like to injury myself just so that I can feel something that I can name!

#46 These Feelings Are TOO LOUD!

At times my feelings just get louder and louder in my head. I don’t know if that is because I am not listening to them or what. I generally want them to go away so I try to ignore them.

They start small by telling me to be careful. I may be getting frustrated or anxious. The voice in my head tells me to keep it to myself. I t becomes more emphatic and warns me that showing my anger or panic in front of others will endanger my life!

Now I really am scared. Someone might seriously hurt me if I do or say the wrong thing? It has certainly happened before. I'm always doing and saying the wrong things. My mind floods with memories of the stupid, ignorant, childish, embarrassing, crazy things that I have perpetrated in the recent past. Oh NO! No wonder people don't like me!

The voice is getting mean now. She believes that a good-beating will keep us safe. How crazy is that? But I am powerless to stop it.
You're an idiot! Everything you say is STUPID! You're fat and ugly!
These people don't want you here! You are not good enough for them!
You need to disappear!

The screaming is making me crazy.
So I disappear! I go far away where I can’t hear this racket for a while. I suppose my mistake was feeling feelings that are not acceptable??? Nice girls don’t get angry. Strong girls don’t get scared. Good girls don’t cry.

I hear nothing. I feel nothing. I have floated out of range.

#45 And then...

#44 Abandonment

I have never thought seriously about what abandonment has meant for me personally. It is a textbook issue for Borderlines but, other than the panic I feel when my therapist goes away, I have not considered how it runs throughout my life.

My mother did not welcome a fourth child and I grew up feeling no particular bond with her, only fear. I was just 3 years old when my Dad got sick and he spent most of the next 4 years in hospital. My father was gone and my mother was stressed beyond her capacity to cope. In those years, I looked to my oldest sister for comfort, but I was only 6 when she left for good to start a career and a family of her own. When I was 7 years old, we were forced to leave everything familiar and go live a hand to mouth existence where ever we could. When I was 16, my big brother and my father died.

For sure, this adds up to a mountain of abandonment. How does it play out in my daily life?
Lack of trust is a constant. How can I put my trust in anyone or anything, because they can just disappear without warning. Recurring panic. I continually watch for signs of impending catastrophe. It is difficult, impossible it seems, to ‘connect’ with other people. It will hurt so much when they leave me that I don’t think I can survive it again.

#43 Jamais Vu

Two or three years ago, I started having episodes of what I now know is called jamais vu. (The opposite of déjà vu, it means "never seen".)

It occurs in my own neighbourhood, the places that I visit regularly. Unexpectedly, I look up and the intersection or the street or the buildings look like nothing I have ever seen before.
At first, it is new and interesting. I’m curious about this place.
But then, I realize that I don’t know which way to go. I’m lost and I’m very scared.

Then, suddenly, I’m back and I’m really shaken!

For what was probably a very short period, I had no idea where I was. It turns out I’m only a few blocks from my house, but nothing was familiar. I could have been in another country or on another planet.

Where was I really?

Maybe it is some form of dissociation but not the kind I have always known. In the past, I have floated for hours, at peace, finding my way home by some sort of radar. Even though I was unaware of my surroundings, I was not the least bit frightened.

This new thing terrifies me every time it happens.

#42 The Last Refuge

The Angry Fortress

#41 What is IT?

I’ve been fighting anxiety for weeks now.
I have had a couple of meltdowns, but no firestorms.
When the anxiousness materializes in my body, I tell myself that it is only a feeling and nothing bad is happening. Breathe!
It returns and escalates, so whatever I am doing isn’t working.

I feel cut off from the world.
As the isolation grows, I find I cannot think of anything else but injuring myself.
I know hurting myself will chase away the panic ( and the ghosts and the flashbacks) and I won’t feel so alone for a while.

Whatever this thing is, that can be sent packing by some pain and blood, is just out of my reach.

What could it be that a burn or a cut can force it back into its hiding place?
I think it originated with a fear rising in my body and a sense of being abandoned
…stretching on for ever.
It cannot be stopped.