#103 ...and then there were two

#102 Self Diagnosis

"I Hate You - don't leave me!" The book screams at me from the shelf. I know exactly what that means but the subtitle confuses me, "Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder." I run home and devour it's contents in a few hours. This book is all about me! How can that be? I don't know what B.P.D. is and I've never heard of a personality disorder.

Borderline Personality Disorder is a mental illness that causes intense mood swings, impulsive behaviours and severe problems with relationships and self-worth.

I shove the book across the desk of my family physician and stammer..."this is about me!" Barely looking at it, "of course it is," she snaps. I stop breathing. Which psychiatrist or which hospitalization produced this diagnosis is not to be revealed. Apparently, there is no requirement to share this kind of information with a patient. What good would it do? There is no cure.

For people with this personality disorder long-term relationships are usually impossible and marriage is rare. Relationships with helping agencies also tend to be fraught with problems, making treatment by psychotherapy or drugs difficult.

The more I read about BPD the more humiliated I am. All of it is true but it embarrasses me to see it in print. It feels like everyone knows now, although I have not disclosed my discovery to anyone. My roller coaster life starts to show a pattern. As long as I can remember, valleys of depression have alternated with mountains of panic. When the trolley is about to fly off the track I resort to burning or cutting myself to maintain some feeling of control.

People with BPD exhibit a frantic fear of abandonment that may lead to problems with anger, injuring themselves or suicide attempts.

I am in shock for a long time until I realize that naming the bogeyman gives me power. Since it has a name then there are others like me out there.

I get a new doctor and a new therapist.
I am not alone anymore.

#101 Countdown Living

It is strange to think how much of my life I have spent in countdown mode.

Right now, I am worried about an upcoming event and this morning, as soon as I was awake, I heard myself think...in 72 hours it will be all over.

Being a chronic worrier, there is generally something up ahead that I think might turn out bad.
And so starts the countdown...two weeks, one week, six days, five days, four days, three days, day-after-tomorrow it will be over; in 24 hours I can forget about it (for now).

Forever counting down my life; trying to get to the other side of the bad stuff.
Even I can see that this is not living. It isn't even living in the future.
It's living in fear.

#100 The Division Occurs

#99 How Do I Feel?

Am I comfortable?
Too hot? Too cold?
Hungry? Tired?
Sad? Happy?,

I wrack my brain. What do they want to hear? What is the right answer? I scarcely inhabit my body so I know that I cannot find the answer there.

Are they too hot, hungry and sad? I'll agree with them.
Are they too cold, tired, but happy? I'll be that too.

In the face of these kinds of questions, I need to come up with a response quickly before the panic of unknowing begins to show. The stunned silence, the furrowed brow, the stammering does not make a good impression. "I actually don't know what I feel," is not believable to most people.

It is only in the extremes that I become aware and then I am no good at naming the feelings. Scared, panic stricken, terrified. My body can only identify fear feelings. Everything else I have to guess at or, like a chameleon, try to blend in with those around me.

#98 hanging in there

they tell me that
old age is not for sissies
i'm here to tell you that
neither is mental illness

an uphill struggle
carrying the weight of the world
battling demons
shaking off crisis after crisis
putting the pieces back together
one more time

and going on

i know now that
i will never give up the fight
too much hard work
too many tears shed
too much brutal pain
too many times
dragging myself in off the ledge
to let it all be for nothing

so if it takes guts
to grow old
i think i have what it takes

#97 Marblehenge, A Safe Place

#96 The Burning Place

#95 Frustration!!!

It is beginning to dawn on me that I cannot tolerate frustration in all its myriad forms. My mother didn't teach me because she was unable to handle her own. If I got frustrated, she got physical with me.
While my brain is going round and round about how terrible a situation is, how rotten people are to me, and how it is all going to end in catastrophe the agitation grows bigger and bigger. I can’t interrupt the babble in my head to inject some reason. There are no volume or intensity controls up there. The on/off switch is in my body.
I know that if I inflict physical pain on myself, the frustration will instantly disappear.
Self-injury is the off switch.

#94 All My Own Fault!

Everything bad that has ever happened to me, I have filed under, "Rylee's Own Fault."
My mother built this filing cabinet for me before I could even talk. Everything went into it.
From my earliest days, a favourite phrase of my mother's was, "you made your bed now lie in it."
No matter what distress I was in, apparently I had brought it on myself.
No matter that I could not remember or understand what I had done exactly, I was solely responsible for my predicament.
All the shame, humiliation, helplessness, abuse, terror, suicidal panics, poor choices, self-injury are locked away as "Rylee's Own Fault."
Until now, it has been very difficult for me to work through the painful parts of my past because I was so well indoctrinated.
All I can think about is that it was my own stupid fault!

#93 Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are.

#92 Creativity

If your creative endeavours pay for food and shelter, then your art is likely to feel like work, at least some of the time. However, even though, I do not pay the rent with my paintings, for some reason, I allow my art-making to become hard work. I don’t enjoy the process as much as I would like to because I always have my eye on the end product.
It is work, because it supplies me with things that are nearly as important as food and shelter. If I do a good job, my art will bring me visibility, connection, admiration, and self-worth. The very things that I was starved for growing up might come my way. I barely enjoy making art anymore, because I am so hungry for the good feelings I might get if I can please people with the result.

#91 A Lifetime of Fear

People who felt safe in their childhoods never really lose that sense of trust in the world that their parents were able to provide for them but those of us who lived with coldness and recurring chaos never lose that fearfulness. It can be dialled down to a nagging worry or a kind of free floating anxiety. During stressful times it gets dialled up to full blown panic or real terror.

Every morning we wake up to the fact that nowhere is a safe place for us.
We go into the world battle ready. We go into the world alone because we have not learned to trust. We go into the world without the skills we need to negotiate with others and to navigate our journey.

We will do almost anything to escape the constant fear and what we do angers and frightens others. We are weighed down with psychiatric labels and get stuck in the system.

We are frightened. We are lost. We are alone.

#90 The Hiding Place

I have been an analyzer all my life. I've insisted on a logical explanation for everything that crossed my path. As long as I can remember I have been in my head trying to figure stuff out. Even though I seldom come up with definitive answers to the who(s) what(s), where(s), when(s) and why(s) of everything, the constant questioning serves to distract me from my feelings. The constant thinking has become my security blanket. It has turned out to be a safe place to hide.

#89 Flashbacks

I think everyone has some experience of flashbacks even if they don't use that word. We get a peculiarly clear memory of something that we were not thinking about or a rush of feeling comes from something we hear or smell. These can be pleasant or unpleasant.

Flashbacks arising out of long ago traumatic events are always horrific and shocking. Without prompting, my mind will produce snapshots of people or events from my past and my body is instantly flooded with fear. Something insignificant in the real world, or on television, will leave me swamped with panic or rage. These flashbacks can contain what seems to me to be new information but is probably just information newly released from where I buried it long ago.

The triggers vary and, unbidden, my body gives up a distressing memory or replays overwhelming emotions from the past. The present is gone and I am trapped inside an experience that I did not believe I could survive the first time around.

And here it has come back again.