You Just Don’t Get It, I AM SICK

Well, I had a bit of a rage yesterday, this was after I had sedated myself for 24 hours with Trazadone and Seroquel. I began to have those thoughts of going to sleep and never getting up because the day was excruciating. No matter how much I think my BF understands, he still views my lows as just another thing I need to get over fast, like a little doggie, go over there relax it’ll be over. I think to myself, your regular cheerful GF is in bed, has not eaten for 24 hours and is drugging herself, do you not think he would be a little worried, no, not at all, figures if he leaves me alone, all will be well.

Next day, after being knocked out for a good 14 hours I had some strength to muster out but my limbs were still screaming and my head precipitous. I did some good things, got in the shower, went downstairs, with every step like descending on nails. I only had half my brain, the rest was still consumed by the episode, and you know, it is like being in a hazy fog and everything is a monumental effort that takes 250% to achieve. I also needed to support to try and make the hurdle out, so I kept trying to be near BF, because alone all the evil thoughts would suffocate me. BF keeps running away from me like I’m a needy plague, you can guess how the rejection then transpired, he told me I was a lot of work, needed too much. Of course I need him, I don’t have anyone else to help me and I am sure he didn’t want me walking over to the neighbours to support my BPD ass.

The switch flipped mentally before it did physically, anything I might have done to take 2 steps forward ended up 10 steps back. The despair and hopelessness broke the floodgates, I had to go hide in a corner just to quiet my mind enough to search for more pills to take me out because if not it would have been bad. I did stare at those pills a might bit too long, really didn’t want to get up. I threw down more Seroquel and Trazadone and BF comes up to tell me I am in his way again being in bed as he is working (putting up curtains). The physical rage switch which NEVER comes out of me went into overdrive, I could not believe the insensitivity and I guess neither could my inner demons because it took over and really all I could do was watch and listen to myself.

BPD Rage

Afterwards, I think he understood the severity but still not enough, but he did try, guilt trying. Made me want to just send him away and take more pills because at that point I felt like charity and he HAD TO support me.

Today is the 50-50 day, I slept another 12 hours last night which helped, but I’m wading carefully today, I’ve had a couple of pin pricks from BF but he has no idea each little one feels like a punch to the head. I have tried to stay as busy as the mind will let me while trying to stay in distress tolerance mode. BF made a crack about how he was focused and working hard and not just taking breaks and wasting time (that was a nod to me and a punch in the head, almost caved on that one). Little does he know how much work it is for me to just to be walking and talking today, that it is not over, still walking on eggshells.

You get it, we’re sick in our own way but because we can move and talk people put us aside as exaggerating or “being needy” and we just need to “get over it”. I screamed at BF that if I was hit by a bus I would get more sympathy, but because he can’t see it I just need to work it out. Getting hit by a bus would be far less painful and I would live and get support pouring out of him. My life long potentially fatal disease, not so much.

Article: The Role of Shame in BPD

Shame is fundamental to the experience of anyone with BPD and is the most crucial emotion that must be addressed if recovery is to occur. Shame is often confused with guilt, but these emotions have very different meanings. Shame is about who we are, while guilt is about what we do. Shame therefore reflects more lasting beliefs about the self than guilt. When we feel guilt, we expect retribution for what we’ve done. When we feel shame, we expect contempt from others and feel contempt for ourselves.

Shame is connected with a wealth of negative self-beliefs that may include fundamental assumptions of defectiveness, the belief that one is helpless to survive alone, beliefs about physical defectiveness (“I am fat, deformed, repulsive to others), mental defectiveness (I am stupid, incompetent, inarticulate), or sexual defectiveness, and the belief that one is unworthy of the love and attention of others.

We feel shame about anything about ourselves that we would prefer others not to see. The body language of shame is about being invisible or not acknowledging being seen by others. We become small in posture by slouching or turning away. We avert our gaze from that of others, which is reminiscent of a baby covering its own eyes and imagining that it has become invisible to others. As adults, however, failing to meet another’s gaze is also a sign of submission.

We also feel shame whenever we fall short of our own expectations of ourselves, however unrealistic they may be. Impossible goals, such as the total eradication of body fat, inevitably lead to deepening shame, which in turn may be reflected in an increasingly distorted self or body image. This is the cycle of shame that fuels the compulsive self-starvation of anorexia nervosa. Shame is therefore connected with the fantasy of how we imagine we are supposed to be and obstructs our vision of who we really are.

While shame has many roots, it is a natural consequence of abuse and neglect. What all forms of abuse have in common is the contempt that an abuser has for a victim. The deeper pain of being abused is the shame that derives from being an object of contempt. Many abusers show their contempt explicitly in the form of degrading words, but all abusers show contempt by their assumption that their victim’s primary role is as an instrument for their gratification. Shame in turn results in submissiveness that tends to perpetuate the cycle of abuse.

Dr. Donald Nathanson has pioneered the study of shame and its relationship to the psychotherapeutic process. He defines four categories of learned responses to shame, which he visualizes as the four points on a compass. On one axis lies “Withdrawal” at one pole and “Avoidance” at the other. On the other axis lie “Attack self” and “Attack others.”

“Withdrawal” behaviors include various forms of hiding from others, ranging from averting ones eyes and maintaining silence in the presence of others to reclusiveness and flight. Withdrawal can lead to isolation and feelings of abandonment, confirming the belief that we are unworthy of the company of others and therefore reinforcing shame.

“Attacking self” includes a repertoire of behaviors that are designed to protect us from abandonment at all costs. These are self-negating, submissive gestures that acknowledge the superior power of another, whose presence has become important to us. This can also contribute to the cycle of abuse.

“Avoidance” includes all the behaviors that are designed to keep from feeling the shame. This ranges from the use of drugs and alcohol to obliterate feeling to the distractions of sexual indulgence, materialism, and vanity. Avoidant behaviors include a variety of things we do to cover up the defects that we imagine others see in us. They are often cosmetic in quality and serve to distract both ourselves and others from these defects.

“Attacking others” includes a repertoire of desperate behaviors that serve to belittle others as a last ditch attempt to rescue self-esteem by feeling bigger at another’s expense. The attacks may come in words or actions. These behaviors inevitably distance us from others, again raising the threat of abandonment. These behaviors also result in shaming others and pass the wounds along.

These four kinds of responses to shame are all intricately interrelated, are self-defeating, and therefore perpetuate the cycle of shame. They are behind the many impulses with which people with BPD must struggle. They are connected with the terror of abandonment that characterizes BPD as well as with the difficulty that people with BPD have in achieving intimacy.

© Dr. Richard Moskovitz

“The trouble is that people who are perceived as behaving in difficult or demeaning ways often get this label – and it might be that they are behaving in a troublesome or difficult way because they are actually ill.”

Riddle Me This and Riddle Me That

Im in a funk. Not a bad episode funk but a maybe this can slide down this way funk.

I haven’t felt like I have done anything fun or light to uplift myself lately. Work has been full on with not a moment to breathe. The kids schedules were abnormally complicated and the last 2 nights have been a triathlon of working, motivating, cooking, cajoling, grumping and driving, driving and driving. There hasn’t been a moment to just sit back and have a laugh. A giggle would suffice.

So, tonite I think to self, self- should I go sit at the bar down from work and have a quick drink, just to get some space around me. The thought of seeing the house in all its chaos after the kids have left is not calling to me, shit is everywhere and it’s going to feel like a ton of bricks coming down. Then my flip side feels depressed that I have to go sit at a bar and talk to strange people. I asked Carl the office manager if he wanted to go for a drink but Carl is just a little too earnest and I sense that might be more work than not. I’d ask Hugh but then I have to deal with him coming back to me that I spend too much time with him. My sister has the baby. Shae has an appointment. Jules has her kid. Cay has the kids. Everyone else I know I don’t particularly want to see. I’m back to the same options, home alone w mess and no sanctuary or bar alone with no mess but some space. Gah!

Riddle me this and riddle me that.

I see Val tomorrow. My psychologist and I know i know the answers she’s going to tell me. She’s going to say I need a break, I’m moving too fast, doing too much and not taking care of myself. I have  unresolved items hanging over me, primarily my Finances which is turning into a pile of quicksand around me, and the more a fight it, the deeper I sink. One step forward THREE steps back. It costs a lot to be crazy and see 3 medical professionals at a time. Thankfully, I am such a unique case my psychiatrist has convinced the government I am interesting enough to pay for. Then there’s living in the most expensive city in North America, having 2 kids, summer coming up which scares me to bits and having my work constantly interrupted buy absences I need to take to stay healthy. Then there’s debt, omnipresent, constantly growing and I am sure going to suck me in and spit me out in a huge episode. I also have my ongoing saga with my ex husband over assets which is for another day, another time, another mind.

I think I said it, I have more financial stress then I should but how do I fix that. I am looking for another job but that goes counter intuitive to the relax and take more time to do non stressful activities. I need to take a break, every 3 months, medically advised… yes with what money and what time? Fairy Godmother???? You there?? My psychiatrist, by the way, is kite surfing in Barbados, perhaps I should have gone with him, would have been like an all-inclusive fun and therapy retreat.

OK, I am taking up work time which is probably going to add more stress to get done by 4:30 so I can find that damn laugh and giggle

Wipe from Back to Front?

This will be like reading a book from back to front, this is a new blog for me and there is so much pressing to come out now that if I took the time to rewind from start to front I’d never tell you whats happening in the moment. Trust me, the current moments are as dark and twisted as the past so as I bring the past forward we can live in flashbacks.

In the moment I am lying in my bed after a night of much turmoil, trying to pick through thoughts and urges wondering which are mine and which belong to my alter ego, normal nemesis, and resident, psycho, that lives within me. I used to call him Gollum, yes Gollum from Lord of The Rings, that fought a dying battle with his evil twin. Unlike Gollum I haven’t died yet in a fire pit, I have come close a few times through pharmaceutical means and the occasional knife slash, and am still here after many a crawl from the bottom of that dark dark hole of death and despair. But on to the point that I used to call him Gollum, it seems so cliche. I think in honour of this new twisted blog, we will call her Amanda, a nod to Emily Van Camp’s bitter psyche on Revenge (if you’re curious its on ABC).

I was going to pontificate on my current waves of unrest swelling in my chest, but perhaps a brief introduction to the world of BPD is necessary. This is the G rated synopsis:

Borderline personality disorder is a condition in which people have long-term patterns of unstable or turbulent emotions, such as feelings about themselves and others. These inner experiences often cause them to take impulsive actions and have chaotic relationships.

The R rated synopsis is that I am a blend of psychosis, depression and bi polar which makes me very interesting to read about especially given the fact that I am not a stinky druggy with limp hair but in reality a single yummy mummy with a dark alter ego that requires weekly psychiatry, enough drugs to cure Cancer, the need to hide sharp knives and lock myself in the house (some days) so I don’t rampage and take advantage of alcohol, men, money and end up in unbeknownst places to curse the existence of Amanda.

Here’s a snippet that sums everything up from a blog I wrote a few years back.

I’m on vacation, I haven’t left the hotel room in 3 days, I traveled across the country to vacation in self angst, frolick in the surf of depression while sipping  sugar rimmed margaritas. At least I wasn’t cliche enough to cry into my drinks, instead I lay on the ground wondering how it could come to pass that, 3 days later, I was still in my pyjamas, laying on the ground when there was a bed, watching reality show re-runs on my laptop and serial cop shows on TV simultaneously and haphazardly attempting to do sit ups to somehow feel like I was worshiping my temple of a body in this time of need.
I am not sure how others handle angst but mine is a roiling hotpot of contradictions. I am not sure hotpots actually roil but being so amazingly muddled as I am it was probably the bargain basement model that got recalled for roiling.
What is there to say? That life feels so much better confined to 600 square feet at the Four Seasons with Mariska Hargitay as my constant companion in the quest for serial rapists while chewing on room service tuna tataki and drinking $5 Fiji water.
I was in a relationship with a wonderful man, who, against my will, is patiently waiting in the wings. It’s been approximately 3 years together, 2 since he asked to move in and 1 since I have started to splinter. I have a fabulous job that would make you green with envy and I travel to exotic destinations that require bikinis and stilettos in the name of work. I also have 2 adorable, charming, well-mannered children who think I walk on water and I drive a Lexus and live in a 3000 sq ft home in the most coveted area of town. I also have a country club membership and I’m skinny with a great shoe and clothing wardrobe. Go ahead, say it, I hate you bitch.
To top it off, how many people vacation angst at the Four Seasons? Can I be the epitome of pathetic? How many people  fly first class, take off for a week, say bye bye to life so they can wallow in 5 star self pity?
The one silver lining of all this is I lost 5 pounds and bought a pair of fuck me heels. That should fare me well now that I have no relationship, have sold my house, am quitting my job and am trolling kayak.com for escape hatches from my self inflicted suburbia of perfection.

Who the hell is this bitch, you may ask yourself, as I do numerous times a day.

The song that comes to mind is Bitch, apropos. Loosely and with much liberty it goes, I hate the world today, it’s so good to me but I can’t change. I’m a bitch, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m mother, I’m a sinner, I’m a saint. I’m bitch, I’m a tease, I’m a goddess on my knees… I’m your angel undercover. I’m your hell I’m your dream and I’m nothing in between.

I may be giving myself too much credit for the goddess on my knees but it made me feel better so suck it up, how’s that for sexual entendre?