Happy 200

I can't believe this blog has been going for more than a year, which means my "official" BPD diagnosis is also more than a year old. It's my 200th post today - and I want to say a massive thank you to all my readers and commenters. Having you guys around has made the last year a LOT more enjoyable, and I hope some of my ramblings have helped other people to feel more sane LOL, or less alone.

I feel as though I should do some kind of a retrospective to mark the 200th post. It's certainly amazing to me how much has changed, in my physical life as well as my mental/emotional life. Working hard with Doc A, and practising my CBT and DBT skills, and finding a good medication balance has meant that I can function fairly well most of the time. I've returned to work, moved out of my parents' house, and started dating. A year ago, none of these things seemed possible. I owe a lot to Doc A, and to my family and friends who have been supportive, but I am recognising how much of the work I did myself. I was determined to survive, and to even thrive, and even when I was most despairing, I hung on to the hope. Even in the darkest times, I focused on the tiny glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel, and I think that's what got me through. It gave me the strength to keep working at therapy and to resist the evil BPD voices in my head when they told me to binge eat, shop, pull out my hair, scratch my skin, obsess, scream...

There are times when I wonder if I can keep up the effort, but I get through them (occasionally with the help of a Valium LOL). Events of the past year have tested me, often, but I do feel like I have made progress and am functioning pretty well. As mentioned in an earlier post, Doc A says that if I came in now to see him for an initial consult he probably wouldn't place me in the same Borderline Personality Disorder category, that he would assume I was at worst a mild case. I am attached to my diagnosis, so I don't know how I feel about having it taken away!! It seems weird to think of myself as just Lil instead of Borderline Lil, even though I know that it makes perfect sense - I am not JUST my diagnoses, I am a complete and whole person underneath the crazy haha.

As an update to previous posts, I am still spending time with Lloyd, though part of me suspects he doesn't deserve me LOL. We are technically "friends", and see a lot of each other, and in many ways I'm happier without the relationship label. I am still in two minds about him, and our relationship, but being with him (mostly) makes me happy. It's weird that I'm almost 40 years old and am finally falling for an Unsuitable Boy. I always made sensible, rational choices when I actually committed myself to relationships in the past, even though some of my fantasy/obsession/crushes were kind of out there. But something about Lloyd makes me retract all my feminist beliefs and my rational decisions. My friends and family think I deserve better, intellectually I know that he needs to step up and be a man, but there is a big part of me that just loves him, you know? As much as I don't want to, and I'm fighting it, I just want him to love me.

Ugh. I can't even stand the sound of myself!! It's stupid. I'm hopeful that his hold on me will dissipate, somehow, sometime, and I'll be able to move on. Til then, I just focus on the good stuff.

No More Guilty Left To Pardon

I was browsing in a bookstore on Friday night, after a difficult and tiring week, when things became even more hideous. I saw my father. He was pretentious and fancy-suited in the literature section, looking at Joan London's "The Good Parents". Okay, I didn't really see the book he was holding, but afterwards (during the vomit/rant/vomit phase) I laughed to myself that it was probably some such thing. Thankfully, although he glanced my way (and I was only 20 feet from him), he didn't recognise or acknowledge me and I was able to slink away, shaking and feeling the Black Empty invading my insides once more. I haven't seen him, or contacted him, in eleven years yet I knew without a doubt who he was - a visceral reaching out that surpassed any negativity or memory. Part of me felt like the four year old he walked away from and didn't contact again (until forced to 14 years later). Part of me wished I resembled the semi-confident, only partly-mental 28 year old I was the last time he hurt me. But most of me just had to run away and throw up the lovely meal I'd had with work colleagues, and then sit shaking and enraged on the train home.

A few people looked at me as if I was on drugs, and catching a glimpse of myself in the window I could see why. It's weird how emotional and mental challenges reflect in the physical being. I was pale, shivering, fighting back tears, wanting to smash something, desperately desperately wanting to EAT (even though I'd been throwing up into a trash can just moments earlier). I managed to get home without incident, and was fairly composed by the time I got here - rather than ranting or screaming I just made a passing comment to Mom about this small-town-city, and how I'm lucky to have not run into him before now. She, in Queen of Denial mode, said something like "Oh, you shouldn't let people like that upset you". No kidding LOL.

Seeing him, and then in the hour or so coming home afterwards, I could feel the Great Unravelling start. I'd already been having a stressful week (divorce papers, tax returns, pain-in-the-ass work colleague, hormones, yadayada) and I clearly saw looming the coming apart of all my hard work, and my hard-won stability. And you know what, I thought

FUCK
THAT
SHIT.

Excuse the profanity all! But I truly thought to myself, Lil, this can go either way and you get to chose where you end up. So I practised some DBT (Self-Soothed, Distress Tolerated) and talked myself down from the anger. I simply REFUSE to let him hurt me any more. This episode showed me that techniques like Mindfulness and the Non-Judgemental Stance have become comfortable for me, as they came into my mind fairly quickly when the Emotion Mind started to create havoc. I know a lot of people question DBT, and consider it to be jargonistic and over-simplified. I've read some criticism of it, and a lot of praise, and the praise seems to come from people who have used it to become well. That's enough for me, I suppose, and I think it's the best recommendation - people who are managing their Borderline Personality Disorder are often doing so by using the skills of DBT. That's what I want more than anything, to be well and healing. It was a rough couple of days this week, but (as I've said before) those are the ones that really test us - right?

The photo at the start is one of only three or four photos I have of myself with my father. I think I could already tell he was an imposter. My expression certainly hints at it...

(*Post title is from Iron & Wine's song "A Book Unfinished")

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

And I feel fine (as the song goes).

This week's session with Dr A focused mainly on the two tasks he's set for me as homework. A while back he mentioned that me getting my driver's licence would be a huge benefit, not only in practical terms but also because it would mean I had conquered a life-long fear. He's right, and it's not like I haven't already thought of that myself... but the actual physical task of going and getting my Learner's Permit (for the SIXTH time) is beyond me at the moment. However, I have promised to visit the licensing website and do the online Learner's test as practice, and also to find out the costs involved. I first got my Learner's Permit when I turned 17 (the legal driving age in Western Australia), and was also given a car by my beloved grandfather. The car, a 1972 Ford Cortina, had been his and when he died a few months later I wondered if the loss of freedom (he never got another car) had finished him off. I moved to the city a few months after my birthday, leaving the car with my parents until I eventually decided to sell it (having only had a few lessons and not really ever feeling comfortable with the idea of driving in our country town, let alone the Big City). I've had other goes at learning to drive, with varying success, but I've never booked a driving test - the idea of having to park on command, and to follow complicated instructions from the examiner, seems to negate the fact that I am actually a fairly competent driver (according to the various instructors I've had over the last 22 years).

My second piece of homework involves Mr Ex, and the fact that our 12 months' legal separation was completed this week. I downloaded the paperwork (don't you love the technological age) for the divorce but had yet to broach the subject with Mr Ex, especially as last weekend he came along to my Bowling Birthday Party and we had a great time. Not a "getting back together, happy every after" great time, but a great time nonetheless. Dr A had a bit of a go at me for the mixed messages I was sending out willy-nilly... especially to myself. I definitely DO NOT want to be married - to anyone. But that fact remains that I adore Mr Ex, for all his faithlessness and foibles (and by that I don't mean "infidelity". Blame Wandering Coyote's deep thoughts here for the use of the word "faithless" haha). Part of my worries about him, whether he thinks we'll get back together, whether he will do something self-harming. But, in the spirit of "Being In Therapy" I agreed with Dr A that the paperwork needs to be addressed. I printed it all out today and was planning to deal with it when Mr Ex came over to walk his dog. My best-laid plans were thwarted when Mr Ex texted me to say he can't come over today. At least the papers are printed and filled out, and in reality I don't need Mr Ex's permission or signature to file them. I do, however, need an amount of cash to go with said papers. Ouch.

Apart from these nagging administrative tasks, my life continues to sail along. I start my new hours tomorrow, which sees me working every second Monday along with Tues, Wed and Fri each week. On the opposing Monday I see Dr A. Which still gives me Thursdays to sleep in, vege out, blog and blog-visit and see friends. I think I will manage, it's a fine compromise, and having some extra money is always welcome. I can save up to get divorced - blah. I still haven't written to my friend H, who sent me the out-of-the-blue birthday presents. I've been thinking about it, and intend to do it, it's another one of those "when I have the energy" tasks. Being mental is exhausting lol.

One area I need to watch is the continuing urge I have to over-achieve at work. Given that work was my area of downfall prior to this most recent breakdown, I've really been keeping track of my thoughts and emotions at work - and during the week I had a weird "showing off" hypermanic episode. I still crave validation and approval constantly, and have to fight the urge to pursue it from my superiors at work. It's one thing to do my job well, but another thing to undermine other staff, over-achieve, big note myself and get breathless and giddy when I'm given praise. The best thing was, though, that I caught myself in Emotion Mind (as DBT would call it) and could step back and use Reasonable Mind to see the situation for what it was - thereby stopping the roundabout before it got going. Something that might have progressed and spun out of control, was dealt with fairly quickly. Being only low-dose medicated also helped, because I am not as numb/blunted these days I'm more aware of my changes in physiology (heightened colour/warmth, faster breathing, shaking hands, talking faster) which sometimes come along with my Emotion Disregulation episodes.

"Kathy, I'm lost" I said, though I knew she was sleeping

It's strange the things that can bring on the melancholy. My stepdad bought a dvd today, of Simon & Garfunkel's Concert in Central Park (1981 I think) and has been playing it while I was in the kitchen cooking. For a lot of different reasons, the songs brought up memories, mostly sad. When I was about 10 years old I found an LP record in my parents' collection that had a handwritten name on it I recognised. It turned out to be (as I suspected at the time), one of the few things my mother kept that had belonged to my father - a Simon & Garfunkel record that I would secretly play when my mother and stepdad weren't around. Over the years I became more and more enamoured of them, and folk music in general, and I ended up buying the Concert in Central Park album in about 1987. Hearing the songs again reminded me of how in those days, at 17, I was still under the misapprehension that being depressed was something I would "grow out of". I believed that all the low moods and suicidal thoughts were part of my groovy & creative personality and I channelled them as much as I could into writing songs, stories, poetry.

What struck me the most today was that I could recognise melancholy approaching, and rather than eagerly laying down and becoming its mistress, I fought it and won. I used Mindfulness to view the feelings objectively, and could see clearly (maybe for the first time) the two paths on offer. I could either go with the sad memories, and add to them in the same way I was adding ingredients to my vegie soup, ending up with a confusing mess of mixed emotions and general blah. Or, I could feel and acknowledge the sadness/loss, briefly revisiting the memory of the past before letting it go.

Half an hour later, instead of being bedridden, binge eating, self-harming or bawling, I was finishing off making my soup and starting on brownie cheesecake (as my birthday treat for tomorrow). All the while still singing along with Simon & Garfunkel (that's one long concert lol).

I used to think that my over-emotional or extreme reactions to songs, films, books, etc were part of my personality. With DBT, I view it differently -- the reaction is the first, "normal" part of the equation, and the BPD encouraged me to take the reaction to the extreme and let it overwhelm my thoughts and (therefore) my emotions. With the new filter of my Wise Mind I'm learning/trying to enjoy the reaction to the song (for instance), but keep it in context and balance. It's still not second nature to me, but I know it gets easier to practice DBT/CBT skills.

One of my all-time favourite songs, and my favourite S&G tune, is "Kathy's Song". I used to cry when I heard it, especially the lines:
"I sit and watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There but for the grace of you, go I"
Forgive me if I've misquoted, I'm writing them from memory! Anyway, today I heard those words in a completely different context and they didn't make me sad. I even half-jokingly substituted "DBT" for "you" in the final line. This morning could have ended up very differently, much bleaker, without my new therapy. A few people I know who have done DBT call themselves "DBT Geeks", or DBT Obsessives - experiencing it work really does make you a convert/true believer! I hope I don't come across as simplifying Borderline, or other mental illness, and I am definitely not saying Dialectical or Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is the only way to treat these things. They have just worked for me, after many years of NOTHING working. And I wanted to share it.