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Back-ish, Much Earlier Than Expected
12 years ago
Yeah, I'm here-ish again. Basically, my original "withdrawl plan" somewhat failed, as my intent was to pull back from online socialization and replace it, instead, with more real-world socialization ... but I find myself increasingly "raw", emotionally, which makes it just too difficult for me to be overtly social for prolonged periods of time, and/or in frequent bouts of activity. This, in turn, was creating a very large ... let's call it a "vacuum" ... in which there was no social, mental, or emotional stimulus in my life, which only serves to make me worse, instead of better. Today was one of the worse days I'd had in a long, long, LONG time, in regards to my emotional/psychological health. =/
So to that end, I'm "returning", albeit selectively. I'm going to go to great lengths from here on out to greatly minimize my exposure and involvement in any sort of online drama, as I'm in ABSOLUTELY no condition to be able to handle it in any way, shape, or form. Maybe someday when I get a better grip on what I'm ... dealing with ... I can start trying to contribute to those sorts of things in a meaningful positive/constructive way, but for right now, that's just not going to be possible. So instead, I'm just going to keep my online involvements as positive and laid-back as possible, to better facilitate my recovery, rather than hinder it.
That being said, I have some things I need to get out into the open, for various reasons. The most important of which is bringing myself some measure of peace by "laying all my cards out on the table", as the saying goes. Beyond that, I also want to bring awareness to others struggling with a similar condition, as well as bring clarity and understanding for those who care for and worry about me. You have a right to know...
I don't think it's common knowledge among the fandom and my watchers (as I've literally only ever mentioned it in ONE journal, in regards to an incident on FA 2 years ago), but I have Borderline Personality Disorder. For those who are unfamiliar with this condition, I've included the following video (it's lengthy, but WELL worth watching):
http://youtu.be/967Ckat7f98
For those either unable to or unwilling to sit through the entire 48-minute documentary, I'll summarize as best I can. BPD is, essentially, a psychological condition that greatly skews an individual's reactions to situations and emotions, making them much more prone to bouts of rage and depression as a result. It makes extreme overreactions, literally, a knee-jerk reaction. In addition, it makes it extremely difficult for BPD sufferers to "let go" of negative emotions, once something has "set them off". In a nutshell ... it makes living a normal functional life EXTREMELY difficult without a great deal of training (and unfortunately for some, no amount of therapy will ever suffice, leaving medication as the only remaining option). And even then ... there are limitations.
I can't do a frequent amount of real-world socialization, for prolonged periods of time, for example. It just becomes too overwhelming for me after awhile, because I have to stay in a very ... inwardly-focused frame of mind, in order to keep myself in check, so that I don't take something the wrong way and get overly-emotional about it (which would just serve to embarrass myself and ruin an otherwise-nice time). It's like clenching a muscle for hours and hours. Eventually, it just becomes too physically and emotionally exhausting to keep up, so it isn't something I can really keep up for a very long time. THAT'S the reason why I turn down a lot of hang-outs, and don't plan a whole lot of social events on a particularly regular basis. I just ... can't always handle it, or mentally bulk myself up for it. As much as I enjoy the social aspect and spending time with my buds, I just can't muster up the fortitude sometimes to keep myself in line. It's not a lack of enjoyment for social situations as much as it is an inability to psychologically handle it. But beyond that, and my occasional bouts of nasty temper that sometimes lash out, I'm really not that much different than anyone else.
I didn't come to realize that I had BPD until years of being falsely diagnosed with Clinical Depression, after a great deal of extensive research on my mother's part, and it was ... equal parts freeing and humbling. It was the biggest "aha" moment of my entire life. It put everything ... EVERYTHING into perspective. For me, my "trigger" was the constant bullying in school for years and years and years that finally just whittled me down as raw as I could possibly be, the callouses that grew over that made of a great deal of aggression and anger. Now, it's important to clarify that outside sources in one's life don't just "give" people BPD. It's a chemical imbalance of the brain that's always there, laying dormant until something "awakens" it. It's different for each individual, obviously. Sometimes it's not even one specific thing that sets it off, but rather a myriad of smaller things that all culminate into one final trigger that sets it all in motion. But once it comes, it sucks all the color out from your world like little else can. It's easy to see, now, how it can be confused with depression, because there are a LOT of parallels between them. We're always equal parts emotionally numb and easily-riled. We're quick to cling to people and things that bring us any sort of comfort or a feeling of safety, and our moods are often a flurry of extremes. We love as strongly and intensely as we hate. We require near-constant distraction, of -some- kind. Reading, drawing, watching something, fixing something, problem-solving ... -anything- at all. Our mind has to constantly be engaged by and focused upon -something-, because when it isn't ... that's when the self-deprecating thoughts start to creep back in, which makes it all too easy to obsess over all the over-critical emotions we have towards ourselves. Self-loathing comes as easily to us as breathing, and many are often chronically suicidal (as was I, at my lowest point). We're also very easily prone to self-harming, as a coping mechanism for emotions that are just too overwhelming to handle. It's akin to releasing a pressure valve, or redirecting an electrical current to lessen the intensity of the charge. For us, it becomes a necessary outlet to keep us sane, in a roiling sea of chaotic emotions and thoughts. My right arm looks the way it does for a reason ... Every scar is a testament to how bad it can truly get for a BPD sufferer, when left unchecked.
I refused to live this way, in such a maddening state of perpetual chaos. I went on an intensive search for interviews, blogs, journals ... anything and everything I could get my hands on that was written from the perspective of other BPD sufferers. The exact details varied slightly from person to person, but at its core ... it was like hearing my entire life spoken from the mouths of dozens upon dozens of complete strangers. It was like rediscovering myself all over again from then on. replacing everything I had learned about depression and applying my efforts, instead, towards the critical endeavor of understanding BPD inside and out. What it was, what could trigger it, and how others before me had defeated it. I fought it tooth and nail, tirelessly trained myself to watch for ANY sign of an irrational reaction, and learned coping mechanisms for how to counteract such lash-outs when they tried to occur. And for a great many years, I had it pretty damn-well under control. I'd have my off days, sure .., but for the most part, I was functioning again. Normal. Whole. Better than I ever had been.
But for about the past year or so, on and off, I've been slowly unraveling again. I find myself increasingly sensitive to my own actions and the actions and words of those around me, to an extent that I hadn't for a VERY long time. That same dark horrible malaise has started looming over me again, like a storm cloud that just won't vanish off the distant horizon. Just ... there. Darkening everything to touches. Today, for example, I was just ... -so- tired. Utterly drained. I had to nap during the day, despite having slept more than enough the night before, and woke up just as tired as I had been before lying down. I had less than zero motivation to do ... ANYTHING (further compounded by the fact that my net has been giving me a lot of trouble the past 2-3 days). Just so far down I didn't know how the hell I was ever going to pick myself back up.
Mercifully, it finally slowly began to subside on its own, by some miracle, so I've at least had a -few- truly lucid hours today, at the very least. But I know, now, that if I quarantine myself, at such a critically fragile state in my life, I'm only going to make myself much, much, MUCH worse. So the plan, as it stands right now, is to try and keep myself PRODUCTIVELY busy IRL, even if more isolated than usual, while keeping all my online socialization as positive and constructive as possible, so that I can focus on remembering my training (and even start looking around online for techniques to reinforce it).
So ... long-ass rambling aside, I'm mostly back, as far as online goes. I might toss some venting stuff on here from time to time when things get particularly blah, but I'll try to keep the emo journals to an absolute minimum, and any "blah" submissions will go to Scraps instead of my main gallery. I don't want to clog it with icky stuff. =/
That all being said, hope none of this worries any of you guys too much out there, as that really isn't my intention. I'm going to kick this to the curb, I promise you. I did it once before, and you can sure as hell bet I'll do it again.
So to that end, I'm "returning", albeit selectively. I'm going to go to great lengths from here on out to greatly minimize my exposure and involvement in any sort of online drama, as I'm in ABSOLUTELY no condition to be able to handle it in any way, shape, or form. Maybe someday when I get a better grip on what I'm ... dealing with ... I can start trying to contribute to those sorts of things in a meaningful positive/constructive way, but for right now, that's just not going to be possible. So instead, I'm just going to keep my online involvements as positive and laid-back as possible, to better facilitate my recovery, rather than hinder it.
That being said, I have some things I need to get out into the open, for various reasons. The most important of which is bringing myself some measure of peace by "laying all my cards out on the table", as the saying goes. Beyond that, I also want to bring awareness to others struggling with a similar condition, as well as bring clarity and understanding for those who care for and worry about me. You have a right to know...
I don't think it's common knowledge among the fandom and my watchers (as I've literally only ever mentioned it in ONE journal, in regards to an incident on FA 2 years ago), but I have Borderline Personality Disorder. For those who are unfamiliar with this condition, I've included the following video (it's lengthy, but WELL worth watching):
http://youtu.be/967Ckat7f98
For those either unable to or unwilling to sit through the entire 48-minute documentary, I'll summarize as best I can. BPD is, essentially, a psychological condition that greatly skews an individual's reactions to situations and emotions, making them much more prone to bouts of rage and depression as a result. It makes extreme overreactions, literally, a knee-jerk reaction. In addition, it makes it extremely difficult for BPD sufferers to "let go" of negative emotions, once something has "set them off". In a nutshell ... it makes living a normal functional life EXTREMELY difficult without a great deal of training (and unfortunately for some, no amount of therapy will ever suffice, leaving medication as the only remaining option). And even then ... there are limitations.
I can't do a frequent amount of real-world socialization, for prolonged periods of time, for example. It just becomes too overwhelming for me after awhile, because I have to stay in a very ... inwardly-focused frame of mind, in order to keep myself in check, so that I don't take something the wrong way and get overly-emotional about it (which would just serve to embarrass myself and ruin an otherwise-nice time). It's like clenching a muscle for hours and hours. Eventually, it just becomes too physically and emotionally exhausting to keep up, so it isn't something I can really keep up for a very long time. THAT'S the reason why I turn down a lot of hang-outs, and don't plan a whole lot of social events on a particularly regular basis. I just ... can't always handle it, or mentally bulk myself up for it. As much as I enjoy the social aspect and spending time with my buds, I just can't muster up the fortitude sometimes to keep myself in line. It's not a lack of enjoyment for social situations as much as it is an inability to psychologically handle it. But beyond that, and my occasional bouts of nasty temper that sometimes lash out, I'm really not that much different than anyone else.
I didn't come to realize that I had BPD until years of being falsely diagnosed with Clinical Depression, after a great deal of extensive research on my mother's part, and it was ... equal parts freeing and humbling. It was the biggest "aha" moment of my entire life. It put everything ... EVERYTHING into perspective. For me, my "trigger" was the constant bullying in school for years and years and years that finally just whittled me down as raw as I could possibly be, the callouses that grew over that made of a great deal of aggression and anger. Now, it's important to clarify that outside sources in one's life don't just "give" people BPD. It's a chemical imbalance of the brain that's always there, laying dormant until something "awakens" it. It's different for each individual, obviously. Sometimes it's not even one specific thing that sets it off, but rather a myriad of smaller things that all culminate into one final trigger that sets it all in motion. But once it comes, it sucks all the color out from your world like little else can. It's easy to see, now, how it can be confused with depression, because there are a LOT of parallels between them. We're always equal parts emotionally numb and easily-riled. We're quick to cling to people and things that bring us any sort of comfort or a feeling of safety, and our moods are often a flurry of extremes. We love as strongly and intensely as we hate. We require near-constant distraction, of -some- kind. Reading, drawing, watching something, fixing something, problem-solving ... -anything- at all. Our mind has to constantly be engaged by and focused upon -something-, because when it isn't ... that's when the self-deprecating thoughts start to creep back in, which makes it all too easy to obsess over all the over-critical emotions we have towards ourselves. Self-loathing comes as easily to us as breathing, and many are often chronically suicidal (as was I, at my lowest point). We're also very easily prone to self-harming, as a coping mechanism for emotions that are just too overwhelming to handle. It's akin to releasing a pressure valve, or redirecting an electrical current to lessen the intensity of the charge. For us, it becomes a necessary outlet to keep us sane, in a roiling sea of chaotic emotions and thoughts. My right arm looks the way it does for a reason ... Every scar is a testament to how bad it can truly get for a BPD sufferer, when left unchecked.
I refused to live this way, in such a maddening state of perpetual chaos. I went on an intensive search for interviews, blogs, journals ... anything and everything I could get my hands on that was written from the perspective of other BPD sufferers. The exact details varied slightly from person to person, but at its core ... it was like hearing my entire life spoken from the mouths of dozens upon dozens of complete strangers. It was like rediscovering myself all over again from then on. replacing everything I had learned about depression and applying my efforts, instead, towards the critical endeavor of understanding BPD inside and out. What it was, what could trigger it, and how others before me had defeated it. I fought it tooth and nail, tirelessly trained myself to watch for ANY sign of an irrational reaction, and learned coping mechanisms for how to counteract such lash-outs when they tried to occur. And for a great many years, I had it pretty damn-well under control. I'd have my off days, sure .., but for the most part, I was functioning again. Normal. Whole. Better than I ever had been.
But for about the past year or so, on and off, I've been slowly unraveling again. I find myself increasingly sensitive to my own actions and the actions and words of those around me, to an extent that I hadn't for a VERY long time. That same dark horrible malaise has started looming over me again, like a storm cloud that just won't vanish off the distant horizon. Just ... there. Darkening everything to touches. Today, for example, I was just ... -so- tired. Utterly drained. I had to nap during the day, despite having slept more than enough the night before, and woke up just as tired as I had been before lying down. I had less than zero motivation to do ... ANYTHING (further compounded by the fact that my net has been giving me a lot of trouble the past 2-3 days). Just so far down I didn't know how the hell I was ever going to pick myself back up.
Mercifully, it finally slowly began to subside on its own, by some miracle, so I've at least had a -few- truly lucid hours today, at the very least. But I know, now, that if I quarantine myself, at such a critically fragile state in my life, I'm only going to make myself much, much, MUCH worse. So the plan, as it stands right now, is to try and keep myself PRODUCTIVELY busy IRL, even if more isolated than usual, while keeping all my online socialization as positive and constructive as possible, so that I can focus on remembering my training (and even start looking around online for techniques to reinforce it).
So ... long-ass rambling aside, I'm mostly back, as far as online goes. I might toss some venting stuff on here from time to time when things get particularly blah, but I'll try to keep the emo journals to an absolute minimum, and any "blah" submissions will go to Scraps instead of my main gallery. I don't want to clog it with icky stuff. =/
That all being said, hope none of this worries any of you guys too much out there, as that really isn't my intention. I'm going to kick this to the curb, I promise you. I did it once before, and you can sure as hell bet I'll do it again.
You are who you are and have done what you've done. That can't really change. You're at a place now where you must decide whether or not your soul will be defeated by your mind. Your words show bravery, but it becomes much more than that. You must learn to be proud of who you are while flexible enough to be willing to change into what you'd like to be. You must remember that past that shaped you while making the future much better than it. Find out what you value and find out how to either get it or keep it. I believe this is how you "kick it to the curb".
Good Luck, Syn. :3
That's the -key- way of overcoming the "handicap" that is BPD. You learn to focus all your energy and efforts upon the good and positive things in your life, instead of how affected you are by any of the negative, and soon ... it begins to diminish the amount of control those chaotic emotions have over you. You can memorize every BPD coping technique in the book, but if you don't have THAT key component down to a tee ... your results will be temporary, at best.
Thanks, as always, for being a voice of reason when I need it most. *hugs*
Aye, you put it succinctly with BPD being a 'perpetual state of Chaos'. My mate has it; and I do believe she may want to read this (If not, I'll push her over here XD) She also has what she calls her 'Anti-Social' moments; where she just hates being around a lot of people... happens in stores rather often...
Coping skills and mechanisms... (sigh) truly a saving grace, and well worth cultivating ^^ I was very glad to read about your own personal success in building them up. I'd been told I had the patience of a Saint before... (and then Kids happened XDD, but I digress...)
I want to Fave this journal; so much; so very much.
While it may be our outward actions that define our journey, it is those we take inwardly that define ourselves. You shouldn't regret too many things from your past; you saw the problem there and worked to change it. You should feel some solid pride in yourself for never giving up on it.
And besides; you're still mah Syn-amon Bearwolf ^^ *hugs* You'll always have little 'ol me to kick around ^^
Another thing that often goes un-addressed (which is touched upon in that video) is how hard it is for the loved ones, friends, and family of those living with people who have BPD. It literally feels like walking on eggshells, oftentimes, not knowing from one moment to the next how what they might say/do will affect the person, which can be ... EXTREMELY strenuous, both emotionally and physically. It's especially hard when those involved with the individual don't even know what BPD -is- (as my loved ones were unaware of for a great manner years, until we all finally learned what BPD was). It's often a very freeing and liberating moment of clarity, and things get much easier from then on. Everyone becomes intimately involved in the learning process of that BPD sufferer's coping techniques, both helping that person overcome and live with their emotional handicap, while also bringing everyone THAT much closer together.
I, sir, salute you for your bravery in staying at your mate's side, throughout all of this. Living with someone with BPD is no small task, but then again ... you're one helluva guy, so it doesn't surprise me that you've got the strength and the compassion to weather the storms, as they come.
And AYE; OMG and how >.> 'Walking on Eggshells' is indeed how I used to describe the feeling; where you're nearly terrified of trying to talk about an issue, because you can foresee the outcome of a terrible backlash. I used to think that anything I said, at any given time, might start the chain reaction of thoughts and emotion that would lead to an altercation. (I've been 'thrown out'/disowned/'dismissed'/dumped like over fifty times over the course of this relationship <.<) Fortunately; because of my own Empathy and understanding, I was able to figure out that the part of her doing the 'throwing' was it's own separate thing; something wholly removed from common logic. I've since become keenly aware of the subtle differences in her behavior which show she's in that mindset (her 'trigger mode', if you will.)
We've fit a bit of a better groove; though everyday stress on her is now doubled (or in cases, tripled) due to my new job that's freaking miles away (and with a crazy start time [going to be 6 AM here soon]) and her the only one with a car >.>. (I not has license yet; not incapable of getting one; mind, just never had one, since I never needed one XD I just walked XD) Here in a while, I'ma be doing my driver's test, but that doesn't matter, unless I get a second car (Child still needs to be taken to school; but her school starts after I'm at work... so she still needs to take her, my license or no).
Though; on a lighter note; the experience has bolstered my own understanding and love of Psychology ^^. (blazed through my College Psychology course with a solid 'A' ^^) My own natural ability of reading into a person through their actions and word choice has been extremely augmented, by both the experience and further education. It's one of the reasons we got thrown out of her Dad's place; his new 'thing' (I refuse to call her a 'Woman', or even 'Human') whom I happily refer to as the 'Hyena' apparently doesn't like someone she can't manipulate and can unwaveringly call her on her sh!t XD She's a textbook case of Narcissism; literally. (I read the textbook, even XDDD)
We may have to start a note exchange to speak in further depth and such ^^
I thought I was just a bit overemotional because of horomones and yanno, growing up, but no. I try so hard to keep myself 'in-check' everyday - especially at work. I try to keep a positive mind always and tell myself that I'm going to be ok, and try to not let anything bother me as much.. Though I did have a recent episode where I endewd up crying in the break room after what a co-worker had said to me. Then I was fine 15 minutes later. How do you normally cope with these things? For me, I feel emotions a lot more intensely and it's really hard to keep friends IRL :/
Here's some links, to give you a better idea of what DBT is and how it's applied in relation to BPD:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialec.....havior_therapy
http://www.mind.org.uk/mental_healt.....aviour_therapy