It is not an easy night. It is 4AM and my grief is keeping me up like a little child. In fact, I believe it literally is a little child. My psychologist introduced me to Internal Family Systems and the idea that we have different “parts”. Within me are parts stuck at different ages. I didn’t always interact with my psychologist as a 31-year-old adult. I attached to her like a child attaches herself to a mother. Sometimes my young part(s) would not only hijack my emotions but they would hijack my behaviour. There was one session I spent on the floor playing with the toys in her office. I put some of her little soft animals in her plastic expandable ball (there is one for sale on Ebay here for reference) and rolled them around. I built block towers out of dominos, and then balanced my psychologist’s little toy hedgehog on top, very impressed that it did not collapse. My psychologist had two crochet otters called “Harry” and “Ginny”. One day when she took leave she let me keep one of them. She kept “Harry” and said she would carry him in her handbag wherever she went so that she wouldn’t forget me. They were like friendship charms. She said it was normally what she’d do for her children, but she trusted me and thought it might help. It did help. I kept “Ginny” by my bed and she was of great comfort, so much so that I had trouble relinquishing her when my psychologist returned. I gave “Ginny” back to her crying and then left abruptly. Continue reading “Sad”
My OCD is bad this evening, and there is nothing I can do to satisfy the compulsion. Instead of taking a bunch of pills and going to bed, I thought I’d try and squeeze in the post I was going to make before my OCD hijacked everything.
We’ve just had a violent heatwave here (I actually just typed heatache by mistake just then, shows where I’m at!). I don’t mind the heat. I missed a lot of summer as I was in hospital, so was glad I could still squeeze in some beach days before the colder weather sets in. Now the weather has changed dramatically, reminding me of the way emotional abusers suddenly turn. Many people start to get Seasonal Affective Disorder during autumn, and with the added loss of my psychologist, the season feels particularly cold and melancholic. “Beware of shapeshifters”, “Trust no one”, “Run away”, “The end is near” are phrases Linkin Park has put in his music video for his song “Final Masquerade”. A masquerade is an event where people wear masks. My psychologist wore a mask. Sometimes I caught glimmers of the cold, heartless person she is behind the mask, such as the day her face for some reason morphed into my old teacher’s. I don’t know whether it was her make up or what it was. This teacher had a nasty side as well. She spread a lot of misinformation about mental health and I don’t believe she had any lived experience perspective. When I started speaking out against the things she was teaching, I was expelled. I was still struggling with depression and was often late to class. One time the staff found me in the bathroom holding a pin which I felt like injuring myself with. The staff used my mental health against me as a reason to stop me doing placement and ultimately remove me from the course. Yes, I was discriminated against, but because I hadn’t openly disclosed my disability to them, I suppose they thought they could get away with it. Similarly my psychologist used my mental health against me to end our relationship. I didn’t think it was possible, but the levels people will sink to continues to amaze me. “Too unstable”, “too much”. Those words haunt me, stinging me like shards of glass stuck in my skin. I feel like I walk around with a sign on my back saying “get rid of me”. But I came across a quote by C.Olavasdaughter yesterday which brought me comfort: “Darling, you’re magic, and people are afraid of magic. 400 years ago they would have called your wildness and beauty witchcraft and burned you on a stake. They don’t burn the magical ones anymore. They just leave them out in the cold and make them feel like freaks.” This is how people with BPD are treated nowadays. We are discriminated against. We are stigmatised. We turn to hospitals suicidal and are not given a bed, dumped on the floor of the waiting room crying with not a single soul stopping to ask if they can help us. Or we are told we will only be given 48 hours in hospital, and if we protest, the staff threaten to use their security to force us out. The private system is only marginally better. We are allowed to stay longer, but if we play up, the hospital can blacklist us and refuse to give us another admission. In the final meeting with my psychologist she brought up all the times I’ve played up in private hospitals and how they struggle to manage me there. She said she is part of the private system as well, and she is siding with the hospitals, agreeing that I am too difficult to manage. Continue reading “Shapeshifters, being believed, and nihilism”
This meme would be a good summary of my day, though it doesn’t quite capture how distressing doing nothing can be. It was a 39 degree day and my dad and I were going to go to the beach, but that never eventuated. Instead this is what my day looked like:
I wake up at 4pm and turn on my laptop, as I usually do when I wake up. A news article pops up: “Doctor shares what happens to our bodies moments before we die”. The doctor apparently wants to reduce people’s fear around death, but the article does a pretty crap job of that. There is absolutely nothing transcendental or comforting about the article. Lets just say if you don’t already fear death you probably will when you get to the end of this article. So that is how I begin my day… staring into the fate of myself and those I love: complete oblivion. Continue reading “A rotten day (literally)”
When I was in hospital I kept saying I just want a normal life. While people around me are building careers and starting families, I’ve spent my 20s depressed, distressed and in and out of hospital. It is continuing into my 30s now. I can’t see myself ever having children and I don’t know if I will ever work either. Just when I try to build a better life for myself, such as study, another trauma happens. A therapist I’ve come to rely on leaves, and suddenly I am sliding down the biggest snake in a snakes and ladders game. I drop out of study, I can no longer play badminton and I’m right at the bottom of the board again. It has often felt like there’s some oppressing force conspiring to keep me stuck. Continue reading “Just want a normal life”
Every day I get urges to kill myself. Last night I called Lifeline. I actually found the lady who picked up really helpful. She was horrified by my psychologist’s behaviour and said she shouldn’t be practicing. Something I’ve learnt about Lifeline is they are there for anyone in distress and needing someone to talk to, you don’t have to be suicidal. Today when I woke up I called Blue Knot, a helpline for those with childhood trauma. They offer free, weekly 45 minute counselling sessions, though it’s a different counsellor each time. I’ve been meaning to check them out. I didn’t find the lady as empathetic and am not sure I will call them again next week.
I’ve been thinking a bit about my combination of personality disorders today. Each personality disorder is basically a defense strategy we develop to deal with trauma and pain. I have what might seem like an odd combination: BPD and Schizoid Personality Disorder. It is like having two people in my head arguing.
“You should have listened to me and never got involved with that psychologist”, Schizoid brags.
“I was right all along. Psychologists are dangerous. Attachments are dangerous. The only person you have and can rely on is yourself.”
But Borderline has a real need for attachment. The monochrome life of the Schizoid is unbearable.
The worst thing for Borderline is abandonment and loss. The worst thing for Schizoid is contact and suffocation. The two are constantly at war, and I struggle to find a middle ground. Continue reading “Today’s update: finding myself”
I wake up at 3pm, still nauseous from the alcohol I drank yesterday. My head feels like it’s been rammed into a brick wall and I have a cough. Don’t tell me I’m sick again? I’ve only just got over the flu.
It’s 5pm. Looks like it’s too late to go to the post office and send the badge someone ordered from my Etsy store last week. Whenever I get an order, I am no longer excited. “Shit, I can barely stand to be alive, let alone get this order sorted” is what I think. Thankfully I already have the badge made up, so I just need to post it.
It is 6pm and I reluctantly leave my bedroom. I’ve been putting it off as I can’t stand to be around anyone, and I definitely do not want to be asked how I am because the answer is always the same: horrible. I just go through different degrees of horribleness. Today it is particularly horrible.
It has been 8 days since my psychologist dumped me. I haven’t showered all week and clumps of knots are forming in my hair. Continue reading “This is what being abused by a psychopath feels like”
I’d like to churn out one more post before I call it a night. This post is another song interpretation. This song is called “I Went Too Far” by Aurora, and it is my new favourite song and anthem right now.
This song is about being desperate for love. Love is a very human need, but some of us are so deprived of it that we will go to great lengths to get it. As a person with BPD (and a love addict), I relate so much to this song. One of the criteria for BPD is frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. That is what this song is all about. We throw away our dignity, begging for this person to show us some love and not leave us. Some people with BPD will go as far as injuring themselves as they are in so much pain and distress. This is what Aurora means when she says she “went too far”. I have at times scratched myself and tried to overdose right in front of people in attempts to get them to just acknowledge my humanity and give me care. It’s sad we have to go to this extent, but in a cruel, heartless world and a broken healthcare system often this is what it takes to get people to do something. Continue reading “I Went Too Far by Aurora”
“Nobody gives an answerI’m just asking why?Just tell me why?Why it has to be like this”
Enigma, “Why”
I usually like listening to sad songs on YouTube, but all my favourite songs are too triggering for me right now. Last night I had a break down listening to “True Colours” by Cyndi Lauper even. It was the part of the video which showed the little girl (who I assume was the younger version of Cyndi). I feel like that little part of me came out sometimes with my psychologist. I showed her my true colours, all of me, but instead of caring for these parts, she turned her back on them in the end. Then tonight I listened to “No More “I Love You’s“” by Annie Lennox. This was even worse. The tender music video shows Annie holding hands with the different characters. It reminded me of the times my psychologist held my hand, and how I feel this ending is all my fault because still, after all the care she showed me, I did not get better. I was the most unrewarding client she’s probably ever had. For a long time I’ve felt like all I really need is something very human: just to be held and touched. But there are only a few people I can really enjoy this with. For instance, I hate my family touching me, and I don’t like to be touched by most men. Most of the time touch is an emotionally empty experience for me. I long to be touched but I hate it too. But I had developed a very intense bond with my psychologist, and there was still so much more I felt we could do together, such as experimenting more with touch. Touch, when done right, allows us to leave survival mode, and in another time, and in another place, a little you is experiencing what it’s like to feel safe. I am deeply scarred by the way my psychologist drew me in and then spat me out. She said she was committed to me and that she thought it would be a shame to end our relationship as we had so much history together. I trusted her, and then she ruthlessly ends our relationship without giving me any say over the matter. There are no words for the pain and sense of betrayal I feel. I have had to take diazepam tonight as I’ve been so distressed by all this.
As I wrote in my video about ASD, Asperger’s is like being a selkie. I live in two worlds. I am most at home in the sea, but can also (though with great difficulty) live on the land with others. Continue reading “Irritated”
hsphaven 