A woman with Borderline Personality Disorder describes what it’s like to struggle with the difficulties of black and white thinking and how she deals with it every day. Her husband’s view, The Black and White Thinking of Borderline Personality Disorder, follows.
http://themessyartofliving.com/curse-black-white-thinking/
Last Tuesday, I met with my counsellor and my mother-in-law to try to help her understand my BPD. We had a very good talk and I think she’s finally beginning to understand it a bit more. I tried to explain to her how she was unintentionally invalidating me constantly. She told me that she wasn’t saying anything bad to me. I explained to her that it doesn’t matter what she says or how she says it, that to someone with BPD, especially with me, it always feels like criticising and that I’m not good enough. She asked what she could do to make it better and I told her “nothing. Just do your own thing. You can’t make this go away. I’m the only one who can help me.” She got a look on her face like she finally “got it.” Also kind of sad for me.
My counsellor thought that I was very articulate, and told my mother-in-law that I’m doing everything I need to be doing to keep myself as well as I can be. I’m seeing both of them again this Tuesday. It’s good practice for me for running a group or presentation on BPD to educate people on the disorder. I’m learning more about myself every day.
I was so exhausted afterwards that I had to lay down for an hour. People don’t realize how exhausting it is for those of us with BPD just managing our emotions every day. It just comes to them naturally.
I’ll keep you posted on how it goes Tuesday. Till then,
Joyce.
I’m always saying to my husband “I was gonna do that, but…” And then he says “You were gonna…You were gonna…But you never do it. You always have excuses.” I always feel so many emotions all at the same time when this happens. The first and main thing is the feeling of “I’m not good enough.” I also feel guilt, shame, overwhelmed, anxiety, frustrated, misunderstood and depression.
Does anyone else go through this? How do you handle it?
English: A RadioShack brand cassette recorder, with built-in microphone. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Having BPD is like having a tape recorder (yes, I’m dating myself) playing in your head 24/7, 365 days a year, every year of your life. It’s like a bunch of “voices” all at the same time constantly telling you that you’re not good enough. You can never pause it or stop it or turn the volume down on it. If you’re lucky, you can find a way to drown it out. Those ways are usually self-destructive.
If you get the proper diagnosis, you can learn DBT skills, and learn healthier ways to deal with these voices in your head. They can become a little quieter, but they may never be silenced.
The voices in my head get very overwhelming a lot of the time. I need to distract myself from them by putting on my headphones and blasting my music, until I can feel better. How soon I can feel better depends on many factors. My environment, people I’m with (family usually), how long the emotions have been building up.
My mother-in-law accused me of not thinking about supper until its time to eat. If only she knew what it’s like. You get so overwhelmed by your thoughts, you’re literally paralyzed by them, and can’t even think straight. I have a million thoughts in my head, all at the same time, from the moment I wake up, before I’m even out of bed, until bedtime.
If you’d like to read more about what a typical day is like for me, click here: https://makebpdstigmafree.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/a-typical-day-for-me/
Do you ever feel not listened to? I have ever since I was a kid. I’m always treated like a two-year-old by my husband and mother-in-law. I always feel like it’s amazing I’m alive today because I must be the stupidest person on Earth. Too dumb to live. Dumber than dirt. Like if it was raining outside, I’d been to dumb to come in out of the rain, and I’d catch pneumonia and die.
I need validation and understanding, especially from my mother-in-law. But she keeps doing the same things over and over, even though I’ve told her a million times that it makes me feel worse instead of better. I don’t need to be reminded of every little thing I need to do every minute of the day. I just get overwhelmed and paralyzed. My brain stops working logically. I have to distract myself to feel better. Then I’m not getting anything done around the house. Then I get told I’m not doing anything around here. If she would just listen to me, this vicious circle could be avoided. I guess she would rather be right than to have me do anything around here, or else she would stop.
All she sees is me sitting at the computer all day, every day. Or else I go to the peer support centre downtown for the morning and afternoon, to get a break from her. Which usually helps a little bit. Until I get home. Then I have to listen to it all over again. She doesn’t see what goes on in my head.
I dread getting up in the morning, knowing I’m gonna have to deal with my son and daughter, and my mother-in-law. I dread getting home from the peer support centre or my parents’ house, because I know it’s back to the same old thing, all over again. And she wonders why I feel so bad all the time, and why I can never get anything done around here.
She keeps saying that maybe I need a new therapist or a new medication. No, I just need her to LEAVE ME ALONE! If she’d do that, I’d feel a lot better.
Please see these posts:
https://makebpdstigmafree.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/some-people-will-never-get-it/
http://thebernardbert.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/from-the-day-you-are-born-you-are-old-enough-to-die/
https://makebpdstigmafree.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/a-typical-day-for-me/
http://beautyfrompainblog.com/2013/04/24/the-best-mental-health-trainers/
https://makebpdstigmafree.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/bpd-and-inappropriate-emotions/
https://makebpdstigmafree.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/as-well-as-i-can-be/
http://bpdturtle.com/archives/52
http://showard76.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/if-life-is-a-rollercoaster-then-bpd-is-a-pinball-machine/
I have been trying to explain my BPD to my mother-in-law for months. At first, she had no idea what I was talking about. But she gets a little bit more out of every conversation we have. It’s such a complex disorder to try to explain to someone who doesn’t have it. I believe they can only understand it to a point. They don’t have to live with it every day of their lives. They can only try to imagine what it must be like. At least with depression or Bipolar, you can feel better, with either time or medication or therapy or a combination of them, and the symptoms go away. With BPD, it never goes away. You can learn how to manage the symptoms, your emotions and behaviour, but it’s always going to be there, for the rest of your life. It’s absolutely exhausting! People expect too much of you. They think that, if only you’d try a little harder. They’re seeing things through their own eyes, not ours. They don’t have our brains. They think that, if you were trying as hard as you possibly can, you’d be handling things just like them, and you’d be doing so much better. They don’t realize that, you’re doing the best that you can. You’re never going to be like them. That doesn’t mean that you’re any worse than them. It just means that since your brain works differently, and they have to realize that.
When people expect too much of you, its extremely invalidating. What they need to do is validate us by saying “I don’t understand exactly how you feel, but I know that you’re doing the best you can.” This will make us feel validated and then we can get better, at our own pace. When they push us to do things that we are not capable of, that just makes us feel worse instead of better. With me, I feel very overwhelmed and paralyzed and I can’t think straight or do anything. Then they get upset with me for not doing anything, which makes me feel even worse. I feel so many things so intensely, all at the same time – anger, guilt, etc. “I’m not good enough.” I just goes into a vicious circle of negative emotions. Every time I try to explain it to my mother-in-law, she says “Oh, that must be awful!” And it is. Sure, sometimes it can be a good thing, but it’s also extremely difficult to live with.
What are your experiences with trying to explain your BPD to others? Have you had any success or not? If so, what do you find helpful? I’ve included some helpful links at the end of this post.
http://lifehacker.com/its-true-thinking-hard-really-can-wear-you-out-504454695
http://insidethebordreline.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/what-is-it-like-to-live-with-bpd.html
http://bpd.about.com/u/ua/understandingbpd/sx_ugc.htm
https://makebpdstigmafree.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/some-people-will-never-get-it/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080807144305.htm
https://makebpdstigmafree.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/emotional-profiles-are-you-a-volcano/
https://makebpdstigmafree.wordpress.com/2013/04/21/as-well-as-i-can-be/
https://makebpdstigmafree.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/inside-the-mind-of-someone-with-bpd/
http://showard76.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/if-life-is-a-rollercoaster-then-bpd-is-a-pinball-machine/
Just looking back at some of my FaceBook shares and noticed this post. I never knew how to describe this feeling, but this sums it up perfectly! Other people just can’t understand how this feels, but at least they can validate your feelings.
By Becky Oberg of More Than Borderline. “You look fine to me” is heard by people on Disability all the time. It is an invisible illness, and is highly stigmatized.
http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/borderline/2012/06/the-stigma-of-disability/
Feeling like this is such a lonely place.
I am about to combust. I thought it happened a week ago but I was wrong. I haven’t given my body and mind a chance to recover, therefore my emotions are like an open wound and salt is rubbed in at the littlest sign of any stress.
Sadly, stress likes to find me everyday. Not the stresses that people would usually deal with, say, the car breaking down on the way to work or spilling your tea over all your paperwork that you spent hours on. No, not those types of things. For me, a little look from someone that I didn’t feel quite comfortable with or leaving the staffroom when there are lots of people in there… or saying something to someone only to worry about how I sounded… walking through the hall when somebody’s using it… worrying CONSTANTLY…
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