The last week.

I have no energy to do anything. The smallest thing just seem likes the biggest chore and can even bring me to tears. I’m not sure what’s happening to me or what will happen to me. I have my last session with Dr L next week, I asked her if I could finish last Wednesday but she said my session is still there for me and she wouldn’t take my session away. So it looks like I’m going. I struggled to deal with my second last session, all I kept saying in my head was “please don’t leave me, please please don’t leave me.” I couldn’t bear it and I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with next week, Dr L is leaving me, forever. I had to explain to her that if she gone then I have to forget she exists otherwise it hurts too much. She mentioned maybe seeing me again in a couple of month for a one off session and I threw it back in her face of course, I can’t go through losing her twice. I think the worst thing about next week will be when I walk out of those doors and I know I’m not allowed to hug her goodbye. When someone leaves, it feels like they die, I go into mourning. Whenever my mum would leave I pretended she didn’t exist because then she wasn’t abandoning me because she didn’t exist and this has become my defence mechanism since. Not a good one as it happens when people leave for short periods of time too, sometimes I forget they exist so if they haven’t spoken to me for a while then I can’t be hurt. Although this means that I’m not good at keeping in contact with friends because I’m too bust trying to defend myself and forcing myself to forget them while trying to remember them so I don’t genuinely lose them. Dr L understands that If we’re going to finish our sessions now, I can’t have one random session in a month and then leave it because it’d just be a mess, I’d turn up and probably just spend the whole time telling her how mad I am at her for leaving me and then forcing me to relive the abandonment again by having to see her one last time (again). I think it’s best to leave it next Wednesday. It’s best to just end it and I can mourne her for however long feels right and then forget she ever existed. I know she may worry that this ending may make me worse and to be honest It will probably leave me reluctant to have any other treatment as she said the only way I will get the treatment I need is to pay for it as no one is going to give me long term treatment on the NHS (pile ofs**t), It’s a disgrace really. This kind of “treatment” makes people with personality disorders WORSE not better because they get so far and oops NHS won’t give you anymore treatment and suddenly you’re abandoned in the middle of a potential break-through and you don’t know what to do about it because there isn’t really much you can do other than try and fix yourself. Or lock yourself away and cry? What do you do when someone tells you “you need long term treatment but no one can offer it and you sure as hell can’t afford it”, do you give up? Do you sell yourself to fund said treatment? What the hell do you do?

Just, please don’t leave me.

Parents, growing up and suicide.

Well, wouldn’t you expect a happy blogger after getting hitched? Tis not so. Everything has gone excessively worse in my life since. Not my fault of my marriage but everything else (Okay I admit being married is called borderline anxiety problems but leave this for now). While my anxiety has increased massively since getting married and being diagnosed OCD, I knew something else had to go crazy in my life because my life can’t just have one huge problem at a time. Since I’ve gotten married my dad has finally said that he wants to divorce mum, this is a God send because their marriage is part of the reason that I am, well, writing this now. It just seems so many years too late for it to actually benefit me but at least for it to happen now means that my dad may be able to benefit, as for my mum she is socially inept, can’t make friends, is easily bullied, has a low paying job and has narcissistic tendencies and I believe BPD. I can’t imagine her ever being happy with any situation. Even though I am trying to fuel this divorce, along with my dad’s sister, every now and then I break down and cry. I know I’ve never really had a family as such but the fact that they were physically in the same home meant I could pretend.

I went to the in laws yesterday and it was my father in laws birthday, the family gathered round the table and a cake was brought out as the family sang and my heart broke into a million pieces. Even though my husband’s family are also quite dysfunctional, they love each other and do nice things for each other. I’ve never EVER witnessed either of my parents do something nice for the other and it hurt so much to see that even the most dysfunctional family can still be a family. It hurt that I don’t have a family. I have a mother and I have a father but no family. And now I’m married, I have even less of a family because the part of my parents that made me feel like I had parents was the occasional care of which now they feel they don’t need to give because I’m my husband’s responsibility now. I had this particular conversation with my mother yesterday.

I came home from the in laws for my mother to casually say “your dad went to hospital”, I questioned why she didn’t call to tell me of which she just shrugged her shoulders (her usual response to anything to do with dad) , this then brought up a conversation about how I’ve always loved dad more and how she needs to see the one she loves again (her celebrity obsession who has stepped over the boundaries by being her “friend”). She said she didn’t want to tell me that she was going away because I would “go off on one” I didn’t I said to her, “He (the obsession) cannot solve your problems.” To which she cried to my husband “see I told you, there she goes”. I tried my up most not to judge her and to just tell her that this celebrity can’t make her huge life problems better. She sees me as attacking her no matter what I say, I told her that she needs to sort out this home situation too and that she should of left years ago. She, of course, attacked me again, “you said you wanted to live with dad and he would’ve of raped you!”, she’s playing the hero, living with him to protect me. My dad has never touched me in any way that has ever been inappropriate. If anything she’s been the one who’s been over sexual with me throughout my childhood. She starts to tell me that she is trying to sort out the situation at home, so I asked her what she’s trying to sort out. She wouldn’t tell me, she said now I’m married and moving why do I need to know what’s going on with my my home because I’ll be gone. I told her that just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean I’m just forgotten about but she was set in her view that if I’m gone then I no longer exist in her life and it’s not important what goes on in my family because she doesn’t seem to understand that anything would emotionally effect me. She has a very one person view, she can only understand the way that things affect her. I thought maybe she was going to try and sort out a divorce as well so I tried to get her to tell me what was going on because how ridiculous would it be for both parties to be filing for divorce and the other not knowing. You can see how much communication there really is. She ended up saying how she doesn’t want to say anything because it’ll cause problems, J kept telling her she had to tell us. So she starts crying and says she’s talking to someone at the crisis team. After all she’s put me through I can be horribly unsympathetic to her so I stopped myself blurting out, “IS THAT IT?” To me calling the crisis team is not a big thing at all, I just know that they’re shit. So, she’s trying to get herself emotional support…but I still don’t see how that solves the home problem. She wants to continue living at home but have emotional support? She spent ages saying how nobody ever helped her when dad was first ill but every time we asked if she asked for help she said no but she expected it to just happen. So she feels let down by mental health services and she’s angry at them yet how do you receive if you don’t ask? She complains that dad got help and I got help but she didn’t. One, dad had a psychotic episode, of course someone is going to look after him in hospital. Two, I was a child, when you’re a child, you aren’t expected to ask for help when you go through a traumatic experience. I feel like she blames me but I did all I could throughout my life to help her and yes I did give up because of her constant “nobody cares about me, what about me, nobody ever looks after me”. J kept being sympathetic to her and I couldn’t stand it, she would cry and he hugged her and I just got so mad. If he hugs her and comforts her, she will attach to him and because I refused to hug her, she will have more reason to attack me. There were times that I cried and cried and she shrugged her shoulders at my feelings and said “what about me” and I can no longer let her in emotionally because I only get hurt. I only get left behind. So J’s compassion will be her reasoning for me not caring. He also kept telling her I do care and I do want to listen and I do want to help. I don’t. She is a grown woman, I want her to grow the hell up and start taking responsibility for her actions. She has created this life and she takes no responsibility at all for any of the wrong that happened, It’s all everyone else fault. She only thinks I’m ill because of “your crazy dad”, she doesn’t understand situational depression or that anything she has ever done being a cause for my trauma and pain. And until she accepts responsibility for her own actions I can’t help her. She says she wants to die, yeah well you know what, join the queue.

A History- Part 1

I got this idea from my friend http://mrshughbankshopewithbpd.blogspot.com/2011/03/who-is-this-person-pt1.html

I haven’t blogged for a while, it’s been strange because I would blog almost every week and in a way it’s good that I haven’t been blogging because it shows that things have been more or less “okay” (in comparison to the usual chaos of course). I do miss it though so I thought as I don’t have much to write about at the moment that I would tell you the history of me and how I came to be here writing this blog now.

Early Years

I was always a quiet child, that’s what I remember, my family describe me as a sweet natured quiet little girl.

My mum couldn’t understand my demands as a child. I wasn’t a needy child but children do have needs and my mum wasn’t prepared to fulfill those needs. I began to realise that It was best for me to be quiet because screaming wouldn’t get me noticed or cared for and If I wanted to be cared for I would get it when it was appropriate for the other person. I learnt that my needs weren’t important. Sometimes I would scream and cry for a toy because I would always get it and this became a pattern, I realised that my screaming and crying did work for material WANTS. I always felt that my needs as a child meant that I was too much hassle, I have always felt that I am too much to deal with. So I wouldn’t make a fuss, I wouldn’t complain because I knew that all my demands were unreasonable. No one would fulfill my needs, if I needed comfort, it wouldn’t be fulfilled so clearly I was unreasonable. I learnt that I was unreasonable and asked too much from my parents, when in reality I was only asking for the things a child needs. Comfort, affection, someone I could go to with my problems. It didn’t happen. I was taught through this that if things are bad and if you aren’t satisfied with something then you just get on with it and shut up because no one cares and no one will help you.

I did have friends as a child, although most of them were false. I wasn’t a very attractive little girl in my later childhood and of course I was bullied for this. I had a few best friends but they all bullied me at some point or another or left me for someone “better”, I always felt other people were better than me. And looks played a big part in this, as a child I figured that the prettier you were the better person you were, the more liked (A habit of thought I’m still yet to fully get out of). I’ve heard many people say “everyone gets bullied” and that may true to an extent but not everyone gets bullied and then has no parental support to help overcome that fear and self esteem knock. THAT, I feel, is the key behind who actually gets severely affected by bullying. One of my best friends ‘G’ was very pretty, she was skinny and blonde, I was overweight with long, messy brown hair. We both had a friend called Z who lived in our street and we both liked him and of course he liked her back and they were boyfriend and girlfriend for a little while, I don’t know how they broke up…how do primary school kids even break up? Anyway, he favoured her and she would rub it in my face. It didn’t seem fair, what was wrong with me? Why did everyone bully me? Why did I have to be so unattractive? I stayed friends with her, of course, I wanted to know how to be like her so people would like me. It wasn’t fair. Then there was L she had a disfunctional home too she was older, always nice to me, unless there were other people around. She would then make fun of me infront of people to get their approval. We would play hide and seek and I was left in my hiding place while L and her friends left me there. They would laugh at me and laugh until I cried and ran home and none of them ever apologised. L just waited for me to come back to her again.

At primary school I was friends with a group of girls, there were 5 of us. The pretty girls would call us freaks and because of all their taunting sometimes I didn’t want to be friends with them because if the “better” girls thought they were freaks then they must be. What mixed up and horrible thinking, and this is in primary school. My beliefs of people were (are sometimes still are) based upon what the more attractive of our species believe because I’m just dying to be liked and accepted by those who are liked and accepted by the rest of the world. When you’re bullied for your looks, this is how you start to think. Beautiful people are better. I am still friends with one of those girls in that group and I’m sorry for how I felt sometimes, I’m not scared to be your friend because you’re much better than them, you wouldn’t judge or hurt a soul. The most gentle and loving of all the girls I know. Katy ❤

I sometimes see those bullies from primary school and I flinch and hide my face. They, of course, are even more beautiful as women now and I feel like I shrink and become insignificant. Sidetracked…

My first brush with mental illness was at the age of 6, my dad’s breakdown. I know you’ve heard the story a bazillion times but I’m trying to include everything. My dad has a psychotic episode, he has been made redundant and as a result his bipolar went haywire and he became psychotic. He was violent and frightening, he would sometimes scream at me without warning and not recall doing so the next minute. My father is a gentle person yet his illness caused him to become violent towards me. He was quietly angry and it would come out when I was “naughty”. The police were called and he was taken away. To where? I didn’t know. Why? Well mum said dad was mad and she would laugh. So I became frightened of people with mental illness from that point onwards. My understanding was that they took crazy people away because they were violent, bad people. But then, he was my dad and I couldn’t believe that of him. So I believe that my splitting may have stemmed somewhat from this view of my dad being jekyll and Hyde. I couldn’t put them both together. They were two separate people.

I was never a naughty child, that I can remember but I always remember being called bad or naughty or as my mum would say to other parents “she’s drives me mad, she’s a devil really”. I would get mad that she would tell other parents that I was bad because I was so well behaved. I wanted to please and be liked. I never got in trouble at school, ever. My favourite time of every year was parents evening where the teachers would tell my parents how good I was and my dad would buy me fish and chips for being a “good girl”. I longed to be told I was good. The only time I was ever grounded was when G was teaching me to ride a bike and I was going down a large hill, I was so scared I froze and swerved into a car. A complete accident yet I was told I was bad and was grounded. I could have been seriously hurt and instead I was punished for an accident because accidents were the only time I ever did anything wrong. If I knocked something over my mistake I was shouted at and told I was a “bad child” and was hit. I would cry and hide in my room. It wasn’t like a deliberately walked over to a stack of papers and throw them on the floor, it was a mistake but I wasn’t allowed to make mistake or I would be hurt. You can see the reasons for my perfectionism. I have to do everything right out of fear of being condemned to being a bad person.

The comfort penguin.

When you have recurring feelings of emptiness and lonliness, sometimes the last thing you want is a human who can’t understand how you feel. I had a session with Dr L where I spoke of my night terror/panic attacks and my need for comfort in the night. I sleep with a light on and my door locked, my duvet up to my neck. I just don’t feel safe at night, this is where the problem comes, as J and I currently aren’t living together I can’t turn to him for comfort and reassurance and Dr L suggested that I have something to hug in the night so that I feel safer. I of course said “but aren’t I too old to have a cuddly toy in bed with me?”, she said that any technique that would stop me feeling fearful was worth it and that with my childhood robbed from me, I have a right to be a child sometimes. So off me and J went to Hamleys to look for a cuddly companion for me, I didn’t want a teddy bear, their stances mean that their legs go in to your stomach if you hold them, plus I wanted something different. I then saw this soft lovely beaked creature and when I picked it up and held it I couldn’t put it back, it was perfect. Soft, protecting and reassuring.

And here he is:

Even when me and J are living together I can still see myself having Pengy with me, It’s silly really how safe an inanimate can make me feel but it’s like when a child has an object that keeps them safe. I believe that with BPD there is a part of us that is still a child, that is yearning to have those comforts that children have because we never experienced them at the right time. I took pengy to my grandmas when I stayed there a week ago and unfortunately left him there so my sleep hasn’t been the best and I’ve actually become quite distressed without him, I hope this doesn’t become a problem and that I can get him back soon.

Moving on.

To move on from your past is almost an impossible thing as your past moulds who you are. To literally move on as in geographically seems almost as impossible for me. I have a chance to get away forever, to start a new life, start afresh away from the place where all my life I have grown and been broken down. You may think, how great to be able to get away finally. But no, It doesn’t feel great. I have lived here 18 years, although it holds horrible memories, it is what I have always known. To change everything is completely petrifying.

Of course I want to get away but I feel the same way with it as I do about my anxiety. I don’t want the anxiety but it’s what I’ve always known and it keeps me safe. My room is my safe place, it always has been. To change the familiar is like throwing yourself into a pit of fear and never ending anxiety with stabbing pains all over your body.

I admire people who can be happy about new changes that will no doubt improve their lives but it’s like I can’t be happy because of those fears and anxieties. If I leave, I have to be completely independent and it means I HAVE to cope. I’m forcing myself to cope and it could have quite dangerous consequences. It is inevitably throwing myself right into the deep end. The options seem to be that I’ll either paddle well for a little while and then sink or first sink to the bottom until I can learn to swim in it. I do believe I will sink, very deep but it’s only to be expected, it’s scary I won’t be happy about it at first. But I know that gradually I will learn. If I had to do it alone I know I would be much worse off and wouldn’t be leaving anyway. It is J that is helping me move forward in life, even if it’s only a small step forward and then I have time to be depressed, readjust and maybe not move forward anymore for a little while. It’s a big thing to do and everything needs to move forward a small bit at a time to prevent an emotional breakdown. I feel luck to have someone who understand that I need to takes things a lot slower than “normal” people. That I can’t just walk out of the door everyday with a smile on my face and that sometimes I may not even be able to walk out of the door.

Understanding is key and I know sometimes he may not understand but his caring and love for me is understand for him to not have to understand all of what’s going on. The amount of support he’s willing to give me is like a voice saying “You’ve got this far and now he’s here to make it all better. He will allow you to heal.” But then to not be able to support him in the same way will make me feel selfish, I just hope my emotional support is of more worth than financial support.

And let’s hope the panic attacks stop! I have therapy again on wednesday after 2 weeks, I’m not sure If I’m looking forward to it. When I told Dr L I was moving and that I was excited she asked me a lot of questions I didn’t have the answer to. “How will you cope when he’s not at home?” “What about meeting new people?” Therapy can sometimes have the opposite effect. I was thinking of the positives yet she brought up the negatives, It made me confused but then understandable that she would ask me such things because she knows I would block those things out and then break when I have to tackle them. I just don’t want to think about the bads thigns because hopefully they wouldn’t happen and I’d just cope. As I always have.

I want my Mummy and Daddy.

He can’t be your daddy

To leave home will be heartbreaking. Though, I need to escape from this horrible place and start my life with someone who will look after me, there’s still the fight against him, I don’t want J to look after me, I want my parents. I want them to look after me, it’s not his job, it’s thiers. It’s always been thier’s. With the care (as such) being passed over it’ll feel like they can finally say I am no longer their responsibility meaning that it’ll be the end of my pathetic struggle to ask them to care for me. When I cry J will look after me but I know that through my whole life I will yearn for my mother or father comforting me. That’s not to say that I won’t want J to look after me but I will always have that yearning. For a parent.

I don’t want him to end up feeling like a parent because it’ll only cause problems in the relationship. I know that the reason our relationship can get difficult is because of my parental attachments. It’s all  things you learn when you study psychology.

The Strange Situation

The procedure, known as the ‘Strange Situation’, was conducted by observing the behaviour of the caregiver and the infant in a series of seven 3-minute episodes, as follows:

(1) Parent and infant alone.

(2) Stranger joins parent and infant.

(3) Parent leaves infant and stranger alone.

(4) Parent returns and stranger leaves.

(5) Parent leaves; infant left completely alone.

(6) Stranger returns.

(7) Parent returns and stranger leaves.

Mary Ainsworth was particularly interested in observing the following aspects of the infant’s behaviour:

·         Separation anxiety

·         Stranger anxiety

·         Reaction when reunited with parent

	Secure Attachment	Resistant Attachment	Avoidant Attachment
Separation anxiety	Distressed when mother leaves	Infant shows signs of intense distress	Infant shows no sign of distress when mother leaves
Stranger anxiety	Avoidant of stranger when alone but friendly when mother present.	Infant avoids the stranger – shows fear of stranger	Infant is okay with the stranger and plays normally when stranger is present
Reunion behaviour	Positive and happy when mother returns.	Child approaches mother but resists contact, may even push her away	Infant shows little interest when mother returns.
Other	Will use the mother as a safe base to explore their environment.	Infant cries more and explores less than the other 2 types	Mother and stranger are able to comfort infant equally well
% of infants	70	15	15

I am resistant. When my mum would leave to go on holiday I would cry and cry and cry and when she came back I would ignore her, she was undeserving of my affection after leaving me with no knowledge if she were coming back. I remember when studying psychology we learnt about this and feeling so depressed because I knew I was in the 15% that was different, that was a little broken. I wonder what it’s like to be secure, to be able to be in a normal healthy relationship that isn’t riddled with fear of abandonment and dependency. I wonder what person I would be now.

I can’t change this

It’s the truth. I can’t change what has happened to me, I can only change how I try and deal with it. There are some things that are so ingrained that I feel they will always be with me and I guess it’s just finding the things that can be altered that’s the challenge. Maybe, if my relationship were better with my parents it’d be better with J? No. If they started caring now, I would regress to a child and try and live here as long as I could to finally be babied, loved and forever be a child. I need to find a way to let go, to let go of them and let go of any hope that they are going to change and suddenly be parents. My marriage and my family won’t be like any other family, I know I will be a dependent mother, I will cling to the feeling of my children needing me. I need to learn before then to accept that people sometimes need to leave and that I cannot hold onto them forever, that everyone needs their own life and it won’t always revolve around me. No matter how much I want it to. This will be so hard for J and I know he’ll need to be so strong and work so hard to keep me sane and I feel guilty that he has chosen me, I know that elsewhere his life would be easier.

“You can’t share.”

It’s a fact, I can’t. But I’m not talking about possessions, I’m talking about people. I can share SOME people but to be able to do that I have to disconnect emotionally from them and reconnect when they are “mine” again. I can do this with most friends. But I’m sure you can guess, the one I can’t bear to emotionally disconnect from.

J says I can’t share him, well no I can’t. Don’t see why I should find it easy to share him, I am in love with the poor bugger and emotionally screwed up. Of course I will cling for dear life to the only person who I feel have truely deeply and emotionally loved me in spite of everything. I’m not going to let him run off with other people am I?  I know I need to somehow through my CBT be able to feel more comfortable about it but it’s yet to be worked on and as I have about 3 months left I doubt, unless it was the only topic discussed, it’ll work out all nice and I’m able to share him with the world. No chance.

He always say it’s because I’m an only child but it’s not, it’s because I terrified of losing him to other people. I’m scared that he’ll enjoy their company more than mine and then leave me, realising how terribly boring I am in comparison. I become so upset and distressed and angry. Mostly angry. Really angry. &*%^$%$£^£&£*&$*$*$$!”$%^&$YRTFG. Like that 😀

Hate is a strong word? Then it’s perfect.

If I were still in the Mormon Church I would be classed as unworthy because of my feelings towards my family but that’s ignorance right there. How can you forgive something that is ongoing and never stops?

I think I’ve had just about enough, now don’t you dare think this is a teenage “my parent’s don’t understand me, I hate them!” balls because I scream. I have been neglected, abused, stepped all over, guilt tripped and emotionally blackmailed so many times and It has wittled me down to almost nothing. My CBT has opened up a lot for me, my excuses for letting my parents do these things to me and not stick up for myself were that I felt sorry for them and they’re both ill. But I can’t carry on giving in to my mum’s emotional guilt trips or my dad’s blackmailing, they may be ill but that doesn’t mean they have a right to use and abuse me. I am their daughter, I shouldn’t have to take my mum to hospital if she feels ill or put my dad’s socks on every morning, I am fnejfwuniu sick of it all. I want out. I want f***ing out, now.

Mum

I was born to love mum. She wanted a child because she wanted a living “thing” to love her unconditionally and make her feel good about herself and be hers forever. She would then get angry and abusive to this thing if it didn’t give her what she wanted in love and affection or if it had it own needs. How dare it have it own needs. How dare it cry, hit it that should (as she’d say) “shut it up”. She says she never loved dad and just wanted to be looked after all her life, this has been the case financially anyway. I’m sure that she did love him but when things got tough and he had a breakdown she claims she never loved him so she had no responsibility for caring for him. After dad’s breakdown it was all about her, she was the poor wife who’s husbanhad a breakdown. Little S was left to fend for herself. Mum would go away a lot to “get away” leaving little S feeling scared that dad would kill her in the night, he would become psychotic. Little S didn’t know what was going on or where mummy had gone or if she was going to come back. Then when mum came back little S was expected to be excited about her return and love her all the same, she would cry when mum went away and be hostile when she came back. Mum wouldn’t have any of it, she wasn’t doing anything wrong and should be love unconditionally no matter what she did/does.

As I grew up, she was possessive, didn’t like me liking other family members, I was her posession. I felt guilty seeing my my aunt who I love because I knew it would upset mum and make her feel unloved. I remember once to get back at her I made a photoboard and had pictures of me and all of my family members seperately except her, I was sick of how she treated me and I wanted her to know that. If I was upset I hid and cried alone, I would be told I was silly for crying and my feelings invalidated. If she cried I had to comfort her and tell her I loved her, even If I didn’t feel it at the time. Once I just screamed “BITCH!!” and she ran into the kitchen crying and shouted “nothing loves me, I’m going to kill myself!!” It makes me so so angry just writing this, how dare she threaten suicide to a little girl. How dare she play the victim when I was the one hurting and why the hell should I have had to comfort her? But it’s what I did, I reassured her she was loved and then shut myself in my room. I konw what you may be thinking, it sounds like she has BPD right? Well that’s what I think and I said to Dr L that I feel hypocritical getting angry at her for BPD traits but she told me that I shouldn’t because at least I’m getting help and trying to change. Which is very true, I hate myself for my BPD traits and I actually feel guilt whereas my mother seems to feel no guilt and not care about anyone but herself. Now that I am ill, she is invalidating, doesn’t understand why I feel the way I do, she blames herself sometimes and I don’t correct her. As she is correct anyway. She says that she’s able to have a job, she’s able to live her life. This makes me feel worse but then I remember that she is miserable and she only has herself to blame for it, she hates her husband yet she still lives with him and his finance which is incapactiy benefit, while using her own wages for her leisure, why should contribute eh? She’s unhappy. It’s not like she could move out or anything is it, it’s not like she could start a fresh new life without him and maybe be happy. Heaven forbid.

Dad

Well dad has Bipolar, although doesn’t mean his behavious too can be excused. I know pleasantly nice people with Bipolar who love their kids more than anything. I know my dad loves me, he is just unable to show it. I have always been a daddys girl, not neccesarily because he was the most loving but he was the only one who took me out places and always wanted to do things with me. He would love to take me to the farm or to watch football with him and I never remember doing anything like that with mum or her even coming along. I’m never sure what behaviour and Bipolar and what behaviour was just him but everything I did was wrong, If I accidentally knocked something or fell I was a “stupid child” and hit until I screamed and ran away. If i was ever hyper I was told to shut up and stop showing off, I was always such a quiet child. I learnt that if I was quiet then it meant I couldn’t do or say anything wrong. I still managed to somehow though. Not to mention I had no clue until about 2 years ago when I asked dad what illness my dad said and he said “I think it’s Bipolar” and then I actually knew, before then I wasn’t even told what was wrong or what was going on. There is no communication and if you want to know something in the family, you’ll either find out by asking or by asking a million irrelevant questions until something happens to come out. He was hospitlised 3 times and to me it felt like a limetime and I would always cry in my room alone because I wanted my daddy back. I didn’t know what was going on and why everything was so chaotic, I only remember that mum never wanted to visit and always complained when we did go. I’ll never forgive her for being so uncaring. But then it seems as I’ve gotten older he’s realised that if his wife won’t look after him then his maturing daughter can take to the wife role, take him to appointments, do the shopping, put his socks on, make sure he take his meds and the like. Now this has all happened in the last 2 years and It’s the most degrading feeling to have someone tell you to put their socks on and then if you don’t they stress and scream and cry if you don’t. I HATE emotional blackmail and I hate that my mother sits back and allows this to happen, I say to her I don’t want to do it and she says I don’t have to but who else will make sure he doesn’t have another break down, she bloody sure won’t.

I really really am praying (figure of speech) that I can get out next year with J, he wants to go to Uni far from here so we can both just live and get away from this horrible pain, anxiety and stress. We both need to release form our restricting unhelpful parents. He wants to live with me near wherever needed and start a “real” life.

Sure, I’ll have to look after him but the difference is, he will look after me back.

Of course I have the panic of, what the hell will happen to my parents. My mum will surely hate me for leaving her and will do anything she can to be spiteful and childish. Dad will care that I’m going but he won’t show it, he will support my choice and be happy for me. Please let me get out, please, get me out. I can’t die here.

It’ll be sad to never have my parents involved in my life but in all honesty, they have earned no rights to be.

This is me, although what I am is not always me.

He puts up with everything because he knows that behind my anger, my ugly bitterness and my jealousy that there is something good. Otherwise I’m not sure why he’d stay, sometimes I feel it’s because he doesn’t want to be alone or because I buy him things and I am available 24/7. Or heaven forbid he might actually love me. Why be honest with someone if you don’t love or care about them?

If you love someone with BPD it’s hard to be heard over THEIR problems and THEIR struggle and I guess sometimes your problems become unimportant because you spend so much time worrying about their hurt and fears which are so overwhelming that you need to be on call when they want it or you’re in trouble. I will always try and fix his problems and even when I’m going through the biggest emotional set back, nothing will stop me being there for him. So, unfairly when I’m going through a huge emotional problem I expect him to fix it just like I was able to fix someting small of his. It’s like I can’t see the extent, I just see the problem and everything should be fixed even if it can’t be. Then I get mad and think, well if he won’t try he doesn’t love me, It’s like I’m blinded to what can be helped and what can’t be. I expect too much. I expect from him what I never had from my parents. Unconditional love, support through anything, no harsh critisisms, advice on where my life should go, I love when he tells me I can’t do something dangerous because it shows that he cares. My parents just say to me “it’s your life do whatever you want” and that says to me that they don’t care. I don’t just want a parent though, a parental figure yes but not a parent, I want a partener, a husband. And sometimes I feel he could do all the things in the world to make me happy and I would find a way to make him do more. My expectations of perfection need to be gotten rid of or I will lose him.

I admit this wholeheartedly that I become very scared and anxious when he would prefer to spend time with someone who isn’t me. Unless it is someone I know quite well myself then I become very paranoid and angry. I don’t force myself to be this way, it is fear that someone else is more appealing than me and therefore meaning he is going to leave me for more interesting people. I am not going to delete my last post as It is how I really felt at a given time and it is a true depiction of how I can become. I am not going to lie to any of you. I am here to be honest.

As always, I’m trudging on, S xx

The Other Side- By J.

BPD means to me someone who is essentially confused, not by their own fault and not to imply that they are in any way mentally deficient, but confused in the sense that to others, they appear to understand little of their own desires. Although to a BPD sufferer, it may feel perfectly natural to be feeling fine one minute, then self destructive for no apparent logical reason the next – to an outsider this can be very difficult to understand.

BPD has affected me in the sense of how I understand and react to someone I hold truly very dear to my heart. Their mood does change a lot, sometimes without warning, sometimes for long periods, sometimes it just seems to change for the sake of it – but that’s okay. Sure it may be difficult to come to terms with, yet deep down all they ultimately desire is loving care and attention. The great cartoon S posted on here before summarised this perfectly:
“You’re going to abandon me like all the others, aren’t you?”
“No. I won’t.”
“Yes, you will.”
“No, I won’t. Look I’m not going to fulfil your stupid abandonment complex!”
“You would if you loved me.”

While it is easy to understand the second person’s point of view, the first person is just worried, probably from a history of firsthand experience, of how people have strongly tended to abandon them with little reason throughout their life. Hence the expectation and questioning fear that the same is going to happen again and also then suggesting an illogical method of the other proving their love to them.

Emotionally, the extremes do tend to run high – for both parties involved. Partner A gets mad/angry/upset/depressed for any reason, Partner B responds (at the very least internally,) in kind. Unchecked, this can quickly escalate beyond all proportion (especially if Partner B has a tendency to initiate arguments already – my bad) however reasoning behind Partner A’s emotional change in the first place can be flawed or merely a misinterpretation of an otherwise harmless situation. That’s not to say that they don’t have very good reason to be feeling the way they do, just that to others this reason is excessive, sometimes to the point of absurdity. Nevertheless, it is still entirely real for Partner A to be feeling the way they do.

It is difficult to explain, moreso is how one can develop BPD. My knowledge of it has been the sad truth of a tale of neglect, ignorant, arrogant, selfish treatment and quintessentially a lack of tender loving care. Suffice to say, fail to attend to someone’s needs, constantly be completely unreliable and then fail to apologise or even recognise your misdoings and you are allowing said person in your care to develop a personality disorder such as BPD as a coping strategy for everything you have put them through.

BPD can have far reaching and long term implications. Firstly, mood stability can, for the large part, be quite literally thrown asunder as the BPD sufferer reflects all of the emotional instability and inconsistency they have experienced onto others. Secondly, you or someone you care about has BPD be prepared to make concessions and to be as understanding as possible for what they yearn for most is someone who is going to be there and love them no matter what they say/do/feel/like/dislike at any given time of day! Whether or not they’ve just told you how they can’t see themselves surviving with or without you (assuming you’re the lover of said sufferer,) and have self harmed already in that day alone, what you must do is simply be there for them. Try to make them understand that you are there to help, that you are going to keep being there and that your love is entirely 100% unconditional. Okay so maybe it might not ‘actually’ be 100% unconditional (I think you have to draw the line somewhere, for me it would be something along the lines of wanting a sex change…) but they need to feel that way regardless.

Similarly, personally I have a habit of starting arguments (although I prefer the term discussions,) over simple things with unsurpassed ease! Although I think of it as being an interesting dialogue between two persons….. My dear S, for the most part, sees it simple as how we always argue; how we don’t get along and how we aren’t meant to be together. Now, honestly I am not trying to start arguments for the sake of arguments but to her it seems that way. To her it seems that what I consider utterly trivial becomes utterly essential – thus expressing the true core of our relationship – that we argue too much and aren’t right for each other and as much as I know that it will hurt her reading this, I know that is how it makes her feel. What I, therefore, need to do is to limit arguments as much as possible, to hold my tongue (for the majority of the time anyway ;P) and to try to approach and word the discussion differently in order to minimise any potentiality of an undesirable eventuality resulting in severe upset and emotional pain (which as always, poses the risk of leading to physical pain) for S. In contrast, what she must do is attend her CBT sessions and to try and understand things in a more… colourful view which doesn’t simply state any given situation as being either entirely unhappy or entirely perfect. I wish I could do more to help her, I really do, yet all I can say is to simply hang in there, keep trying and keep attempting to realise things in a broader, less extremist sense!

Lastly, why do I put up with all this crap? Simple. I love her, I want to be with her and by god I won’t let anyone or anything get in my way. I don’t care if she can be incredibly moody all the damn time because I love her for it! I love her for all the little quirks that make her her and I do my best to see the real her that can be hidden away behind emotional barriers and defence mechanisms because it just makes me love her even more.

THAT is why I put up with her. ❤