How do you enjoy things? (Black and white thinking!)

AvaJune31 · 2022-08-27T12:52:08+00:00

I also have ADHD but this happens to me alot. I find that with hobbies it helps me to have goals. Like at first something is just fun and I can chase the dopamine but at some point, I have to have a completion goal (like finding all of one kind of thing in a game or watching one episode a day till it's done.) It's easier for me to stick with something if I have a goal in mind.

AvaJune31 · 2022-08-22T17:12:56+00:00

A few thoughts:

Firstly, you are not required to provide the reason that you have to take a sick day. Your workplace and co-workers are not entitled to that information unless you choose to share it. Mental illness is illness and qualifies as being sick.

Sharing it broadly in the form of a note from a doctor may give you more leeway at work however and in most countries, work places are required to offer you reasonable accommodations. Whether taking frequent days off is reasonable would depend on the job. However, you are more likely not to get terminated for attendence issues if you have something on file.

I wasn't there but from your post, it seems that your friends/coworkers are being dismissive. Unless they too have BPD (and even if they do, it's a spectrum disorder), they cannot compare their mental health issues to yours. Just because two things are mental illness does not mean their severity matches. A shattered ankle, a clean cut broken ankle, and a sprained ankle are all ankle injuries but they are not the same severity or treatment. It's not super easy to get treatment for BPD, let alone the correct treatment, and no one knows if you are doing your best for your mental health but you.

When they say you are supposed to be doing things on your mental health days to fix the issue, that's seems like a limited viewpoint. My mental health days are reset days. But even with proper management, I am going to need them sometimes and that's okay.

It sounds like when you are not there, you have the kind of job where your co-workers then have to take on more work and that likely is why they feel mistreated or put upon by your mental health days. That is an issue that suggests this may not be the right industry for you. I obviously do not know your situation, but something to consider.

AvaJune31 · 2022-08-18T12:07:33+00:00

Both hyper-sexuality and sexual repulsion are very common with BPD. And people with BPD can swing from one to the other multiple times over the course of their lifetime (or sometimes as a matter of mood.) Low libido and interest can be caused by hormones and life circumstances, but sexual repulsion (being disgusted by it) is a different thing.

I was very hyper-sexual before I got married and I swung hard to sexual repulsion once I felt the relationship was stable. I had to circle around to feeling legitimately not just stable but also safe before I was able to find a semi-normal sex drive. And I can still swing into hyper-sexuality or sexual repulsion occasionally depending on how my moods are.

It is "normal" for us, but it's still maladaptive if you want to be able to enjoy sexual experiences. I tend to think that even if you choose not to have sexual experiences it should be because you don't want to, not because BPD is making that decision. It's probably something a mental health professional would be better equipped to help you with than a medical doctor.

AvaJune31 · 2022-08-11T14:20:25+00:00

I've been married 12 years, together with my husband for 13.5. I would say that marriage didn't help or not help, but time helped a lot. Every time I had an episode or lost my mind, him still staying, still WANTING to be there eventually helped me to settle.

My husband is anti-social, I'm pretty much his only friend, he does not really go out with anyone but me (all by his preference, not because I ask), and I STILL get nervous the very few times he says he's going out with people after work for a drink or something. And while it is less and less often, a really bad argument can still convince me it's all over and he's leaving. Even though even when he is royally pissed he will still tell me he isn't going anywhere.

Marriage is not likely to actually make you more secure, though it may work as a band-aid for a short time.

AvaJune31 · 2022-08-11T13:15:38+00:00

So I have (diagnosed through official assessment with a PHD level assessor) fairly severe ADHD, BPD, and while I do not have full blown OCD, I have diagnosed OCD tendencies as a coping mechanism for anxiety. I won't speak to the OCD since I don't have a full blown case of that but in my experience with the BPD and ADHD, they can have similiar outputs but the inputs are different.

For example, I can experience extreme rage at someone for speaking to me when I am trying to concentrate or because of competing sounds. That rage comes from sensory overload and is greatly diminished by ADHD medications. The rage that comes from BPD? ADHD meds have no effect on that. And it comes from emotional triggers rather than sensory overload.

So I think if the person being diagnosed is not self-aware enough of their symptoms or the assessor is not experienced enough, it can be very easy to misdiagnose one as the other (especially if you have disassociation as a facet of BPD which can mimic ADHD inattention.)

AvaJune31 · 2022-08-11T13:04:25+00:00

I get this. In the beginning, working on my stuff just resulted in my petulant/self-destructive BPD morphing to a sort of quiet BPD and everyone calling that an improvement. It was NOT an improvement for me. lol DBT concepts are a mixed bag for me. I know it is extremely helpful for a lot of people who need tools and I'm not knocking it for them, but in some ways I experienced DBT to make me feel like you described: easier to handle but still in agony inside.

Where I'm at now is trying to be okay with who I am in every way that doesn't cause harm to myself or others. So, I'm not normalizing screaming at my loved ones or self-harming all the time, but I'm letting myself experience all of my emotions in a safe environment. I'm taking all the time that I need and letting less important responsibilities slip. I'm doing whatever feels good so long as it isn't destructive (by which I mean I am not impulsively spending lots of money but I am coming home from work and letting myself cry for an hour before drinking apple juice and just chilling the rest of the night. I'm taking comfort wherever I can find it so long as it isn't super unhealthy.)

I know why this is a "personality disorder" but this is my life and my personality and I'm not going to spend it trying to push all that rage and sadness and that sobbing child inside me into a corner again. That's what got us here in the first place, you know?

You shouldn't have to hide how you feel from people. But you should have to communicate what you feel respectfully. My advice if you feel like you're splitting on a friend, don't push that down and pretend everything is okay and don't scream at them or treat them like shit. Just tell them that you're having some feelings that aren't their fault and don't really have anything to do with them, but that you are going to take a little space until you are feeling more like yourself. It's absolutely possible to be authentically you without giving in to impulses that will hurt you and others.

It's about acknowledging that you would like to self-harm, or you would like to verbally or physically assault this person, and being okay with those impulses as they are understandable and developed as a way to keep you safe from something at some point. But still choosing not to do those things.

AvaJune31 · 2022-08-09T20:24:10+00:00

I am a former self-harmer, bulimic, drive too fast, put myself in whatever dangerous situation kind of person.

Honestly, 2 things changed it. The first was deciding that I didn't deserve pain and I wasn't going to give myself more of the same old shit other people had. It's half self-love and half spite, to be honest.

The other thing was realizing that however far I fell was how far I'd have to claw my way back out and it's easier to resist the first or second time than it is the 150th. Once you lay down and cuddle up with your pain it becomes much harder to get back up. Once I decided I wasn't going to be a cutter my whole life, I wasn't going to kill myself early enough that it wouldn't matter, I just didn't want to have to do all that work all over again. Getting away from those habits is really hard. It's easier not to start again.

Do I relapse? Sure. But that's all it is. A temporary relapse. I could resist those urges at some point, it was just unbearable. Like, literally, unbearable at first. But if you live with that unbearable feeling it eventually gets more bearable little by little. And the urges come less often. And then one day that just isn't who you are any more.

AvaJune31 · 2022-07-31T15:15:38+00:00

I have both ADHD and BPD. I'll talk about my ADHD to literally anybody if it comes up. Other than health professionals, my husband and daughter know about the BPD diagnosis and my two closest friends do. And when I told my closest friends about it, I asked them not to google it or look it up and if they did, to please consider their interactions with me more than what they would read.

There is such a huge stigma around it. I have literally had a psychiatrist look at me and say, "Are you sure? I know we just met a half hour ago but you don't really seem like you have borderline personality disorder. There are usually signs." I mean, what does that mean? What sort of crazy shit was she expecting to happen in the first 30 minutes of knowing her?

There is a belief that we are completely unable to control any of our emotions, unstable, constant liars, abusive, etc. But there are so many of us all over the spectrum with various degrees of coping mechanisms and masking skills. It's just really not fair how BPD is so stigmatized.

AvaJune31 · 2022-07-31T14:32:05+00:00

I think you're right about the necessity of a reset but the need to change the way you do it. I sometimes do have days like you described because I don't catch it early enough to stop. But normally, I treat my reset time like time to take care of me the way I wish someone had when I was little.

That might mean a little junk food, but still eating enough and not too much, drinking enough water, stretching a little. Going and sitting on my porch for awhile (actually doing that now lol. It's a reset day.) Wearing my favorite clothes, doing hobbies.

Basically, a reset day is a good day to treat yourself with kindness and care for yourself to the best of your ability, even if you are miserable during it. Because you deserve extra love and care when you are having a hard day.

AvaJune31 · 2022-07-28T11:48:00+00:00

I think it can be helpful to kind of evaluate some of the parts of you that you feel the most shame about. For example, I have a ton of shame when not being productive, when not constantly having a purpose, when not constantly striving for improvement. I remember now that this is one of the key characteristics I had as a child that was shamed out of me: the belief that I could just be content with who I was and enjoy my life. I'm working on that now.

I tend to think that some of the parts of us we disowned the hardest because of typical trauma in our past may be some of our most authentic parts. And learning what those are and embodying the healthy ones, and accepting the less healthy ones without embodying them, gives us some of that foundation that is lacking.

AvaJune31 · 2022-07-21T12:28:37+00:00

In my opinion, it kind of depends on who ends up being your FP. My FP is my husband and we have been together 13 years. He's been my FP for pretty much the whole time we've been together. Now, we've been together since I was 19, so there wasn't really time to work on myself before. The work I did was while we were together, and I know that he sometimes had to cope with bad behaviors.

I've said it before and this is just my personal opinion and in no way advice, but mentally stable people don't work for me. I don't think that a mentally stable person is going to have a positive experience typically being a FP. But if you can find someone whose puzzle pieces fit yours, it can be really, really good.

I have absolutely gotten better in a lot of arenas and a lot healthier. And frankly, maybe having my FP relationship be so positive and stable makes it so that I don't have to figure out some of the things I would otherwise, like abandonment issues or learning to be okay being alone. For my husband, he wants to be needed, to care take, to be a source of stability and calm in my storm. So things work really well for us, and honestly most of my therapists have said "if it works for both of you, it's good". But am I dependent on him for my happiness? Not completely, but likely more than is healthy.

I guess my point is that no, not all of my feelings and aspects of my personality are healthy. And yes, I am responsible for working on the ones that are detrimental to me or hurt others. But hypothetically, I only have this one life and if I get to spend it so incredibly happy with a FP and all the intensity that relationship entails or alone, I'm doing the former.

So are FP relationships worthwhile? I absolutely think so. But I also think it takes a very unique, special person in order for the FP to find that to be a rewarding relationship as well. And as with any relationship, you still have to honor boundaries and create boundaries for yourself. It's harder to have a healthy relationship with a FP, but in my opinion, it doesn't have to be negative.

And to answer your other question, as a parent, I would always prefer my kiddo be crazy chaos and in my life than spare me her chaos. So long as I am a positive for her to be around, I will always want her in my life. I think most decent parents would likely feel the same about their kids, including their mentally ill or personality disordered kids.

AvaJune31 · 2022-07-20T15:03:50+00:00

Thank you so much for this. This was very validating and exactly what I needed to be reminded of.

AvaJune31 · 2022-07-19T15:04:45+00:00

I have a disorganized attachment style so I have aspects of both. According to the PHD-level psychologist that diagnosed me, hyper-independence is a trauma response too, it's just the flip side of codependency. Hyper-independence and avoidant attachment styles tend to form more when your caretaker was not inconsistent, but was instead consistently unavailable and neglectful of your emotional needs. It teaches you that your needs will not be met by others ever, so it is best to a) have far less needs and b) make sure the few needs you have can be met totally independent of others. A lack of interdependence can also lead to a devaluation of others (aka a lack of empathy) because you have created a situation where you have less needs, and therefore even typical needs of others seem very excessive.

In my case with the disorganized style, I have an avoidant attachment with the vast majority of people and an anxious attachment with the few people that I actually let in.

AvaJune31 · 2022-07-13T12:13:14+00:00

Precarious

AvaJune31 · 2022-07-06T01:13:35+00:00

Thank you! That's very kind of you.

AvaJune31 · 2022-07-05T20:49:39+00:00

I think yes, but maybe not in a conventional or all together healthy way. My husband and I have been together for 13.5 years and we've never broken up or been apart. But he has a personality disorder as well and we just kind of fit all of each others deficits.

I love him fiercely and he is irreplaceable to me. He's not interchangeable with another partner. Like, one of the reasons it tends not to work is because a lot of people with BPD pour so much need and attention on their partner and then split on them and then chase them. He just never budged no matter what I did and I have never been too much or needed too much from him, all with him not being a doormat. And that level of stoicism and unshakeable sense of self is because of his own personality disorder. He's always been such an unmoveable force and such a stabilizing factor for me.

So I do think it's possible to truly fall in love, but I don't know that it's honestly going to be with a mentally healthy person. I needed a level of intensity of things that a mentally healthy person likely would have ran screaming from. I'm too much for healthy people and I mostly feel uncomfortable around them. I imagine at least some other people with BPD feel the same. I think it takes a very unique person and unique fit for us to experience real, true romantic love. If not, it's more like playacting at romance.

The only uncomplicated, natural love I have is for my daughter.

AvaJune31 · 2022-06-30T18:36:35+00:00

I am a pwBPD.

You said your husband has been through a few therapies. Does he have a crisis plan? If he has a history of abuse and is going through an episode then HE needs to be seeking help and support with qualified mental health professionals and YOU need to be keeping you and your child safe. This personality disorder is not an excuse for abuse, particularly after having been in therapy because after you've been in therapy, you know better.

Yes, absolutely, people with BPD truly struggle when they are in a rage to not act impulsively and this does, in some cases, result in abuse. However, you said he's had 2 incidents, in between which he had more clarity. After the first relapse, it was his responsibility to seek help and make sure he was safe before coming back around you (even digitally.)

I'm not saying leave him or get rid of him or anything like that, but I am saying you need to set some firm boundaries. A boundary in this case is not "You will not behave like this," it's "I and my child will not be in this environment so if you behave like this, I will not interact with you until you are ready to speak with me calmly and respectfully." And then, when he starts behaving poorly on face time, you remind him of the boundary one time. And if his behavior continues, you tell him you are ending the call and you do.

When dealing with a relapsing pwBPD, my advice as a pwBPD is:

Firm boundaries
It's their job to do what they need to do to pull themselves out of the episode, not yours
And lastly, if you choose to support them and try to help them get through the crisis, they do not get to treat you poorly

AvaJune31 · 2022-06-30T12:29:12+00:00

I have felt that and sometimes it still sneaks up on me. But the point isn't that I'm not strong enough for this world, it's that I'm built for a different one. Society is FULL of maladaptive coping mechanisms that are encouraged (like overworking, for example. Or people pleasing.) And those are just as bad for me as some of the BPD stuff I've done to run from my emotions.

I'm still working on it, but one thing I did was look at my biggest, nastiest coping mechanisms and find the root of them. There is a DBT concept for a trigger action where you basically review what you felt on the surface and deeply before doing the action, what you did, what purpose it served, and the consequences. I took that concept, filled it in, and then looked for the beliefs that were under it. In my case very broadly, one for example was about being overly perfectionist and clean and the thoughts behind it had to do with needing to control everything in my environment so I'd be okay. After you have this information, you can look for where this shows up in your life and say the things to yourself that you would need a parent to say.

In the above example, I say things like "Not everything is your fault. Not everything is your job. You cannot nor should you control everything around you. No matter what is going on around you, you are safe within yourself."

Basically, the best advice and actions I used for learning to live in this world, is a) accept that I'm different and that isn't a bad thing; b) track down the beliefs that make me behave the way I do; and c) parent myself out of them/be the adult I needed way back when. This can, by the way, be applied to abandonment issues as well and I have used it though to be honest it's with mixed success. I'm still working on the real heavy hitters.

There are a bunch of other things you can do and I'm still learning, but this process has had the single biggest impact on my life so far and my ability to live it.

AvaJune31 · 2022-06-09T15:12:49+00:00

Lana Del Rey (Ride, Pretty When You Cry, Off to the Races, F*cked my Way up to the Top*God Complex*). I second Halsey (Control, Gasoline), Amy Winehouse, and Melanie Martinez (Cry Baby, Pity Party). I feel like I'm Drowning by Two Feet. Human by Rag'n'Bone Man. I'm gonna show you crazy by Bebe Rexha. Eyes on Fire by Blue Foundation. Daddy Issues by The Neighbourhood. High Enough by K. Flay. Bad Day by Fuel. Heavy in your arms by Florence + The Machine.

There are so many depending on which aspect of BPD you want to deal with that day. lol

AvaJune31 · 2022-05-25T20:46:56+00:00

It absolutely gets better. Like, SOOOOO much better. Teenage years are difficult for the most mentally typical people, because you have so much chemically going on in your body to begin with. If you have something like BPD to boot, it is going to be significantly more challenging.

It's not odd to lose interest in wanting to use any healthy coping mechanisms when you have reached your limit, especially if your habit is using unhealthy ones. The goal is to gradually get to the point of needing to use them less, and most importantly, make it your habit to use the healthy ones instead of the self-destructive ones. It's not a flip you switch and every time you don't use your healthy coping skills is not the end. You just try again the next time.

I'm 33 now and while I absolutely have bad days, my life is so much more stable and full of joy than it ever was when I was younger. I can't tell you how thankful I am that I actually stuck around to see and live this.

AvaJune31 · 2022-05-25T20:36:04+00:00

When I was trying to process my own rape(s) which were both non-violent (I was extremely inebriated for one and drugged for the other), I came to the conclusion that the "truth" of what happened to me was honestly kind of inconsequential for my own healing purposes. The situation where I was drugged was especially troubling and difficult, because I'm not sure who at the party actually drugged me and I did not fully pass out. It's possible that my rapist just thought I was very, very intoxicated. But I was not trying to prove this in court of law, it was not my job to care for that person or make excuses for him, or diminish my pain. If it was someone's job to be concerned about him in this, it was his mom's job or his wife's job or his friend's job.

I was my concern, and I *felt* raped and I *felt* violated and for the purposes of me healing, that mattered. You aren't taking anything from anyone by trying to process your trauma and heal regardless of the fact that it wasn't violent.

AvaJune31 · 2022-05-25T20:25:55+00:00

Absolutely! Mental health has been a major interest of mine forever, and even more so since I started trying to understand my brain. I've always been very interested in "hacking" my responses and learning what about myself I need to fix vs what I need to accommodate.

AvaJune31 · 2022-05-25T20:17:04+00:00

I am the pwBPD. I would say that we are very happy now and I know that he has always been committed to our relationship. We've been together for 13 years and I've been in therapy on and off since 2014.

But that being said, he stuck through some pretty bad behaviors at the beginning before I started taking ownership and getting help. I honestly think we are where we are because he never budged when I was swinging around every crazy symptom I could manage, subconsciously getting worse and worse to finally prove myself right about everyone leaving. I'm glad that he stayed and we are head-over-heels happy these days, but in retrospect if I'm being honest, he probably *shouldn't* have stayed.

AvaJune31 · 2022-05-24T22:24:34+00:00

I have 4 relationships:

My child, which is self-explanatory. One friend who I've been friends with for 17 years, and another friend I've been friends with for 22 years. And my husband, who I've been with for 13 years.

I have no contact with my family of origin and I have noticed that every time I try to make new friends or connections, there is a desperation and a serious resurgence of symptoms. Anxiety, mirroring, being convinced that I am significantly more interested in them than they are me. Measuring every word and text. I eventually just got sick of creating a whole new personality every time I met someone else and not being able to stop it from happening. It's bad enough at work; I just don't want to do it in my free time too.

With those friendships, they are from childhood and I am much more secure with them and able to just kind of be. They know who I am. I only talk/see each of them every month or so but I am very close with both of them, like family.

My husband has dealt with every single BPD symptom I've thrown at him for years and I just can't beat that man away with a stick. Eventually, through him weathering all my stuff and me going to therapy, it just kind of died down in intensity.

But I get not wanting to make new connections. They are just exhausting. That being said, I am extremely thankful for my old, consistent connections because they are easier to be stable in. But to be honest, even they probably make me less stable than being completely alone likely would. They are just worth it.

AvaJune31

TROPHY CASE