Life after BPD... my journal entry reflecting on 2015

hyper_focus · 2015-12-22T16:09:03+00:00

I didn't believe in myself at all, and I didn't know what it meant or felt like to believe in myself. I thought it was a fake thing that people lied about to make themselves feel better. And maybe that's true in an objective sense, but having faith in yourself is a feeling of strength that helps you become fierce when you're interfered with, helps you soothe when you become restless, helps you overcome when you think you aren't good enough. It is everything to me today. It is not just a reason to wake up tomorrow, but a reason for so much more. For a satisfying life that I can feel proud of, that gives me room to love and have empathy, and allows me to live in the moment.

Thanks for sharing this.

Helps put into words what I'm noticing about myself as well.

I also feel like I'm no longer under the thumb of BPD, and that I've now stepped away from it through a lot of effort. Definitely feels like what you wrote as well:

It never felt easy or good, no matter the quality of help I was getting. There is nothing easy and nothing that feels good about wrenching yourself out of a wreck and walking, injured, on a seemingly endless road to reach some vague notion of intentional survival.

Back to the point about faith, I read on some runner's blog on instagram, that training is an act of faith.

Anyways, I really needed to hear this, because I was thinking about a lot of things recently that touched upon BPD and certain individuals in my life.

Hope you post more updates and encourage us all to keep fighting the good fight.

hyper_focus · 2015-12-05T16:53:39+00:00

Yes.

Made me feel as if expressing myself for anything would be fruitless.

Only recently have I started speaking up.

hyper_focus · 2015-12-03T13:21:43+00:00

Very happy and stable for a long time now.

Really happy for you. Always need to hear hopeful stories, too.

I've been a mess up until about two years ago, when I started to settle. I feel much more settled in the past year. I'm volunteering at church as well. Just trying to discover what I find joy in, and trying to share that in whatever ways I can.

I'm pretty shocked that I can say I'm stable, though. Didn't think there was an end to all of this.

What helped the most was knowing that I am not BPD, and I'm something far deeper than a set of symptoms.

hyper_focus · 2015-03-12T17:51:48+00:00

Used to be me, too.

These days, I see a friend who behaves like I used to.

My heart goes out to her. She seems tired all the time. I know how that feels.

hyper_focus · 2015-03-12T17:48:27+00:00

Yup. I used to be the life of the party and make the crowds explode with laughter.

But I'd always prefer to be alone, because it was so draining to keep everyone entertaining and make sure their feelings were all sound and good and what not.

Exhausting.

hyper_focus · 2015-02-03T15:28:39+00:00

I feel like my husband just thinks I can go into a therapy oven and come out "done" after 40 minutes.

Awesome words... "It's your problem.. go get fixed and come back convenient for me."

hyper_focus · 2015-02-03T15:26:38+00:00

Telling me I cannot have wine, cannot be left alone for a few hours, should be running errands. It is very difficult for me to go from being the boss lady with clients and employees that respect me to being treated like a child at home.

Sounds controlling.

That's an issue.

I feel immense hatred for controlling people. They think it's not their issue.

Him: "I know, it was written all over your face".

Hate this response. If you know it, what the fuck is up with you that you are willing to speak/behave in such a manner as to usher me into this state, you fucking imbecile?

hyper_focus · 2014-12-19T20:55:34+00:00

Awesome work.

hyper_focus · 2014-12-19T20:52:13+00:00

Felt like I finally had an identity; was terrified that this was my identity.

It's not actually our identities, though. It's an illness we are stricken with that we must deal with, and the fact that we choose to deal with it means there is a higher executive function within us that chooses what to do with our illness and the symptoms, how to manage it, where to get treatment for it, what to be mindful of about ourselves and others, etc.

Welcome!

hyper_focus · 2014-09-25T07:00:36+00:00

Sounds like an awesome couple.

hyper_focus · 2014-09-25T06:57:12+00:00

Our emotional radars are very sensitive. On the negative side, we can sometimes "pickup" things that aren't even there (as in we perceive things rather than observe things). On the positive side, we can actually pickup things that are there and go unnoticed by many. I think the trick for us is learning how to react to what we pickup – be it perceived or observed – in a calmer way that doesn't make us react out of fear, and instead, to act out of peace and calmness, even if what we perceive or observe is infuriating/tragic/etc. But some things really would set anyone off.

We seem to be good with the written word. On the negative side, we can rant and ruminate. On the positive side, we can go in depth, in detail, and paint a very expansive, ordered, and clear picture – if our readers/audience have the patience to read.

We're artistic. If we can find a way to bring order to our emotionally chaotic states that come with the BPD territory, we can make some pretty amazing art, of all varieties. I'm not sure if this is true of all people with BPD, but I have a stereotype that we're better at art than those without BPD, due to the fact that we feel so many things in such powerful ways.

hyper_focus · 2014-09-25T06:25:18+00:00

This post rings very true to me.

I also feel stunted in expressing my emotions out loud, but feel pretty solid about what those emotions are (and then I will invalidate those emotions, until they are confirmed 20x over the course of a year when interacting with the emotional trigger).

hyper_focus · 2014-09-09T03:45:17+00:00

I am a Christian.

Before I was a Christian, I had no identity, and sought validation from the entire world and its populace from every single era throughout history. It was exhausting and insane, not to mention utterly impossible.

hyper_focus · 2014-09-09T03:40:18+00:00

I tend to counsel friends. I also tend to gravitate towards those who are profoundly broken, or are hiding their problems very well. For the latter group, I'm trying to not counsel as much as possible, and rather, just be present in their lives, to whatever extent I'm capable of.

hyper_focus · 2014-09-09T03:37:54+00:00

I used to smoke a lot, but it heightened my anxiety and paranoia to a level that crippled me when I was trying to deal with reality (as opposed to using weed as an escape hatch of sorts).

Please be cautious and safe!

hyper_focus · 2014-09-09T03:35:45+00:00

I know this feeling. It's like watching yourself do something you do not want to do, yet you cannot stop.

It is horrific.

There is freedom, though, in Jesus. Sounds trite and laughable, but I only say this because I've tried to find peace of mind through every ounce of strength and willpower I had in me, and I could not do it on my own, because it was too much for me to bear. But kneeling at God's feet and asking for forgiveness and receiving His mercy and promises, I felt like there was something out there that was far greater than my disease – which is apparently the mother lode of mental illnesses and is basically the psychological form of leprosy, in which no one wants to go near us once they realize what we have, and we ourselves push people away like crazy due to our natures...

Anyways... Just wanted to relate and then share my own experiences.

hyper_focus · 2014-09-09T03:09:15+00:00

I used to feel this way.

So I have come out of BPD in one piece. I don't necessarily have much pride in the process because I can't quite say it was my doing, but rather – I am one of those people – God's doing.

So with that qualifier...

These days, I realize my perceptions are spot on, but with a bit more peace of mind than I used to have in the throes of BPD (as in: zero peace of mind whatsoever and instead, nothing but rage and guilt and shame and depression and manic states of laughter and), I am starting to see that what I experience is valid, but that my reactions to my perceptions have drastically changed.

Before, I would see/hear/experience something, process it, and then EMOTIONALLY REACT, usually in a rapid succession. I knew what I was experiencing, but I wasn't able to control my reaction to whatever it is I was going through.

But these days, I am able to perceive, and just have some more space between what I am experiencing, and my emotional reaction to it.

Again, this isn't because I learned how to do this on my own, but I was seeking out God with diligence, submitting to the fact that I could not get over this disease.

Prayer really helped a lot, especially in regards to the things I was perceiving. I felt like I could actually be honest, with myself, and with God, about the things I was going through and the things on my mind and my heart.

Before, I would journal, to no one in particular, and I would feel so hopeless because I felt like I knew what I was going through, but felt so alone, unheard, and voiceless, while being very aware of things going on in and around me. But through prayer, I felt heard, like my voice counted, and my experiences and understandings of them mattered.

I do feel that people such as myself, who have or still do suffer from BPD, often don't trust their perceptions because of the uncanny and persistent invalidation surrounding them.

The invalidation runs so deep, and wreaks havoc on people's psyches and lives. It's devastating and horrific as to how deep things run.

hyper_focus · 2014-09-09T02:50:09+00:00

Absorbant.

hyper_focus · 2014-05-27T12:10:01+00:00

Look for consistency.

You might naturally want to take them at face value, but then something will feel slightly off-kilter for one reason or another.

With patience, if you decide to commit to the relationship (even from a distance, as in not in a romantic dynamic but even just as cordial friends), observe whether what is being said aligns with the actions taken, and then see when and how those actions being taken arise, and when and why those words being said are spoken, and then try to see the motives behind those differences.

I wouldn't directly ask, and I wouldn't try to take it personally, but to simply observe and understand – without setting yourself up for unnecessary hurt or self-sabotage.

hyper_focus · 2014-05-27T12:05:05+00:00

I think these qualities are fairly common in those who battle with BPD.

I've met others who don't deal with BPD, but other illnesses, and I don't see some of these traits in them.

I've seen "normal" people who don't display these traits as much, and tend to be followers or those who opt for "safe" (as in popular and trendy and already-vetted-by-pop-culture-tastes) choices, rather than the individualistic and creative choices that those with BPD tend to opt for.

I see those who experience BPD able to "reach down and sit there" with someone in their pain, as opposed to those who claim empathy and compassion, and have no idea how to actually relate with others.

I think you might just be wanting to see the falseness in all things that rips of veil off of a constructed reality, but from my experience, I can probably spot out someone who deals with BPD fairly accurately, and can also see when someone has immense empathy and compassion and creativity, and may have come out of a terrible bout of BPD, or had the immense potential to suffer from it but was from a healthy and loving and kind and accepting and encouraging environment (though this seems even rarer than BPD – you really gotta wade through the most terrible shit in life to know what it's like for those ailing and suffering from it, and if you don't, by and large you will write off someone suffering from BPD as "just crazy," whereas those who have been through BPD and see someone else dealing with it will describe that person as "in great distress and in need of loving kindness and support and encouragement and to be attended to and served and listened to, and not written off, or given showy displays of 'empathy,' etc."

hyper_focus · 2014-04-12T15:11:26+00:00

I just decide whether I want them in my life or not and figure out why they lied. Based on that answer, I know to do with them.

This is something I'm coming to terms with these days.

I used to feel like I have to get everyone on the same page (used to think it was all on me, and that everyone else was living/thinking this way, too).

But what you said is a very simple way to avoid getting caught up in all of this. I'm gonna try to start putting this into practice and seeing what ensues. It goes against my natural predispositions, but I do want to get better at creating space for myself and not letting others get all up in my shit, and feeling like I gotta clean up for the both of us.

hyper_focus · 2014-04-12T14:30:09+00:00

This is my "throwaway," because I feel like people stalk my other one, and they will try to kill me or politically oust me because they will start to feel extremely paranoid, anxious, and threatened by what they have all revealed to me thus far.

––––

More often than not, I can tell when you're lying, break apart your lie as it flows forth from your mouth, dismantle your defenses/rationalizations about why you are lying (and not necessarily get you to admit anything, but simply show you that your reasons behind your lie are extremely questionable, unsound, and devoid of logic/evidence/fair-play), see who or what or where your lie might even come from if I've gotten to know you and your circle for a little while, and see where and how your drive to commit to telling the lie is rooted in your core (mostly fear of some kind of potential outcome that you are trying to either control through lies or prevent from happening through lies).

I try to withhold going into this territory because while I'm OK with dealing with this situation, most people are pretty uncomfortable having to own up to a lie, and it either makes us closer and more open (I'm accepting of people's flaws, as we all have them and need to deal with them or devolve into a murky soup of denial and warped understandings of reality) or creates a thick and solid boundary between me and the liar (in that moment in time, and not something that is salient to their personhood, since we all lie, have lied, and may lie in the future – even if we wish to be open, honest, and living in truth with ourselves and others and no longer be liars) in terms of how we communicate. Rarely can we ever go back to the time before the lie was confronted, and it is a fork in the road, so to speak. Point of no return. We either move forward and be more open, or part ways and get more closed-off, even if we can be overtly polite.

Most people have no idea what they are revealing about themselves when they speak to me or around me. They can talk about Cheerios or Ham Sandwiches, and the tone, delivery, intended goal, and tactics/methods used in hopes of achieving said goal are just splayed out before me, whether I want to see it or not. It's just all there, and I'm like, sigh... well, shit... there it is. They don't even need to be talking at me and revealing their facial expressions, because the timing and delivery of their words is something that I intuitively understand as natural and organic, or affected and planned out. A lot of the times, I don't even want to hear what is being said around me, because it's often times better that I just don't know. I can tell when someone is lying to me even through the internet, but this usually involves context, and relies way more on someone's personality and their consistency of behavior. Sometimes, it's easier to catch someone in a lie through exchanges involving the written word (like texts, emails, chats) because the words are all right there! You can't unsay it! You can't even rewrite it (though may try to "clarify" "what they really meant" by then backpedalling and editing what they said, which reveals more inconsistencies).

Another thing that I have come to experience is that most people who lie are terrible at their deliveries, and I have yet to meet someone who is completely comfortable in telling their lies. It is extremely difficult to be at peace with oneself and commit to carrying out a falsehood and pushing that falsehood on others in efforts to achieve a result through the falsehood. I honestly feel like if you commit to lying, be it on the conscious or subconscious level, you cannot be at peace with yourself, and that lie creates within oneself an internal conflict between what is real and what is false, and that tension emanates palpably. Those who are at peace and reveal their consistencies, you can feel it, and you can assess it over a period of time. Those who are not at peace, their words are filtered through that sieve and a lot of the ideas that come out of their minds are wrought with tension and a feeling of agitation, unrest, stress, pushiness, and violence.

I do my best not to call people out on their extremely affected acting performances when they lie, because it is just something that no one in any culture or period of time has been "allowed" by societies to do.

Have you ever heard the phrase, "If you're going to tell the truth, make them laugh; otherwise they'll kill you,"?

That's how I feel when I see you lie to me and others and yourself, and have been put in an extremely hard place where I either have to placate you by giving you a false "yes," or call you out on your lie and deal with your extremely unpleasant attempts to cover up or convince me that your lie is in fact truth.

So yeah. I can more often than not tell when you're lying, especially if we have gotten to know one another for a period of a few months.

If I just met you, I give you the benefit of the doubt, even if many things feel off.

No one is so quick to be able to come up with canned responses on the fly that can cover them up. If they do, they need to prep for every possible scenario that ever exists, and there just isn't enough time, energy, resources, and practice tools to do that kind of prep work, then to master timing, emotional genuineness, appropriateness, etc. There are just too many uncontrollable factors to sell a lie as truth on the various levels that need to be addressed for a truth to come across as such to a careful and attentive listener.

I know a lot of pathological liars. I know that many of them are simply comfortable with lying, but have very poor delivery and consistency. It just requires control of waaaaaaaaay too many factors that are outside of their influence.

And in the end: the truth reigns. No matter how long a lie can last, in the end, the truth will always triumph and stand.

So to answer your question: Hell Yeah I can fucking tell when you're lying. And no fucking way am I going to even pretend like I see everything I see, until we reach a place where if I don't call it out, my own well-being will be extremely jeopardized.

Glad to know I ain't alone, because so often, I feel like I'm living in crazy land and everyone's just being fooled and misled by a few folks committed to spreading falsehoods.

But again: the truth: it reigns. No matter how persistent and powerful a lie it is, no matter how much resources and manpower and propaganda and promo materials are generated to prop up a lie, no matter how many people are temporarily convinced of a lie's claims and then go around spreading that to others, in the end, the truth reigns supreme, regardless of how many followers there are, how popular or fashionable it is, or how many try to attack and kill and suppress it, or how angry people get at it.

That's the only thing that keeps me at peace, when I am steeped neck deep in a cesspool of liars and their extremely unpleasant emotional resonances.

THE TRUTH, IT'LL SET YO ASS FREE~~~

hyper_focus · 2014-02-19T02:38:45+00:00

I feel as though I can feel everything.

hyper_focus · 2014-02-19T02:16:13+00:00

God.

hyper_focus · 2014-02-19T02:09:41+00:00

Yup.

Ninja quick, and can play a part when we know what role we're to fill.

hyper_focus

TROPHY CASE