The Morning After the Day Before

Yesterday I did something I don't often do, I started to write this blog post while I was still 'coming down' from an emotional storm. Partly because I wanted to be able to articulate what was going on in my head and emotions, and partly because it is a helpful way for me to make sense of the emotions that were crashing in on me for nearly four hours.

The trigger? I tried to get home on the bus using the Day Rider ticket I had bought in the morning, on my way to a Nativity Rehearsal (I know, that's a whole different story!). Normally, it's a matter of showing the ticket and walking straight on, but this time the driver asked for a closer look before pointing out that the ticket only allowed me to get to a stop at least two miles back from the one where I was trying to get on. It was also another three miles from the correct stop to my home. I had paid the right money, but the ticket was for less than I'd paid, apart from not remotely resembling where I got on the bus and where I needed to go - so my outward journey had been technically without a valid ticket too. Not my fault, not the fault of the current driver either. The only option? Walk the five miles home... so I got off the bus, shame faced.

Suddenly, the relatively benign set of emotions with which I had started my day, neither good nor bad, disappeared in a flood of...what feelings were they exactly? It felt like anger, but towards whom? I know I was frustrated - it is a nuisance - not sure I am the only person who has been missold a bus or train ticket and had to walk home as a result. Behind these (primary emotions) I also detected shame and an overwhelming sense of injustice. Extreme, right? Not if you know me or anything about BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder).

Some days, simple things are difficult. Going to any new place is a trial. I need to know exact routes - my favourite internet tool has to be Google Maps Street View, because this means I can actually do the journey in a safe, virtual world, before I venture out. I have learned to be this prepared for new journeys and modes of transport because the uncertainties of journeys often trigger negative emotions in me. Since having to get rid of my car, I have realised that public transport is a minefield of stressful situations for me. Even on my routine journeys, I rehearse each part of the journey in my mind, and constantly use self soothe music and/or mindful breathing while travelling. I find it difficult that I have absolutely no control over how well the journey goes, how timely it is, or even who or how many I travel with. My bus out from home yesterday actually arrived nearly twenty minutes late. So I guess, if I were to do a Chain Analysis on the triggering events, the meltdown began in that moment of anxiety as I raced to make my meeting up time. The disappointment of finding that a driver had taken all my money and not given me the correct ticket then resulted in an enormous break in my plan to manage myself and my journey.

You see, the sense of frustration would be shared among most people in the same situation. So far, so average. Frustration though wasn't my overwhelming emotion. As I walked away from the bus stop, all idea of 'being in the moment' and 'mindful' of my surroundings (which were stunning in the winter sunshine - something I normally really enjoy) were lost. Instead, I was overwhelmed with a sense of total failure, of thoughts of 'why me?', of a sense of grave injustice, of helplessness and weariness. I am certain that I was feeling despair in there - why does MY life have to be so hard?

In the middle of my 'feeling fog', I managed to think of a friend who sometimes works from home. I phoned. At first, she couldn't make sense of me because she couldn't hear me clearly, nor was I saying what it was that I needed her to do to help me. 'Breathe' she said. I did and for the first time since the incident on the bus, the whirling thoughts and emotions paused.

Together we managed to come up with a plan. My immediate practical problem was solved with the offer of a lift. The emotional fallout, however, has taken so much longer to dissipate.

It took over three hours and lunch with my friend to bring an end to the whirling emotions, initially. I finally arrived home feeling exhausted and wrung out but still battling shame and a sense of injustice.

Shame is probably the most familiar of all my secondary emotions, but what part did it play in a simple mix up over a bus ticket?

Since completing my DBT therapy, I have learned to recognise when I am vulnerable and need to be gentle with myself. However, yesterday the rush of negative emotions took me by surprise. There are a number of reasons why such a minor incident could evoke such a reaction in me. I ended up being agitated and disturbed. What baffles is me is how relatively little the primary emotion (frustration) factored in my resulting distress.

It is now over 36 hours since the incident. I am beginning to make some sense of what was happening with my emotions:

1) Over the past couple of weeks my emotional 'skin' has been thinner. I have been extra sensitive to mood changes. I have limited myself in terms of TV programmes I can 'cope' with. I have also been misreading people's words and actions, interpreting them negatively. During these times I need to be kind to myself. Not to push my limits, particularly on things where my emotions are involved. Small as it was the bus incident felt an enormous disruption to my attempts to protect myself from a flood of unmanageable feelings.

2) Although I forget it at times I am so much better at managing my life and BPD than even a year ago. What this means, though, is that I lull myself into a false sense of security and fail to maintain a weather eye on my moods. There were warning signs last week, that I was more emotionally sensitive and despite using my emotion regulation skills the underlying difficult emotions were not being fully resolved. I didn't totally ignore all of the warning signs, but I did overestimate my current levels of resilience. This has meant that I have tried to do a lot more than my normal routine. Fine if I still had my car, I am realising that the additional time and effort needed to travel by bus actually needs to be factored in by me to my emotional management. As does the fact that most people find day to day life tiring at this time of year.

3) Subliminally I have been absorbing the overwhelming political message about 'people on benefits'. My aim is to be well enough to be able to provide for myself. To be able to buy presents for loved ones without putting myself under financial pressure. To 'feel' like a productive member of society. Problem is, by even allowing that pressure to push me beyond my emotional and mental capacity to cope at the moment is to buy into the lie that I do not contribute. I wish that we as a nation would value people for being human beings, rather than for the size of their income, how hard they work, what they do, what they are, what their status is. Any one of us could suffer from mental illness in the same way that any one of us can succumb to physical illness. I can suffer from BPD and a Flu bug at one and the same time, as the same person. Perhaps, recent noises from some Health thinkers about integrated physical and mental health services is finally acknowledging that reality! As I looked at the bus driver yesterday my shame came from the fact that I couldn't even rustle up the £1.20 to make up the shortfall on the ticket. That and the fact that a full bus looked askance at my lack of funds. I felt as if I had 'BENEFIT SCUM' written in red letters across my forehead.

4) Shame is an all pervasive emotion for me. It is most damaging when it gets out of control and connects with the shame I felt as a child survivor of abuse. The bus situation MUST have been my fault. Like the song in the Sound of Music, my negative voice tells me 'somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something BAD!' The shame I felt in not being able to pay an extra £1.20 (although I had actually already paid for the ticket I wanted!) opened the floodgates to a wave of shame from all the moments when I felt I was to blame for all the pain being inflicted on me.

Secondary emotions are the most problematic of the feelings to manage. This is because, they are often unconnected with the triggering incident. They are so powerful because they are ingrained on our minds, and our emotional responses. A positive emotion such as Joy is the secondary emotion to Happy. It goes deeper, it lasts longer, it has a more profound effect. A joke can make me happy. The love of a child gives me joy. That, I think is how I make sense of the difference between primary and secondary emotions. Both can be triggered by the same event and link into one another. Secondary emotions are rooted in past events and memories, with all their associations. Primary emotions are an immediate response to the present trigger, but they are reignited and fuelled by the power of the secondary emotions.

So, how do I manage shame? The short answer is I only manage it when I recognise it! So I:

a) RECOGNISE and NAME the underlying, more powerful emotion. This means taking time to be mindful and allowing myself to become aware of the feelings flitting across my mind, along with the negative thoughts which keep the triggers to the secondary emotions stoked.

b) If the emotion is SHAME or GUILT. I ASK if they belong to me ie have I done something that I need to remedy in a relationship, work situation, public interaction etc. If so, ASK 'is there anything I can do to remedy the action which caused the guilt/shame? Guilt can be useful if it reminds us to think of the needs of others. If either SHAME or GUILT rightly belongs in the past with someone who has done me harm and who has shifted their guilt onto me, then I try OPPOSITE EMOTION or give myself permission to continue doing the thing that has brought shame - this is a kind of reverse exposure. Why should I feel shame about having a long bath in the middle of the day? Why should I feel guilty if friends do something nice for me?

Yesterday my friend encouraged me to consider with RATIONAL MIND, how much shame belongs to me for being on benefits. We then listed the positive things I am doing to help others when I feel able.

Today, I am exhausted. I can accept that I am not up to great feats of intellect or action. It's ok to give my emotions, as well as my headachy brain time and space to recover. I can also be encouraged by the fact that the after effects of emotional storms are no longer measured in days or weeks, but hours and days.

And....breathe.....I've survived another one. If you need me, you'll find me self soothing and being kind to myself.


(dbtselfhelp.com has useful advice and DBT worksheets to use: http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/opposite_action.html)

What's in a Name - the Impact of the BPD Label

Mind have done an excellent job of highlighting the problems of 'coming out' to friends, families and employers about mental illness. More than many conditions, Borderline Personality Disorder has received a very poor press. I know I used to have a number of cases with diagnoses of BPD when I was a Probation Officer. 'They' were seen by some colleagues as 'a pain in the arse', 'difficult', 'unpredictable' and 'frustrating to work with'. I found myself enjoying my encounters - colourful, dramatic, often artistic and articulate. Good job, because, after ten years in the probation service I was diagnosed with BPD myself. And, Yes I did encounter the same comments, or detected them in attitudes and behaviour directed at me.

I have been privileged and fortunate to live in an area which has quickly responded to the government policy change of BPD from 'untreatable' to 'treatable'. A seismic shift in attitude, hopefully closely followed by Mental Health professionals. There is a specialist Personality Disorder Service in our area, with two intensive group therapies aimed at BPD sufferers, both have been running now for over two years.

In my experience of this service over the past five years, I have had my individuality acknowledged and been supported well by my CPN when my first attempt at therapy failed. I have been supported through crisis times without being over medicated or admitted to hospital, which I would have found highly aversive. The level of support on offer during periods of instability enabled me to recover from setbacks, (which I was given time to do) and to be referred to different specialist therapy offered by the same service.

I know this is rare. I know that I am lucky. I hope that blogging and talking about my experience (positive) of being diagnosed with BPD will show good practice. Unless I am seen as a person with unique needs, with the willingness to learn how to manage my emotional turmoil, then I will continue to show up in distress and will seem to be 'impossible to manage'. Thing is somebody actually did help me to learn to manage myself and my BPD. Is it rocket science to recommend that others try to offer the same level of service?

I really urge you to copy the link and go to this blog by Rebecca in response to some videos made by others with a different experience of BPD than her. All are available on the same link. http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/your-stories/having-a-bpd-diagnosis-my-reality/#.VG9-hvmsUnp

Meeting the Challenge, Making a Difference (Oxford Health NHS Trust)

Excellent booklet outlining the challenges and effective approaches to involvement of PD sufferers in treatment, education and staff training. Produced with full involvement of Service Users. Just so refreshing and helpful. From Oxford Health NHS Trust:

http://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/resources/2014/04/MeetingTheChallenge.pdf

It's one of those days... again

I still have them. Days when for no reason an overwhelming sense of grief sits on my heart. Now, I am aware of the deep source of the grief. Now, I can say 'this too will pass'. It doesn't make it any less painful to live with. Nor does it suddenly make it 'all right'.

On these days I need to remind myself that I need to be kind to me. I tell it to others and I believe it. My biggest problem remains an underlying belief that ultimately, I am not worth caring for. That somehow, somewhere in my history is a reason, a factor in me that means I deserve the suffering I have lived through. I carry the emotional hangover of the survivor of abuse, the belief, that somehow, somewhere in my past I must have done something bad.

Because this has been a lifelong belief which has resulted in self hatred and the behaviours which have made shipwreck of important moments and relationships in my life, I still have battles to fight. Today is one of those battles.

Unlike other days which I used to fear would stretch into the rest of my life, I am learning that this day is not all the days of my life. This day can be measured and will end. Today, the overwhelming sadness and grief comes in waves, in moments. I am becoming more aware of this as I recover.

So, here it is another day of painful emotions. Today, I will be mostly looking after me. That includes eating bacon butties, watching trashy TV, taking my time over my shower, and most of all not berating myself for grief and painful emotions which come from having lived through and survived some very difficult events. Most of all, this day and these emotions are not the whole of my story. This pain means that when I have a different day, a better day, it can shine even more brightly. Today, if I can be kind to myself I am replacing another more painful moment from my past and I am able to say, I am worth caring for.

A Bad Case of the 'Yes, Buts'

'Yes' was described by James Joyce as being the most positive word in the English language. It is. Unfortunately, as with many elements in my life with BPD I often counteract the positive attitude inherent in the word by adding a massive and unnecessary 'But'. Recently, I've had a bad case of the 'yes buts'. I have been enjoying the stability of recovery, but have been in danger of trying to run ahead of my own progress by trying to short circuit the waiting and consolidation period. When I am reminded of the skills which have enabled me to continue to manage my condition on a day to day basis, or of my progress towards a more positive future, my automatic response is 'yes, but'...

'Yes, but... here I go again. I have done so well, BUT I keep struggling with depression...just proves I'm a failure

'Yes, but... I am weary of having to keep 'managing' my symptoms...just proves I'm too weak...

'Yes, but... I deserve to keep suffering...and getting on with life, feels wrong somehow...

Running a group has reminded me that I am not alone in the 'yes, buts...' When everything inside you tells you that you will fail, positive steps forward sound, difficult, foreign, too hard to achieve. It takes perseverance and determination to listen to the 'yes' without tempering it with the 'but'.

Two aspects of DBT are needed here and I have found it all too easy to forget them. The first is 'participation'. This is part of core mindfulness and says that I will participate fully in what is happening in this moment. If I am going to self soothe, then I will do so with gusto, if I am going to use opposite action and dance or sing, I will do so with gusto. There are times when I don't have the energy to even consider using any skills, that is when I need to say 'yes' to the effort of engaging and participating in one moment at a time. If I can say yes for a split second, then I can say yes for a whole second, if I can say yes for a second, I can string them together to make a minute. This brings me to the idea of willingness. Having decided to choose to live, then I am by my actions saying 'yes' to engaging with the people and the world around me.

It is all too easy to allow the 'But' to swallow the 'Yes' and prevent myself from overcoming my difficulties and suffering. 'Yes' is a springboard to a meaningful life - 'but' keeps me weighed down in the mud of the past.

When I first started DBT therapy I spent a lot of time learning to 'uncurl' physically. I was curled in on myself physically as well as emotionally. This was my way of saying 'No' to the whole of life and experience around me. 'No' kept me safe, but also cut me off from life. I was neither willing nor able to participate in anything let alone the positive in life. It was an important battle to fight - one memorable one to one session,my therapist spent the whole 50 minutes trying to get me to lift my head. I eventually managed it towards the end of that session for a short time. Eventually, after a lot more battles and many months of practising the acceptance and mindfulness skills, I was able to sit tall and look people in the eye. There are still moments when I curl in on myself - that's ok, there are still moments when I need to protect myself, as long as it doesn't become my default again.

In that moment when I lifted my head I started to say 'Yes'. 'Yes' is being open. 'Yes' says I have hope that I can recover. 'Yes' says I am ready to enjoy my life, without those things which rob me of recognising the positive in me and my relationships. 'Yes, but' is a step along the road from 'No', dropping the 'but' takes me even further along the road to recovery:

'Yes, I want to enjoy this moment'.

'Yes, I can...'

'Yes, I am worth working through the 'buts'

'Yes, I am worth putting the effort in to my recovery and building my life from this moment on...'

To Move Forward, Do I have to Go Back?

TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of Childhood Trauma including sexual abuse and symptoms of PTSD

It's a vexed question. After all, if your symptoms include intrusions from the past that interfere with your life now, then it stands to reason that you need to go back in order to go forward. Throughout my life I think I spent most of my energy in avoiding any emotional or cognitive acknowledgement of the trauma I had suffered throughout my formative years. All my energy was spent in avoiding any acknowledgement of the fact that I had actually suffered any trauma at all.

And there it is - trauma - a word that I refused to hear from my CPN or any other professional in relation to 'my life'. After all, until I got away from home and started looking around and experiencing life outside my family, I had thought myself relatively well off as I had grown up. We were, materially. I was unaware that the pain and grief I was suffering growing up was not related more to me being 'highly strung' and 'a bit weird' as I was told over and over. The fault always lay in me. For the fact that a grown man thought it was ok to touch me up at the age of 11 because I was 'well developed', for my mother holding my nose and force feeding me at the age of 9 because I wasn't hungry, for the fact that I made my father lose his temper so much that he smashed my head against the wall so hard I felt sick, for the numerous times people decided it was okay to use me sexually. I felt it was my fault for suddenly growing into a 'woman' and therefore causing adult men (and some women) to lose control of themselves.

This is the heart of the shame felt by so many child victims. There has to have been something wrong with me for the people who did those things to me to get away with it. On top of this of course is the fact that there was more than one abuser. So, logic says, it had to have been me who was the common factor. Right? Wrong. However, that, for so many years has been my reasoning and therefore all my behaviours, including self harming behaviours centred on the belief that I was basically flawed, destined to continue the cycles of abuse for my whole life. My overwhelming emotional experience became self hatred and all the secondary emotions associated with it, shame, guilt, anxiety, fear of rejection. It is this set of beliefs which when overlaid with a predisposition to emotional dysfunction has led to the patterns of behaviour, feeling and thinking identified as BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder).

For years I was offered counselling and therapy based on the need for me to disclose in detail my life story. These therapies attempted to get me to connect with the grief process over my childhood which had been short circuited by my attempts to just 'get on with it'. The problem being I couldn't connect myself with any real suffering. I was disconnected not only from feeling any emotional pain, but also from any identification of myself as a victim of trauma. Some approaches tried to get me to go back and relive the experiences - who wants to do that? I've survived it, I know what it felt like, I just need to release the emotional response, to free myself enough to grieve and recognise that I have been traumatised and that my reactions and my grief are understandable. More than once counsellors told me that I didn't want to get better because I could not engage emotionally. They were right, after all if dissociating myself from my experiences had got me this far, what were they offering me other than a painful journey backwards?

I suppose for me, I didn't need to remember the events, some of them were etched on my consciousness and were very much intruding in the here and now, through nightmares, flashbacks and unresolved emotions. Above all, I grappled daily with an ongoing cycle of heightened anxiety and anticipation that seemed to stream in an unbroken flow from the moments of past trauma. Each new experience of abuse throughout my life laid another wave of destructive emotion over previous ones, reinforcing the destruction and distorted emotional experiences of childhood.

One of the most difficult DBT skills to grasp hold of is Radical Acceptance. It is, for me, the most powerful and effective in helping me deal with my past experiences. It taught me that there was no therapy or magic pill which could go back to those traumas and undo them. I had tried for over forty years to manage the emotions from that without having the ability to even acknowledge that I had suffered any trauma. It also helped me to recognise that even though the feelings of trauma were ever present, they actually didn't need to be, as the threat was in the past too. I guess the experience of cycles of abuse and re-victimisation maintain the sense that even though my experience of trauma is in the past, it is inevitable that something equally damaging is going to happen again to me, because that's my life and my lot in life.

Radical Acceptance for me, has meant accepting that I can't predict the future, even if the past tells me that because people have hurt me badly then they WILL hurt me badly again. It is accepting that the past doesn't have to predict my future, or even my present, which is the beginning of saying, 'I can enjoy this moment'. I can take time now to enjoy what I am experiencing, in this moment. Feelings of shame, terror and grief, if unconnected with what is happening in this moment, do not belong here.

Slowly, I have allowed myself to feel the grief and cry - without having to relive the moments of trauma. My mind has blocked some events. Personally, I don't feel a need to seek justice through formal channels, that is my choice. This means that I don't have to recall and recount events from my past over and over again. Slowly, I have learned to accept that what I have lived through has had a part in shaping the person I am today. I don't need to remain in the past, it is done with, I have taken positives from it, at last. The rest needs to relegated to the dustbin of history. I don't need to return again and again to the prison cell to remind me, I have been released. The past, for me, belongs in the past. I have accepted what has happened to me, I have accepted that it has made me stronger than imaginable. I have accepted that I can overcome the worst that I have lived through and I am accepting that I do deserve to enjoy the life I have today. Acceptance is not a moment, it is an ongoing process and I need to practice it every time thoughts and feelings float in from my history - accept them and move on, is what I need to do. An ongoing piece of work, but I am getting better at it.

I have found as I have worked through this process of acceptance, that the symptoms of flashbacks and flooding negative emotions to triggers around me, have faded from my day to day life. Finally, I was able to let my CPN call what had happened to me 'trauma' and in that I accepted that I had suffered events which made sense of some of my emotional and psychological 'quirks'. Ultimately, one of the most freeing things to be told over and over again, was that my behaviour and responses to life were 'understandable given what you have experienced'.

I know that for some, there is a need for ongoing support and therapy to manage more severe symptoms of PTSD based on childhood experiences. I only write from my own experience and say this way has been a way for me to lay the past to rest without having to go ALL the way back.

An Image for DBT Thought Diffusion

If you've followed this blog for any length of time you will know that I love it when I find images, music, art or anything that helps me to keep using my mindfulness skills. This image is an excellent tool to use in trying to rid myself of unwanted thoughts or feelings.

When using pictures I always start by taking time to focus myself on being in the moment. Usually, I do this through just becoming aware of my breathing, until it is regular and even. In the past during periods of instability I found that I would be holding my breath for short periods of time which would increase the impact of damaging emotions. So, having noticed and adjusted my breathing, I then try to notice how my body is reacting - usually I feel tension in my shoulders and neck. The process of focusing on my breathing actually naturally helps to relieve this tension.

Once I have been able to calmly focus on my breathing I focus on the image in front of me imagining the sort of day it might have been when the photo was taken. This image starts with me lying on my back in the sun, looking up at a stunning blue sky. I notice birds singing, feel the sun on my skin, notice a slight breeze. Then I notice dandelion seeds floating by.

I then shift my focus back to my breathing before noticing any feelings or thoughts. Then I name them. Without analysing or trying to understand where they have come from, I form them into words or sentences. These sentences or words I then attach to the seeds as they float in the sky above me (a bit like the words on the screen when Sherlock is noticing people in the new TV series). I watch them as they and the seeds rise away from me into the blue and eventually float away.

I repeat this as many times as I need until I feel calm. Then I return to focusing on the here and now and my breathing until I am ready to get on with my life without the troubling thoughts or feelings, until I need to deal with them, again!

Ya Get Me?

I love the English language. I toy with it, play with it, take words and mess with them, a bit like a trick footballer playing with a ball. Sometimes it's a bit random - especially when a word enters my head and I need to hear what it sounds like out loud. I especially love it when I discover some new 'in' word or phrase.

Recently I've been fascinated by people saying, 'ya get me?' after almost everything they say. I guess it is a way of making sure that your listeners are, in fact, listening. On another level though, it's also a way of checking out you are being understood. That started me thinking, maybe I need to start using it especially when talking about my mental health.

For most people with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) there is a sense of unease, a lack of belonging that is all pervasive. I had grown up with a sense of not being able to connect with the world and, more especially, with the people around me. I had a sense of otherness, of being an alien in a world that failed to notice how much I was struggling to belong. My nickname as a child was 'Moonman'- says it all really. I also did not communicate with adults, seeking to communicate through one childhood friend in particular, until the school in their wisdom removed him from me and forced me to try to speak to teachers and others at school. I was six before I was really able to do that.

This sense of alienation is a hallmark of BPD, a condition which creates a gulf between me and those around me, and which no one, but me is aware of. The only way I found to describe it when trying to help GPs and others understand, before my diagnosis, was a sense that I was 'locked inside my own heading screaming'. When I was most distressed I kept repeating 'I am not made for this world. The problem for me was that in my day to day life no one could see my distress, or if they did, they didn't understand its causes.

Lack of stable identity, caused by an inability to make emotional sense of the world around me is a symptom of BPD which goes to the core of the social theories of its causes. If we learn about our place in the world through the responses from those around us, then the invalidating home and family environment becomes a twisted mirror in which a distorted image of the self is formed. So, paradoxically the relationships which are most problematic to me are those which value me - they just clash with the internalised invalidated image and so are often rejected as untrustworthy. If the internal monologue of self criticism and self hatred meets with evidence to the contrary the resulting dissonance can be unbearable.

I am more comfortable with the feelings of failure and disconnection with the relationships around me, than I am with affirming, loving relationships. If my fundamental belief about myself is that I not worthy of life affirming love, then it is hardly surprising that I allow myself to become involved with destructive and abusive relationships. They are where I believe I belong.

As I work on my recovery I am trying to learn to find validation in small things at first. However, one of the ways that I still struggle to make people 'get me' is that I do probably need more affirmation in work and social situations than most people. The twisted mirror image of myself is still in the process of being untwisted. Slowly, I am trusting myself to develop new relationships. Trust takes time.

Being an alien, in a strange planet it is often easier to spend most of my time alone. This was one of my major coping mechanisms in the past. I deliberately retreated from intimate relationships because I just couldn't make sense of them, nor could my boyfriends make sense of the contradictions in me. On the one hand I craved affection, but on the other I behaved constantly in ways which would drive a wedge between us. The role of alien was so much more comfortable to me, then, than the sense of belonging to and with someone. There were times when I could happily go for weeks on end without any meaningful contact with anyone. It was safe, unchallenging and didn't cause any jarring or contradiction to my internalised view of myself. What I didn't realise for years, was that this was reinforcing the sense of isolation I was trying to combat.

Where am I today? I am trying to find new ways of connecting with the world around me. I am having to learn that patterns of invalidation established from early childhood will take time to change. I am trying out new ways of relating to friends, without retreating into becoming a recluse in order to protect myself from kindness and affection. The structure offered by the DBT Inter Personal Effectiveness Module helps me to find my place in most relationship situations. In the past I would swing wildly between shutting myself off and exposing myself too early in relationships usually sharing way too much about my struggles and my past history. I am consciously holding back when I need to in order to build trust on both sides of relationships.

So do 'ya get me?' The reality is that there are many times when I don't get myself. I am working on rebuilding my sense of self, without the overlaid turmoil of out of control emotions and moods, and the non stop internal self condemnatory commentary. All of which is a new experience for me, not all of it comfortable or pleasant. Slowly, but surely I am untwisting the mirror image.