Stepping Over Our Wounds (via Henri Nouwen)

There is a struggle for those of us who bear the scars of old wounds. Each time a new hurt happens, it can rip open wounds, which remain fresh, because, instead of allowing the pain to fade and heal, in time, I know I have spent too long living with and feeding the underlying hurt by living and reliving the most painful of memories. It's as if I have a belief that I could 'undo' the past by remaining inside the trauma, condemning myself to be held captive in an never-ending 'time loop'.

I have a choice, to remain forever frozen in those moments of pain and so prolong the suffering, or accept that they have happened and will leave me with scars, reminders of what I have survived, but no longer capable of stopping me from moving forward. I found this meditation from Henri Nouwen helpful in explaining that choice and the moment when I can 'step over...' and move beyond the most difficult of experiences. I may be a product of my past but I do not have to be its prisoner:

'Sometimes we have to "step over" our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there. Then we become the "offended one," "the forgotten one," or the "discarded one." Yes, we can get attached to these negative identities and even take morbid pleasure in them. It might be good to have a look at these dark feelings and explore where they come from, but there comes a moment to step over them, leave them behind and travel on.'

A note of caution if you find this thought of 'stepping over wounds' challenging - acceptance and moving on from the wounds of the distant past is not condoning all of the wrongs done to us, nor does it prevent us, if it is the right time and circumstances for us from seeking justice. What acceptance does is to help us recognise that no person, circumstance, substance or material possession will be able to undo the injustices and pain of the past. Nor does acceptance entirely remove the shadows cast by such traumas. What it allows us to do is accept that we have had the strength and courage to survive the worst. Having recognised that, we then have a choice: to remain trapped in the past, or to build on the strength and courage we have to live whatever life we choose, for ourselves. The prison door is open, but I still need to walk out of it, myself.

Hope - the Double Edged Sword

I have neglected my blog here for the past few weeks, because I have become more involved in different projects, which I hope will lead to paid employment in time. It has been a struggle to balance what I 'think' I 'should be doing and what I can actually achieve while managing to maintain my sense of equilibrium. One of the 'jobs' I've taken on is a role as an Expert by Experience. Through engaging with local Mental Health services from a new perspective I have started to reflect on how I have changed over the past five years. One particular new development is that I am finding myself less fearful of hope than I used to be.

Throughout my life 'Hope' has been a concept/feeling/idea that was a double edged sword. Take the pre-Christmas time of year, for example. Every year I would look forward to the 25th December with absolute hope, faith and optimism that somehow my family would be transformed and that from that Christmas on, our lives would be transformed. It's not that I bought into any of the commercialism consciously, just that everyone tries harder over that period and so, a bit like when families are on show, we all tended to be on our best behaviour. Also the only expression of acceptance and love from our parents was in giving us material gifts. At Christmas there was an abundance, somehow I hoped this would continue into the new year, but every year that hope dissipated in the reality that our parents were effectively disinterested in our lives. Except when they were angry with us.

I learned to fear hope, and to avoid anyone or anything which gave me hope. If I could learn not to be 'deluded' by hope, then the pain and distress I experienced with my life, especially when my hopes were dashed, would be less sharply felt by me. It is easier to accept life in the gutter if I've never even noticed that I can see the stars from there, let alone reach for them.

The problem I have faced is that if I am to find a life worth living, then I need to have something to hope in. That there can be purpose and meaning to every experience in life, both good and bad. For me that has come from a faith in a God who is bigger than me and my life. For others, they find it in family and other relationships. This has helped me primarily to make peace with the worst experiences of my life. I can see the bits of my character that have been shaped not by the harm done to me, but by the resilience which has helped me to survive and build a life that I can enjoy. One of the most critical moments in my treatment was when my therapist told me there was help and therefore hope that my life didn't have to be determined by my emotions or my past experiences anymore.

It is easy to assume that the alternative to hope is despair. I have learned that, that doesn't have to be true. As I have learned more and more about the DBT Skill of Radical Acceptance I have begun to recognise that sometimes, it wasn't hope and its loss which hurt me most. Rather it is the fact that I would hope unrealistically, or give my hope to people who either weren't worthy of it, or capable of fulfilling it. No individual person can fill the emotional void left by childhood and adult trauma. Sometimes the skill lies in recognising when hope is not appropriate. There are circumstances, or relationships, which no matter how hard I hope it wasn't so, will never change. It took me a lifetime to realise that even Christmas couldn't change my parents and the results of their own upbringing. Accepting that and letting go of the hope that by wishing I could effect a change, has freed to me to build a relationship with my parents that no longer reopens wounds from the past - over and over.

Another area I have struggled with is the sense of injustice I feel about how vulnerable people are treated. However much I hope that the injustice of government policies related to welfare and mental health funding will change, I must accept that, however flawed the election process, a majority of MPs are not supportive of such compassionate and corporate policies to help the most vulnerable in our society. Sadly, the majority of those who voted, voted for that kind of government. There is no point in me hoping that will magically change before 2020 when the next Election is due. However, I can look forward to that year and hope that if I can share my ideas and beliefs about a just society across, join with others who share those beliefs, then there may be hope that a change can happen. For now, acceptance is the right alternative to hope.

As I have moved away from being completely overwhelmed by my emotions, I have noticed that my view of hope has become an active practice of wise mind. Hope is an emotion, I feel it in my gut. However, I need to make sure that the facts of any given situation need to confirm that gut feeling for it to be a force which drives me forward. Unfettered hope, hope that is built on a denial of the realities of the situation is a false hope and it is that which hurts. Hope grounded in substantial, realistic understanding of what is going on around me, an awareness of what I and others are capable of, has a better chance of being fulfilled. Naturally, there are still times, because no one can predict the future, when hope is disappointed, but if we can consider the prospect of disappointment ahead of time, then rather than wreaking wholesale emotional devastation as in the past, it is something that we can both survive and build on.

Keeping the Wellness Going

I've passed a milestone - well, probably more than one, but this one crept up on me. It is over a year since I was discharged from services. In the past, this would be about the point, when having immediately launched myself into another new life, I would be finding that life unravelling.

It is perhaps, a good thing that I have not kept a close eye on this milestone. Perhaps, I have learned to let go, at last of unrealistic expectations, particularly of myself and my ability to sustain a stable emotional life. Apart from this overall change in my attitude to life there have been one or two other factors which I believe have been helpful in getting me to this point in my recovery.

1) I have been able to sustain my commitment to the important spiritual and emotional disciplines which give me a foundation on which to build a life which has meaning and purpose. So my faith has been integral to my practice of keeping myself in the here and now. When my feelings tell me everything is wrong with my life, my belief in a purpose and in something bigger to belong to keeps me anchored. Sometimes this belief and faith can be as thin as a spider thread, but it has been enough to hold on to.

2) I have adapted DBT skills which I have found effective, so that I can use them in my everyday life. I have access to self soothing exercises, or activities on my IPod, home, in my handbag, and, when unable to connect through gadgets, that I can practise by simply finding a quiet space for a moment to be mindful.

3) I have managed to move from acknowledging the value of physical wellness to integrating it into my management of BPD symptoms. As suicidal thoughts and self harm urges have become less of a battle for me, my PLEASE skills have become more essential to my ongoing well being, than my Distress Tolerance and Crisis Management skills.

4) I have the support of a GP who actively encourages me to follow my Relapse Prevention plan and has taken on board responsibility for her part in it. Having the regular reviews advocated in my Plan has allowed me to cope well with one or two 'bumps' in my emotional road, without fear of being re-referred to mental health services.

5) Almost imperceptibly, my social circle has both widened and deepened. As I have chosen to engage with the world outside me, I have actively become involved in making (and keeping) new friendships. I have learned by trusting, first one or two close friends, then learning about different types and functions of friends, to set boundaries for myself which mean that I can sustain healthy support networks. No longer am I in danger of burning out my friends.

6) I have stopped measuring my worth according to my status and the level of job I do. Rather I am learning to pace myself emotionally in what I engage in. I am accepting that it is difficult for me to sustain 9-5, five days a week commitment to paid work. Human relationships exhaust me due to the level of effort required to manage them. I therefore, need time to be alone and recharge my batteries. It is an acceptance of the reality of my struggles. I am finding ways to engage in meaningful work, both voluntary and some with limited payment. This is helping to rebuild my confidence without forcing me to over-reach my emotional resilience.

7) My past is no longer an intrusive visitor in my present and future.

Cocoons

I've been thinking a lot about cocoons lately. In the past I believed that wellness for me would mean that I would no longer have need of safe places, bolt holes, places to retreat when the world became too much. Recently, however, I've realised that it is not the need for cocoons which has changed in me, but the type of retreat and how long I need to remain there so that I can rebuild, or rest, or restore myself ready for the day to day battles which make up every day life.

In the past I would cocoon myself away for weeks, months on end. In many ways I was entombed within emotional cocoons for so many years. That's the effect of refuges which are not designed to release me to live a meaningful life, but those which enclosed around my internal pain, so that all my effort and strength was used up trying to live with the prickles on the inside of my 'safe places'. In some ways I was like a porcupine or hedgehog which had curled in on its own prickles, stabbing myself repeatedly as waves of emotional pain assailed me.

In nature, when caterpillars are wrapped up in their cocoons they are enclosed around nourishment, stored up fuel which sustains them until they are ready for release and new life. I have had to learn to experience nurturing refuge, time and space which rebuild positive emotions. At first leaving my pain outside the cocoon felt strange and awkward. I had to fight against the hardened belief that I did not 'deserve' to feel better, that I was not worth protecting from whatever was draining me at any given time. Instead I have had to work hard to focus on ways to be kind to myself. I have written about my 'self soothe' and 'Validation' treasures boxes, here: http://bpdlifeinthemoment.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/my-self-soothe-kit-whats-in-yours.html and http://bpdlifeinthemoment.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/my-dbt-validation-treasure-box.html

Some who misunderstand emotional and mental pain assume that there is a laziness, or desire to be miserable, which stops us from 'getting better'. Think about that for a moment. Is it credible to believe that someone who has suffered so much really 'enjoys' feeling that way? That someone who feels so much distress that they believe the only way out is to either cause more physical pain to themselves or to die, actually doesn't want to find another way?

I have learned to use cocoons to heal. It is tiring to carry both internal, historic pain and the day to day weariness of every day life. If I cannot accept and leave the past pain behind, then it will continue to turn up the volume on my current pain. So, I don't just carry the disappointments, sadnesses and pain of today, I also carry every moment someone or something has hurt me all my life. It is the focus of experiencing the present moment as it is, unfettered to the past which has helped me to let go of the store of pain so that I don't feed the present with the past.

Instead of wrapping myself in a cocoon around intense pain, so that I emerge exhausted and unable to function, I build into my cocoons activities and actions which soothe me until the pain has gone and I feel able to tolerate the company of others.

The other most important thing about cocoons which is helpful is that I set time limits, so that I am not tempted to stay there. Whether it is a matter of hours or a day, this means that I focus on making the most of my time, rather than letting hours drift into days, as I have in the past.

Here are some ideas to help you make the most of your cocoons:

1) Plan the time ahead. This is a Bank Holiday, I have made sure I have built in time with some good friends. However, after a week or two with intensive meetings and lots of thinking, I need to be alone. I have planned one whole day.

2) Make sure there are things which can keep my focus - I have stored up whole series on Sky+, am colouring in using 'The Secret Garden', I have enough food to make some delicious recipes.

3) As I move through my activities I do so mindfully, being aware of what unwanted emotions may arise and dealing with them using my DBT skills. I do not want the focus of my emotions to end up draining me - that would defeat the purpose of the cocoon.

4) Allow myself to enjoy it - even if I begin to feel guilty I must use 'non-judgement' skills to let it go. The aim is to rest and relax - that is okay I am practising self care and it will help me to be able to engage with and care for others.

5) Plan how I will re-engage with the world outside my cocoon - I cut myself off from Facebook and other social media. It is also important when I need cocoons that I don't engage with UK and World news - particularly at the moment I can become emotionally sensitive to injustices.

Above all, cocoons are as much a part of my toolkit as other DBT skills, I can emerge from my cocoon either drained or restored. I am learning to do the latter, the more I practice these moments of calm in a turbulent life.

Measuring Progress in Recovery

I'm at a strange stage in my recovery. It's not a 'crossroads', I'm not in 'limbo', I'm not even 'stagnating', but I am living with a sense of tension and unease. My problem is the future - or the fact that I cannot see what's going to happen in the future. Now, in reality I have never been able to see ahead in time, but I have always had plans, ambitions, career paths to follow, so it created the illusion that I had some control over how my life was progressing.

I don't think I'm any different or less able to read the future than anyone else, I have just become more acutely aware of how quickly my plans can go awry, just like Rabbie Burns' 'mice and men'. Having had an unremitting cycle of work and retraining, relocation and travel over the years, it is an alien experience to have lived in one place for more than a decade. Up until the last three years I have also had the stability of a career with a definite career progression. Surely that is what stability is built on? Yet, I don't think I have been as peaceful and untroubled by emotional storms as I have in the past year.

Nonetheless I am troubled by the short term nature of my ability to provide for myself. Going by the patterns of the past I SHOULD be relaunching myself in a new direction, be completely absorbed by a new job and praised for my external progression. My problem at the moment is that any opportunities to help out or volunteer are short term and sporadic. I feel the pressure to go back to work, but the idea of applying for full time work is so troubling that few people venture to ask and I daren't even consider the possibility, even though, on the surface, that would provide the greatest stability - financially.

As I write this, I realise I am in a process of adjusting my life to new priorities. My greatest needs are to manage my emotional life so that I don't regress to the inexorable daily cycles of damaging emotions and behaviours that have marked most of my life. That means that looking ahead is not helpful.

I am only able to plan up to a month in advance. I have a monthly meeting as part of the Experts by Experience group of my local NHS Trust. I am still meeting with people one to one to help them with Mental Health needs as part of my involvement in the church. Over the past three months, having had some disruption to my emotions caused by the pressures of managing the needs of elderly parents who live at a distance, I have learned to set the running of a five week course to one side - and learned that the sky didn't fall in because I put my own health first. Overall, it means that I have managed my mental health well and managed not to slip back into emotional dysfunction.

I need time to be able to reflect on these changes as realities which indicate that my progress in recovery and managing the symptoms of my BPD continues, but is not at an end, or, indeed an end in itself.

One of my biggest challenges is creating my own patterns without the regular hours of paid work. This includes valuing what I am able to do as helpful and contributing to those around me as I am able, without having the external validation of a pay packet at the end of the month. After over 35 years working in various jobs and careers this continues to be a battle. If I am able to turn up to events at church that means I am part of a community and I am valuable simply as myself. When I am asked to help out in developing a website and writing the odd article that means I can enjoy using skills and experience I have developed over the years. I need to change my internal validation compass to accept that I am contributing in a positive way without having a salary point to indicate my 'progress'.

Of course there is a daily reality of bills to pay. I know that it would be good if my progress could result in rejoining the ranks of those who are paid to work. At the moment I am learning to accept that whilst I am capable of working, my emotional resilience casts a question over how far I would be able to sustain a full time role. So, again I come back to looking ahead and seeing only bends in the road. Acceptance means that I settle my ambitious, career driven self to the here and now. Recognising the need some days to give myself a break means that I would not be the ideal employee at the moment, particularly in a nine to five, five days a week environment. Some structure would be nice, though.

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)

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.

What is RADICAL About Acceptance?

One of the hardest things to do is to stand still. 'Traffic Lights' and 'Statues' are two childhood games based on the skills needed to do just that, physically. How much harder though is the emotional or psychological need to stop thinking and worrying about things that have either already happened or may never happen?

After years of constant striving to escape my internal struggles, I have found myself living through a hiatus lasting more than two years to date. During this time I have had to learn to be patient, to wait, without any assurance of 'having a plan'. Who said I had to always have a five year plan anyway? Acceptance has become a necessary skill.

I have had to accept a diagnosis that seemed to tell me there was something fundamentally wrong with who I am. I don't think this is what is intended by the professionals who work within the restraints of diagnosing emotionally sensitive people. I think this is because the condition I suffer from is too complex for simple labels. I have a good understanding of what it means to live with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), but it seems to be exceptionally difficult to make it understandable to those around me. What I have had to learn to do is to accept regardless of the label placed on it, I struggle with symptoms which mean that I am unable to sustain the levels of achievement I have aspired to all my life. Despite outward appearances to the contrary.

Seen simply I have achieved a lot. Three completed degree courses with the accompanying professional status conferred by them. Trained, qualified and experienced Teacher and Probation Officer. A former successful competitive swimmer. Since the age of 13 until the age of 45 I have had a job. I have even managed to work for considerable numbers of years in challenging careers. On the surface, I have been exceptionally successful within those professional spheres - until my emotional and psychological instability (undiagnosed for over forty years) would cause me to come to a sudden halt. What is not so obvious is the cycles of breakdown and recovery during which I have managed to achieve these things.

I am now learning, in my current period of recovery, to accept, that even though I am capable of achieving a reasonable level of responsibility and income from any job I take on, I need to consider sustainability, given my diagnosis. In other words I need to accept that I am limited not in terms of ability, but in terms of sustainability, if I keep trying to achieve to the extent of my abilities. Instead of stretching myself to my limits, I need to accept that I have to work well within them, if I am to be able to maintain any level of stability in my working life.

Above all, I need to accept that I struggle with things in life that most other people don't have to even consider. It has taken me some time to realise this.

I am an exceptionally determined person, I have needed to be. For a long time when I was introduced to the Radical Acceptance skills in DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) I believed that to accept the limits of my BPD was to stop fighting it - to give up - to surrender. Given what I have battled all my life, this felt like admitting defeat. However, my way of fighting clearly had not worked over a lifetime of trying. In using acceptance I have been able to stop putting my energy into trying to achieve things that were impossible for me to achieve.

Acceptance means admitting that there are things in life that I am powerless to change or affect. It may seem crystal clear in the cold light of day, that there is nothing I can do to change the past and there is nothing I can do to affect the outcome of the future. However, in my behaviour and what I call 'paralysis of thought', I spent most of my life trying to relive and undo the past, or trying to predict and control the future, in the process, spending any emotional assets I possessed so I was unable to enjoy the present.

What is so radical about this acceptance? I don't know what the clinical explanation of radical acceptance is, but I do know that this level of acceptance of reality is radical in terms of its impact on my mind and feelings. As with all the DBT skills I need to keep coming back again and again to remind myself to stop fighting in the old ways and to become more familiar with using my new skills.

I have been familiar with the story of Don Quixote and the idea of 'tilting at windmills' for a long time. It is only recently that I have realised most of my energies were taken up with battling against things that only I perceived as injustices as well as real, but unwinnable battles against wrongs done to me and others. In learning DBT skills I have been able to refresh my understanding of the Serenity Prayer. It reminds me to accept my limits and learn that life doesn't always have to involve strife to make me feel 'alive'. I can learn to give up battles against unbeatable foes, so that I can begin to enjoy winning the war against my emotions. I used to believe that it was good to struggle, because it showed I was still living - still 'kicking'.

'Kicking against the pricks' is a saying which comes from the fact that in Roman times some harnesses for horses contained sharp pointed pieces called goads or pricks, which were designed to keep the horses in line. When horses kicked against them too much they could cause themselves injury.

Wisdom, for me is knowing when battling, struggling and kicking against the difficulties of life is going cause me too much pain and injury. Acceptance is learning what is wise for me to put my energies into, so that life is less about struggle and more about meaning and purpose. If I can accept that it's ok sometimes to feel pain, it's ok sometimes to be sad, it's ok to be me and it's ok for the moment, not to do anything other than enjoy what can be enjoyed in the here and now, then I am somewhere along the road to living a radically different life to the one I lived before.