Bridging the Gulf

I was in a crowded room. I knew a large number of people there. I had managed some conversations and got myself a cup of tea. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by an all pervading sense of alienation and aloneness. I have experienced such floods of negative emotions nearly all my life. The sense of being an alien, of being locked inside a glass prison unable to make myself heard or understood, is one that is familiar to me. As I sat there, I had a choice to stay and front it out, as I have done so many times before, or to make what I consider a 'tactical retreat'. Although leaving difficult situations in panic has been a response I have often used in the past, this time was different.

Last week I was having a conversation with someone about the sense of isolation and overwhelming sense of emptiness experienced by people with my diagnosis and symptoms. She too has experienced these feelings, but would make herself get involved in groups of people and 'do' things. I think there is a right time to do that, for me. But yesterday was different. I have had a week of giving out to a lot of people in different contexts. In order for me to be able to regulate my emotions I need to be able to identify them. When I am tired I find my ability to feel anything is impaired because it takes so much energy to manage any emotions. Numbness is easier to manage, but clearly, makes it difficult to function at any social level. Over the past couple of weeks I have recognised that I was lapsing into numbness, because, for me I had had too much general human contact with a wide range of people, some of whom I struggled to connect with. I retreat into numbness when I am in a group of people and I am beginning to feel overwhelmed by my emotions.

Essentially, in the past couple of weeks I have not experienced negative emotions, but around people I am deeply uncertain about my ability to read other people and my acceptance in their groups - fear of rejection is an emotion often in the background, particularly when I am feeling uncertain or vulnerable.

I work hard at recognising and responding to emotional signals. Something most people take for granted. The development of my emotional abilities was fractured due to my experiences in childhood, this coupled with the emotional amplifier in my brain which means that all of my emotional responses are in dolby-surround-sound and full glorious HD technicolour, means I do need respite from being around people. I am happiest when I am on my own. That may come as a surprise to many who know me, because I have learned throughout my life, and from many embarrassing mistakes, how to behave around people. Again, it is not something which came easily to me, I would describe myself as a quiet, almost shy child. The sense of being an alien was ever present. One of my family nicknames was 'Moon-man'. Another was 'Droopy' after the little depressed dog, who when he got mad, he got 'real mad' - my angry outbursts were epic!

Emotions are exhausting for me, even with the DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) Emotion Regulation skills which help me maintain equilibrium most of the time. Today, I am back on an even keel. Here's what I did.

1. I gave myself a break. Yesterday was not a day to challenge myself to stay in a difficult situation. It takes self compassion to know when I need to accept things as they are and when I need to push myself to change the way I react. I needed some groceries so I went shopping before going home. This meant it didn't feel like I was running away. In the spirit of self kindness I bought some treats.

2. I watched some comedy on catch-up until I felt myself relax.

3. I breathed mindfully until I was able to identify the emotions I was feeling. Having named them, I accepted that, given the week I've had these emotions were understandable.

4. I listened to my 'belters' playlist which has some summery, upbeat songs on it. I spent time in the sun, colouring mindfully. Eventually I enjoyed and fully participated in the music and ended up dancing in my back yard. I enjoyed the warmth of the sun.

The process of bringing myself back from numbness used to take weeks or even days. Looking back on yesterday I realise it is progress that I was able to use skills to look after myself and bring myself back to equilibrium in an afternoon. It is now four years on since I started using DBT skills and it has and is taking time. Good to remind myself that I had over 40 years without using them. Rather than feeling unable to reach people across the gulf caused by my emotional dysregulation I am becoming my own bridge builder.

If I can't love myself, where do I begin with self care?

Being able to feel secure in my place in the world is vital to my ability to engage with the world around me. I cannot contribute to the communities I may want to be part of if I don't feel that I am accepted or, more accurately, acceptable to those around me. I will not be able to sustain relationships if I do not believe that I am worthy of that most basic of human needs - human contact and interaction. For most who suffer from BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) a lack of basic self esteem underlies most self destructive behaviour. I will not care for myself, because I don't believe 'I'm worth it'.

One of the hardest things I was asked to do in DBT was to say 'I love myself so much'. It still hurts to even write that. I cannot say that I've reached a point where I'm able to say it with any level of belief. A lack of self love in the past evidenced itself in behaviours which often resulted in crisis in one or other area of my life. I would spend until my debts were so overwhelming they affected my physical and mental health. I neglected my physical health - I rarely went to the doctor, what was the point? I reasoned, it would be a waste of resources - because it's me.

No therapy in the here and now can undo the experiences and relationships in the past which have stolen any sense of self worth. Even the most loving relationship in the here and now cannot hope to permeate the depths of my sense of self loathing. A friend of mine who has gone through the adoption process told me about some of the training they received on expectations of the children's ability to absorb the effects of a loving home. During training they were told that the child is like a cup with a layer of cling film wrapped over the top. Pouring love into the child is like trying to pour liquid into the cup. It cannot get through. There is a certain acceptance of the reality of the impact of invalidating early environments.

I can relate to that image. I have been unable to understand or feel that I am loved, despite having some very high quality friendships. It is true that the hurtful, rejecting relationships have been the ones that I have gravitated towards over and over again. Again I return to the core belief that 'I am not worth' any better treatment. People wouldn't ask questions about why abused women and children don't seek help, if they truly understood the cumulative impact of experiences which reinforce again and again, that I am less than, that I am someone whose needs don't matter, that I am someone who can be used and abused at will and no one feels is worthy of rescue.

So, given that has been my experience of life, where do I begin with self compassion and self care?

1) Start with the simple things. I began to regulate my sleep. As I practised mindfulness I found that I was able to fall asleep and stay asleep easier. Under the DBT Emotional Regulation skills module, the PLEASE* skills give me a guide to what to do. Sleep is the S of the skill. I don't need to worry 'HOW' practising these skills affects my sense of self worth. I just have to try something different and see if that helps me feel better. P means take care of my physical ailments - so get myself to the doctor when I need to. I started by doing that, getting help with oft recurring migraines - they used to last 3-4 days, happen 1-2 times a month and resulted in me vomiting for at least 48 hours. Getting help with medication which prevents attacks as well as practising DBT skills means that I have only had 2 attacks in the last six months. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out that the impact on my emotional health of getting these under control has been immense.

2) Give it a go anyway. Even if I don't think I deserve it - by practising the non-judgemental aspect of mindfulness all I have to do is experience a bath, a walk in the sunshine, massaging hand cream into my hands, putting together an ace playlist for my ipod, watching a favourite TV series in the middle of the afternoon. It took me a long time to lose the guilt, but I kept 'acting' on my plans to treat myself. After nearly two years I am able to take stock of my needs and decide how to care for those needs in any given day. This of course needs to be balanced with using other times to care for others.

One of the difficulties of being introduced to DBT Skills in a group is that not every exercise or suggestion suits every member of the group. Having said that, if I am to find what works for me, I need to get over myself and give things a go. This is one aspect of DBT Willingness, which I understand better as a willingness to engage fully with the world and people around me. My therapist asked me to try saying 'I love myself so much' using Miss Piggy's voice (remember I enjoy drama - it was tailored for me as an exercise!). This made me less fearful of the emotional power of the words and has allowed me to keep trying to say it for real - as I have said earlier - still working at it.

3) Do what you can. Initially I found it difficult to look after my health by way of my diet. So much emotion was carried in my relationship with food. I have been obese for some time, but it was only when I had been out of therapy a number of months that I decided I was ready to do something about it. I needed to build up my ability in using other core skills such as mindfulness, long before I was ready to deal with my weight. Be realistic about what you can do. Care for yourself in basic ways such as sleep, enough water and regular meals before you try to tackle things you have used in the past to help you cope with your emotions, like smoking, overeating etc.

4) Accept any help on offer. Lack of self care results in avoiding asking for help from others OR it results in me becoming so ill that I have no option but to rely totally on others for my care. There is nothing more strengthening that being able to ask for help, knowing that I have made the decision and I know how such help fits in with my own plan of self care. Having decided that I needed to feel fitter I asked the GP about help with diet and exercise. I am so glad I did because I need additional support to keep going - in our area there is a Fit Squad which means that if you are suffering from Mental Health issues you can access three months individual support to improve fitness as well as a Food for Thought programme. I've lost over three stone and have ground to a halt - so I need to go back to my advisers and ask another boost of motivation to complete the transformation. Overall, by caring for myself I feel so much better physically and am able to enjoy activities a lot more. In addition because I am practising mindfulness, I am able to enjoy the changes.

The most important thing to remember when embarking on this journey of self care is not to blame yourself or mistaking self care for selfishness. It is not selfish to care for yourself and just because your parents or others have discounted you in the past, you do deserve to be able to enjoy good things. If you keep going with looking after your physical needs, then you will find your emotional needs easier to meet too.

* DBT PLEASE Skills can be remembered as follows:

"P L E A S E M A S T E R."

treat Physical illness
balance Eating
avoid mood-Altering drugs
balance Sleep
get Exercise
build M A S T E R y

I have downloaded the Loving Kindness meditation from the UCLA website (http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=22) This again is something which will feel painful if you are starting to work on self care, but over time allow yourself to keep going - non-judgement will be your friend.

I have found these tools on American website and have pinned them on my DBT Pinterest account. They are a good graphic representation giving some ideas about how to begin with self care:

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.

Self Compassion and Knickers

Something has changed in me. I am slowly learning to be kind to myself.

Growing up in invalidating environments over time sucks all of the self worth and self compassion from the child until the adult emerges, uncertain of their feelings about themselves, the world around them, and their own intrinsic value as a human being. Rebuilding who I am from the wreckage of my childhood has been a long, slow process. Much of my self destructive behaviour in the past has its roots in feelings of self loathing born of the consistent invalidating messages of my key relationships as I grew up.

Invalidation has many forms, from the simple act of ignoring or discounting the voice of the child to the acts of abuse which say that every part of who I am is so worthless I can be used and abused at the whim of others. The distress and pain of these experiences takes a lifetime to emerge from. Perhaps, if you are in a relationship with someone who has suffered in these ways, you recognise the gaping emotional void, that you feel you are expected to fill.

In rebuilding my life I am in a long term process of learning to validate myself, of valuing who I am, of first of all accepting who I am. In the experience of Borderline Personality Disorder, one major building block of the personality, the sense of self, is damaged. I need to build relationships which patiently reflect back to me the value that others find in me, without me seeking to grab hold and cling to those relationships, or create the self fulfilling prophesy of rejection by my demands.

This means that boundaries, time and trust building are pre-requisites to any level of relationship for me. I used to be a 'hook line and sinker' committer to friendships and relationships. They burned bright and short, and always ended traumatically with major drama and self destruction. Given the emotional void within, this proved overwhelming to most who became involved with me in the past and I have lost many friends, and boyfriends in the process, confirming my lack of worth. 'No one can love me', was my mantra, or 'I am not worthy of love'. And my life was a process of confirming the 'truth' of those beliefs. Given the invalidation I have experienced from so many, including my own mother, over such a long period of time, these kind of thoughts and patterns are understandable.

In the end, having been rejected one time too many in 2000 I gave up on all human relationships. Life was safer that way. As I have gone through treatment and learned DBT interpersonal skills which take account of my invalidating background I have learned to set boundaries for myself. In essence I have learned to protect myself. This again is something which for the invalidated person is not natural. After all, I have to believe that there is something of value in myself to be protected. I have learned to articulate when I am not happy about situations - appropriately. In the past, I have not felt able to voice my needs, so anger at the world has built up until I have exploded at whoever is nearest to me. Not very pretty. It was a revelation to me that people can be interested in listening to me when I speak up about something I feel is wrong. That has taken time.

I realise that, as I keep moving forward and taking small steps, there is one range of skills that are critical in helping me repair and learn to build relationships. Self Compassion is essential to my ongoing recovery. It begins with the simple basics of looking after myself - the DBT PLEASE Skills (treat Physical iLlness, balanced Eating, off mood Altering substances, balanced Sleep and Exercise) and moves on to Mastery of those skills. If I feel I am worth the basics of eating, sleeping etc, then that is the most fundamental way in which I can care for myself.

As I have started to feel better about managing the swings up and down of my moods, I have been building up my mastery of these day to day necessities. This has now extended to my environment and I feel I am on top of my housework and have a reasonable living environment.

So where do my knickers come in? One of my responses to my childhood has been to hide away from who I am at heart. I am a sensitive, creative, articulate person. I love good things. I actually love feeling feminine. However, as a result of people disrupting my sense of my own sexuality and sensuality, I have swamped myself in tomboyish clothes and behaviours, which protect me from others by denying that I might be attractive to others physically. In essence I have tried to express myself as an asexual being. It has been safer that way, or so I thought, although this hasn't stopped perpetrators assaulting me as an adult, so maybe the fault is theirs. This is an essential building block of self compassion: I am not to blame for the wrong behaviour and damage done to me by others. There is nothing that I need to punish myself for. My bad feelings about myself are not accurate or reliable. When I do wrong, I need to do something to make a repair to those I have wronged. But feeling ashamed of myself simply because of what I survived in my past, will not achieve anything and serves to keep me trapped in the pain of the past.

At the risk of being accused of 'too much information', in the past six months, I have started wearing really nice underwear. I enjoy being feminine. I love perfumes, bubble bath, pampering, and the feel of silk against my skin.

I wore a skirt last week for the first time in years along with my favourite perfume and accessorised with jewellery, handbag and boots. 'elegant' was one word used to describe me. With a shock instead of dismissing the compliments, I accepted them, at face value, no critical analysis or suspicious thoughts about the motives of others. It helped that I had had nearly two hours pampering at my hairdressers and he had given me a new sleek haircut which he felt matched what he saw in me - or so he told me. I have a great relationship with him and trust him with my hair! I felt really good about myself and it was not a mask. I've done that too in the past. Because it began from how I felt about myself inside, moved on to my underwear to the outer shell of my clothes.

Learning to love myself is still a new skill in my arsenal. It has had to start with small things like getting help from the GP when I feel ill. The pressure is no longer on me to achieve in my working life, driven to try and find the validation that was missing from my childhood. I don't need to be in a 'successful' relationship to be a person of value. I am enjoying doing the things that give me satisfaction in life. I am able to feel that I have something to offer the community around me and I am free to accept the gifts that they offer me, in return. I think I'm actually ok and I do deserve that really nice lingerie set. Gives me a whole new reason for my 'secret smile'.

Self Care - Do I really 'Get it'?

I can talk about recovery till the cows come home. I understand the DBT skills that help me manage my emotions and thoughts. I find them relatively easy to practise and use when necessary. However, when it comes to 'self care', especially of my physical well being I am in need of 'remedial' help or a 'refresher' course. I know the obvious question in DBT terms is, 'so what's the obstacle to using self care?' My honest answer is that at the core of my feelings towards myself is a fair amount of self loathing.

It's a knotty old problem that rears its head in all sorts of situations and causes my responses sometimes to be out of proportion to the stimulus. Whether I am succeeding or failing (in my own eyes) I will always have a 'director's commentary' running in my head telling me either that my current failure is confirmation of all that I believe about myself, or that my success can only be a fluke, or people flannelling me. Basically, I have never learned to trust my own instincts about how I am doing in work, relationships or any sphere. I think that is why people on the outside consider me to be an overachiever. I have always needed the confirmation of cups, medals and prizes as totems of my value. Strangely enough, no amount of outward success has ever made up for my own doubts about my intrinsic value or worth to the world.

Credit: Tweeted by @jessisheron

This lack of self validation has affected me in a number of ways, but perhaps most obviously in my inability to care for my health. My GP in the past has described me as 'stoic', 'strong minded' and 'a bit of a martyr'. She had earned the right to speak to me in that way, having taken an interest in my mental health and recognised the link between this and my lack of self care over a long period of time.

Given that I have been an athlete and been at the peak of fitness into my 30s before my mental and physical health broke down, I know how good it feels to feel 'good' - physically. My biggest problem for my health has been the overwhelming ennui that sucked all energy and motivation to exercise out of me. The Black clouds of depression which hung around my life in long, black days, were accompanied by the desire to cram junk food and large portions of 'bad for you' snacks into my body, in a failed attempt to fill the emotional void inside. No need to undergo major analysis or large numbers of tests to discover the cause of my burgeoning weight and loss of fitness. Easy to ignore until earlier this week, when I ended up in A&E because I had been vomiting up blood.

I know the cause of the waves of retching which caused the bleeding; years of chronic anxiety and panic attacks which included emptying the contents of my stomach as my abdominal muscles went into spasm. Most recently the continued lack of care about the contents of my diet,has been the main cause of my feeling sick. So, the easiest thing is to take care of it. In other words, take care of myself. Except, there it is, that nagging little voice from all the way back in my childhood - 'I am not worth looking after'.

It wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't started on the road to recovery from those emotional scars, so instead of ignoring these thoughts as just a part of who I am, I am starting to feel uncomfortable with this negative view of myself. Slowly, I am aware that the messages from my faith, friends and other sources is getting through to me that I might be worth caring about. And, on a simply practical level, I know that if I want to maintain my emotional equilibrium I need to live as if I believe I am a whole person who needs to be cared for physically as well as emotionally.

On Monday afternoon for the first time in my life, I picked up the phone and asked a friend to go with me to A&E. I told the Dr how badly I felt and what was worrying me about my symptoms. I then followed the instructions to contact my GP, the next day - was given an emergency appointment and received top class care, advice and reassurance. I will commit to attending the follow up appointments which will continue to monitor my condition and provide me with ongoing treatment. That is all simply because I want to feel better about myself, because when I am fit physically I am better able to make the most of every day of my life.

In a sense up to this point I have been deluding myself that I have left my self destructive tendencies behind with overt suicidal feelings and self harm. Instead, I have continued to punish myself by neglecting my physical well being, perhaps on a different level from all the self destructive behaviour before, but nonetheless still not prepared to let myself 'off the hook' as regards punishment. Essentially, I need to stop and acknowledge that punishment is only effective if there has been a crime which requires justice. Being myself, having the life I've lived is not a crime. The following words have been difficult for me to articulate but they are an essential step towards my healing: I have done nothing that deserves me punishing myself over and over. No one else is holding me to this account but me and it is time for me to truly be released from the prison of self loathing. Taking care of myself is a good start.

Self Care is important and is something which will help me to sustain the progress I have made in managing my BPD. It has taken me a long time, but I am beginning to get it and to get the importance of feeling good physically to feeling good mentally.

The Long Road to Self Compassion

When most of your life has been about trying and failing to earn parental validation then internal expectations can become exceptionally distorted. From the outside I look fairly successful, I have completed three degree courses, am fully qualified and experienced as a Teacher and a Probation Officer, from an early age I was a successful athlete, swimming for my school and regional teams of elite swimmers. I am considered to be an effective communicator and have managed to write and perform comedy sketches in a range of contexts. Yet, yet, yet...I consider my life at best to have been a triumph of mediocrity and at worst to have been a complete failure.

I am writing this post at the end of an exceptionally stormy week when I have perceived myself to have failed utterly in my attempts to manage the symptoms of my BPD. What has prompted this castigation of yourself? You ask. I lost my temper in a DBT group and (in my mind) caused a scene by storming out of the room. Suddenly, after months of managing to regulate my emotional life and remain relatively balanced in my perception of the world and people around me, I found my emotions spiralling out of control. So much so, that after the group finished I had to wait nearly an hour before my emotions were stable enough for me to feel safe enough to drive home. That was actually progress because in the past I wouldn't have been able to use wise mind about the risks of driving while dysregulated.

This in itself has not been the greatest battle I've faced this week, such escalation in emotional intensity is common for those with BPD. What I have battled with has been in 'giving myself a break'. First of all, in response to my initial reaction of ending my participation in the DBT Graduate group, my therapist pointed out to me that my outburst was neither out of proportion, nor unexpected. Secondly, most of my anger was not related to the incident in the group, but was directed entirely towards myself for 'losing it'. Again, my therapist pointed out that I was wrong to assume that my emotional outburst had 'ruined' the whole group. She also pointed out that the statements I was making were not based on fact but on judgement - primarily of myself, for being a failure.

I know the DBT skills I need to use: wise mind, mindfulness focusing on my feelings in this moment, thought diffusion and emotional regulation skills to return me to balance in my responses. I could maybe try a 'loving kindness' meditation (UCLA Website: https://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/mindful-meditations/id434136047?mt=10#ls=1) But I have struggled with one massive obstacle - suddenly the old default to self punishment has reignited and I am finding it very difficult to find reasons to be compassionate towards myself.

The heart of the problem is the problem of my heart towards myself. Suddenly, my assumptions about myself are challenged by the time I've spent in treatment, by the stable relationships and friendships I have been learning to accept. Where do I begin to find validation? I am no longer capable of returning to the old failed ways of coping with extreme emotion and am on a long road towards new ways. Trouble is I'm not there yet, so I am having to take slow, baby steps that focus my mind on what compassion in general feels like and then, in turn, seeking to get used to what compassion for myself feels like. I am a work in progress:

1) Peeling off the 'protective skin': I am now aware of the protective covering which has prevented me from truly feeling the warmth and acceptance of true friends. It is for me to practice accepting their love, without anticipating rejection or abandonment - in a sense I am unlearning 'mind reading' which, in reality, I was never particularly good at. I am learning a new skill and that is taking people at face value - if someone is kind, it doesn't mean that there has to be a sting in the tail. The people in the here and now are not the same people who have hurt me in the past and they should not be punished for the wrongs of others. The song Innocent Man by Billy Joel comes to mind. If I can learn to risk myself in friendships in small steps and learn that now is not then, maybe I can allow the protective 'skin' to be removed.

2) The Child inside Me deserves some Compassion:I need to learn that the child who was so hurt and whose fears and pain still surface from time to time, doesn't deserve punishment, but actually requires some compassion from me. I am the adult who gives voice to the pain of that child and therefore, I need to be able to acknowledge that we are one and the same. If it were any other child, I would weep. If it were any other adult I would understand the struggles and seek to help. That's my challenge.

3) The Adult Survivor deserves some Credit: At some point I have to give myself credit for getting this far in life. Despite the pain of my childhood, in spite of my BPD, I have achieved a lot. Most of all, I have lived through real suffering and trauma. Too often I am looking at myself through the critical eyes of the abusive parent and I owe it to myself to accept that I am one strong woman simply by virtue of the fact that I am still here. Anything else is a bonus and credit to the skills and character that drive me on to be the voice of the child I was and to become the person who has taken every twist and turn of my life and used it as a stepping stone to a better quality of life, than I have known previously.

4) Healing and Recovery take Time: Time is not a luxury but a necessary gift to myself as I move towards healing. It took me well over thirty years of breakdown and rebuilding to get to where I am. Healing will take time and I won't always get it right - skills can be learned quickly but take a lifetime to master. DBT skills can help me to manage my BPD, but they will have to become an intrinsic part of my life if I am to manage my condition effectively, long term. In addition, sometimes I will still need to find time and space in which to recover - and that's ok, because surely taking 'time out' has got to be better than self destructing as a response to difficult days.

If you are like me, someone who is a perfectionist, someone who has exceptionally high expectations of yourself, try to open your heart to yourself, in the same way as you open your heart to others. You know how to be compassionate, just try turning it on to yourself.

Acceptance is not Approval

Trigger warning: this blog deals with my personal journey through childhood trauma to forgiveness and may bring up some difficult issues - if this is likely to affect you please give this one a miss

"You know what your problem is? You've never learned to forgive."

For a start, when someone's opening gambit is to tell what your own problem is, you know the conversation is not going to be going anywhere positive. Secondly, the person speaking had never actually talked to me in sufficient depth to know if I had anything to forgive at all, let alone the real story. The reality is that I am learning to accept that I suffered physical, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse from a number of people in my childhood. Because it has been my journey, it has taken me a long time to accept that what I took to be a 'difficult childhood' actually was full of traumatic events. When you are the one living through and surviving trauma, then 'normality' very quickly becomes a distortion of other people's reality.

Forgiveness is a huge subject, for me it is central to my overcoming my past. However, no matter how I have found the process of forgiveness I don't believe that I can prescribe the 'how to' for anyone else, no matter how closely our stories may resemble one another. That is because I have learned that just as my experience of emotional and mental instability is unique to me, so my journey to forgiveness is equally unique.

I would say, though, that forgiveness is a crucial process on the road to recovery from trauma caused by other people's abuses. I do not believe forgiveness to be a single act (or determination) of the will, but it is a long and, often painful, process.

First, I have to acknowledge that I have been the victim of a wrong done to me by someone else. For me, that meant allowing that at the age of 4 or 5 I was not the author of my own physical and emotional scars. I have had to learn to view myself with compassion, often the same compassion I usually reserve for the pain of others. For some traumas this has taken me my whole lifetime, due to the depth and extent of the scarring.

It does not help to compare my wounds with those of others. I do not know what someone else has had to endure or is able to tolerate compared to me. I am not able to feel the physical pain of another person. In the same way with emotional scars and pain, I can never truly say 'I know exactly how you feel'. I may be able to say 'I think I can understand where you've been....' No one has lived my life, or survived what I have survived, so no one can know what I feel I need to forgive. It is only I who can decide who and what to forgive. And only I know when is the right time for me to forgive and 'let go'.

Second no one can decide what Justice means for me. For some, there is a need for retribution, for the validation of going through the full formal justice process. I am not able to tell another victim or survivor of abuse what Justice is for them, I only know what my need for justice is and whether I feel I need to go through a formal court process for me to feel I have achieved it.

A number of years ago I decided that I would not pursue any formal charges against those who had hurt me, because I did not have a need to protect any others at the time from abuse, and because to do so would have caused enormous hurt to others who mattered to me. I believe that there is a natural justice which has meant that I have been able - in time to leave Justice in other hands than my own. This sense of letting go has not been easy, there has been an ongoing process of recognising the wrong, acknowledging I have the power to choose which path to justice I follow and being prepared to leave the wrong doers to God/fate or natural justice, call it what you will.

I have not been able to confront any of my abusers directly and therefore, there has been no restorative process of them asking and then me choosing to forgive them. Rarely, are victims offered this opportunity, simply because of the complexities involved in the relationships between perpetrator and victim. Forgiveness, then becomes an important part of my healing process, which allows me take control and without any reference to the perpetrator, to be able to choose to forgive. This has been necessary in some instances as I have decided to maintain some kind of relationship with some who have abused me. In this process, there has had to be a radical acceptance of the fact that often those who are closest to us, may never be able to acknowledge the wrong they have done to us. Therefore, for me to move forward I have to recognise that I am the one who is capable of recognising the situation as it is and either accept it or change it. Ironically, I have found that in accepting that I can forgive without seeking retribution or justice, I have also changed my attitude to the relationships involved and therefore I have allowed myself to move forward in my own emotional healing.

The most important thing for me to say is that acceptance is not approval. Just because I accept that I was a victim, and that my abusers will never acknowledge the wrong they did to me, does not mean that my forgiveness is some form of tacit approval of the actions which caused the wounds.

Rather, I have accepted that I cannot change the past, I have accepted that there is an inner strength which has been a result of surviving my past and finally, and most importantly I have accepted that those who have hurt me, as well as the wounds from the past do not have to keep me chained up for the rest of my life. Ultimately, forgiveness and acceptance of the past frees me to enjoy the strength of character my life's journey has created in me and to stop those from the past from continuing to hurt me in the present. I am free to be myself, with all my colourful complexity, in the here and now.

Help I can't be Mindful, because my Mind is Full...

As I have moved through my recovery I am noticing that my mind is swinging from being full of 'cotton wool' to being full of ideas and thoughts to keep me 'occupied'. It is only in the last couple of days, and a few weeks of disrupted sleep patterns, that I have recognised that it is becoming an obstacle to me practising mindfulness. So I'm going back to the basics of Mindfulness to move from Mind Full to being Mindful...

1) The first thing is to notice that my mind is crammed. And to notice that these thoughts, a lot of them 'worry thoughts', are preventing me from seeing the positives around me at the moment. My Therapist did an exercise with me using my interlaced fingers to help me realise that the 'wall of thoughts' is preventing me from living in the moment, simply because I cannot see anything beyond these thoughts. So I need to let go of them and not stop with noticing the wall of thinking in front of my eyes.

2) Practice the exercises which allow me to diffuse thoughts and feelings - I use my safe place (a river bank in the Yorkshire Dales) and my thoughts attach to the leaves on a tree overhanging the river. I watch as they detach, float down onto the river and let the flow of the water take the thoughts away. At the moment, because I am in a 'hyper' mood I need to begin with focusing my mind by mindful breathing.

3) I need to be aware that activity is not validating on its own - where does my real validation come from? Can I accept myself as I am, that I am worth something without a paid role? This is an ongoing battle and is critical and foundational to my long term recovery. Self compassion and self acceptance, again, are something that I have to practice. So I am using self soothe, and some mindfulness exercises based on 'Loving Kindness' that I've downloaded from t'internet.

The human mind is an amazing gift, but it needs to 'tamed' and brought into line with life as it is, right now, so that it is not getting in the way of my enjoying the present.

How much Emotional Resilience do you have?

I used to think of myself as a rubber ball. Throw me down and up I'd pop. Problem is, after nearly 25 years of cycles of breakdown and rebuilding all my 'bounce back' was spent.

Among other things I have learned that one of my main ways of coping with past traumas had been to throw myself (heart and soul) into challenging work with extremely challenging people - satisfying but emotionally draining. I have learned too that I was not equipped to restore my emotional batteries to remain effective in this role in the long term. I survived 10 years.

At the point I stopped 'functioning' I raised my eyes from the emotional grindstone to find that not only had I run dry, but any chance of building myself up emotionally was impossible due to me becoming isolated socially and emotionally from every significant relationship.

I have observed a number of factors which are important in building emotional resilience:

1) Find your Hope and Meaning. Whatever your beliefs, it seems to be that people who have a firm faith in something tend to be able to find meaning for their own suffering and pain. For some, this may be in an external God who bestows meaning, for others, they find meaning in the human relationships around them and, ultimately in their own relationship with themselves. Wherever people tend to find it, meaning provides a framework in which to work towards wholeness. I personally believe there is a God and therefore there is meaning in all of life.For me there is a need for an ongoing dialogue which seeks to balance the pain of life with the value of life. There have been times when I did not want to continue living - at these times I have learned to adjust my perception of God. For me faith must be dynamic and responsive to all of life.

For some, it is easier to assume no God or superior being and to focus on finding meaning in human relationships or in the universe around.

Whatever our beliefs, it is important that our faith is in something that is robust enough to make sense of our own suffering and offers a way to create meaning for our life and experience, through engaging with the world around us. Finding this meaning is important as an anchor when our emotions and/or perceptions of the world around become unstable. They provide a foundation on which to build key life changes.

2) Have compassion for Yourself. How often are we prepared to give support, help and hope to others, that we wouldn't consider ourselves worthy of? Be kind to yourself: make time to restore yourself emotionally. When you are exhausted, it may feel good to listen to someone else's problems, but where can you find the emotional strength to keep you going and to help them? It isn't selfish to take a long bath, if that helps you relax and begin to remember how to enjoy things. No matter how compassionate other are towards you, if you are incapable of loving yourself, then you can't find a way to let that love and compassion in. Learning to love yourself, especially if your life has told you that you are not worth it, takes time and effort. It is worth because it not only feeds you from within, but enables you to absorb emotional energy from others.

3) Take Care of the bodywork... I have an old car and when it breaks down I call either the RAC or my mechanic. They are necessary in a crisis. I would be an idiot if I tried to run my car on a day to day basis, without providing the basics of petrol, water, oil, check tyre pressures and make sure the brakes are working. I have a responsibility to maintain it as well as I can it also reduces some of the regular bills from the mechanic. So, how do we care for our body? It is clear that there is a link between physical stamina and emotional or psychological well being. Physical well being is not just being a perfect figure or being able to run a marathon, it includes being regularly aware of the signals from our body that it needs rest, food or water, and doing something to meet those needs. When I am physically fit, I know I can cope better with my relationships and tend to be in a position to give as well as receive.

4) Avoid Emotional Blackholes I guess no one would like to called a 'hole' of any description, but we have all come across those people who we can never help no matter how much time or emotion we spend on them. As someone with BPD I have been an emotional 'Black Hole'(BH) - it took some very honest friends to help me to see that no 'one' person could provide the emotional healing that I have needed. It also helped to know that my emotional needs were understandable given what has happened in my life. I have learned from my own experience as a BH that boundaries which protect both people, also help to build healthier friendships and relationships. If you are open and honest about what your limits are, then it is possible to limit the emotional impact of draining people.

Above all try and care for every aspect of your life as you begin to feel better. Remember, no part of us exists in isolation from the other parts.