Why do you have to be so mean?

This week I have come across what can only described as 'hatred' for people with Borderline Personality Disorder. It shocked me. Don't get me wrong, years ago, before I was diagnosed with BPD, I used to work in the Criminal Justice System, and my specialism was Mentally Disordered Offenders, the majority of whom were diagnosed with some form of Personality Disorder.So, I was aware of negative attitudes to people with Mental Illnesses, and in particular, those with diagnoses of PD.

My colleagues used to groan if case notes included the dreaded BPD diagnosis. 1) because people with BPD are 'difficult' 2) because at the time, BPD was considered 'untreatable' by local NHS Trusts and refused to admit even suicidal cases 3) because there was a high likelihood of suicide/self harm from this 'group'. In short I believe BPD sufferers as a group have received and continue to receive a bad press from a number of sources.

I found that being consistent and listening closely to what was being said to me, often helped me to manage my cases, in other words: compassionately treating people, regardless of labels, as if they were human beings seemed to work. (not rocket science is it?)

Anyway, back to the guy who has obviously had a bad relationship with someone with BPD. His take was that BPD doesn't deserve to be treated as a mental illness, but is just down us being some kind of 'crazy ass' (his words). He even managed to intimate that the abusive backgrounds of a large number of people with BPD was actually the fault of the victims. Initially I felt defensive of myself and others who have suffered from what some describe as 'emotional sensitivity' rather than BPD. Then I considered that perhaps, following a messy break up (I've been involved in my fair share of those!) his anger was robbing him of his humanity. Which is understandable.

How do I respond to his point that I'm just an emotional mess? That I do not deserve treatment? Well, I think that I would point him to Marsha Linehan's (the creator of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy for BPD) explanation of BPD as equivalent to suffering 3rd degree burns.

Imagine suffering emotional and psychological pain that is so deep and so painful that the only solution you can think of is either to inflict physical pain to distract from it, or to believe that dying is the only way to stop it? Does that sound like something that you could sustain while maintaining a functional life? Yet many sufferers of BPD do manage to do just that, while holding down very respectable jobs and being creative and dynamic in certain spheres. This 'apparent competence' in certain spheres, my BPD-hating 'friend' points out as proof that BPD is made up by selfish women seeking to justify messy love lives and as an excuse to be nasty to men.

I think at this point we can recognise the ignorance and stigma evidenced here towards Mental illness in general. I mean you can't possibly run a country with a severely debilitating clinical depression, can you? Winston Churchill, anyone? Just because my professionalism and training allow me to carry out a job from 9-5 does not mean that the emotional distress I am experiencing is not real and does not have an impact on my mental and physical health.

If I may, I need to return to the burns analogy, even when time allows a skin to grow over the burned area, there remains a sensitivity that often never leaves. The levels of abuse I suffered as a child have left me with emotional and psychological scars. My diagnosis whilst not perfect, has allowed me to access help to develop skills which mean that I no longer consider death to be a solution. My treatment means that I am able to begin to 'function' again, after a complete breakdown two years ago.

I am responsible for the people I may have hurt throughout my life. I would say, though, if you rip the dressing off a burns victim, you can expect a strong reaction! My plea is: try to listen, try to understand, try to give space, and, if you think you are too angry or too hurt to see the human behind the label, make it a clean break.

http://bpdlifeinthemoment.blogspot.co.uk/

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.

DBT PLEASE Skills - my latest challenge

I've got myself into bad habits - again. My Therapist even admitted to having a 'judgemental' thought when I told her my average sleep over the past three weeks has been between 3 and 4 hours. I know, I know, Churchill and Thatcher - but I'm a definite 7-8 hours a night woman myself. When I don't get enough sleep everything starts to go 'weird'. My emotions and thinking become befuddled - not unlike the sensation of being drunk or on sedative drugs. This would be fine if I wasn't trying to manage the emotional instability of BPD. Why? Why is it so hard for me to look after the most basic of my needs? I would think judgementally about myself too - I mean I'm one appointment away from discharge! And I've been doing really well.

I don't have a definitive answer. Except that my mind has been so free from negative, circular, black and white thinking that I have been 'buzzing' off a fresh creative surge which usually emerges around the end of the Evening News. This I am beginning to recognise is also part of my BPD. Part of the swing in moods between negative and positive. The other, deeper and therefore avoided reason is my lack of basic self care. I am still working on believing that I am worth looking after.

So, just as I would apply DBT skills to managing negative thinking I need to use the same skills to manage my more 'manic' phases. They too come in waves, and they reach a crescendo before receding. If I can manage the 'ups' without self destructing, then I will have learned even more about a balanced and stable life. Above all other skills the emotion regulation skills are needed right now. I need to manage my sleep patterns, have routines and eat regularly. So basic, but so necessary.

So this week I will be mostly working on my PLEASE skills. (P&L - treat Physical ILlness, Eating, Avoid mood altering substances, Sleep and Exercise)

Taking off the Training Wheels

I've never liked endings. That's because I've always been very bad at them. In the past, due to the 'push-me, pull-you' emotions of BPD I'd never managed to maintain any relationship for longer than three years. So when my CPN and DBT Therapist are giving me actual dates for 'discharge' my natural suspicion of my ability to cope raises its ugly head. Especially as I started working with my CPN in 2010.

It's not that this is a shock. After all, from day one on DBT they prepare you for life after DBT and emphasise the fact that the therapy will end. The problem is that most of my endings in my life have been accompanied by some form of relationship, or other, trauma. To be honest, one of things I am getting used to is the lack of trauma in this ending. I mean, suddenly I am aware that I am coping better with all sorts of new experiences - stable friendships and lack of crisis in my family relationships. Or should I say, I am not allowing my emotions about these relationships to overwhelm me - one result of the DBT skills I have learned and practised over the past 18 months.

I still have anxiety about the future - will I ever be employable? When treatment ends, will I continue with my recovery? How do I cope with the realisation that some very key relationships with my CPN and Therapist are ending? I'm bound to have anxieties because I have never travelled this road before and certainly never been equipped with the tools to manage my overwhelming responses to the world before.

What I have learned is 'do not worry about tomorrow, because today has enough troubles of its own' (Matthew Chap 6 v 34 The Sermon on the Mount). Rather than racing ahead in anticipation of everything coming crashing in round my ears, as it has so many times in the past, I have learned to accept each day as it is right now. It has included ups AND downs over the past 18 months. Treatment has not changed my life into an amazingly problem or crisis free road.

Rather, I have changed, I have learned not to trust the extremes of my thoughts and feelings - the Black and White thinking symptomatic of BPD. I now check out some of my knee jerk reactions to life and have moved from the rocking to and fro of a small boat tossed about in stormy seas, to being able to wait for the storm to pass, as I have learned that both thoughts and emotions come and go. The most important thing I have learned about my feelings is that they won't kill me, no matter how intensely I feel them. I have also learned that my thoughts and feelings, alone are not reliable enough to build my life responses and choices on. As the serenity prayer says: 'Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The Courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.' This is a summary of the DBT skills I have learned. Learning to manage BPD depends on a balance between acceptance and change. Acceptance of the things that are an essential part of my experience and character. Ability to change those things which are in my power to change in my response to my environment and relationships.

Given that it is over a year since I last self harmed, I have been managing my BPD with the skills I have learned. The training wheels came off a long time ago. My therapist has been coaching me from alongside, having pushed me off to balance on my own some time ago. The problem at the moment is that the impending end date has made me suddenly aware that I am moving forward with only myself and my new skills to keep me balanced. Wobble I may well do, but I am moving forward and, (to carry the bike riding analogy to breaking point), as long as I am moving forward I will keep my balance and I am unlikely to fall off. However, I have also learned that even if I do fall, it is not the end of the journey. I can pick myself up and continue on my way.

Tell Tale Signs...#12 The Answers

1. Mr Benn
2. Bagpuss
3. The Flumps
4. Noggin the Nog
5. The Clangers
6. Andy Pandy
7. Barnaby (the Bear)
8. Mary Mungo and Midge
9. Rainbow
10.The Herbs
11.Ivor the Engine
12.The Magic Roundabout
13.Pipkins
14.Jackanory
15.Play School

Tell Tale signs I'm Middle Aged #12

I can identify 1970s children's TV shows from the following quotes, Can you match the pictures with the quotes?:

1) As if by magic - a shopkeeper appeared.
2) We will mend it, we will fix it.
3) Ooh Perkin
4) Long ago, in dangerous times....
5) (Whistle, Whistle, Whistle)
6) Here we go looby loo, here we go looby la....
7) '...Never call me Jack or Jane, birds taught me to sing when they took me to their king...'
8) The Lift went down - deedle dee, doodle doo, dee...
9) Up above the streets and houses....
10)I'm a dog called Dill...
11)Psssh tiku, psssh tiku, psssh tiku...
12)'Everything is relative' said the Cosmic Onion, 'Well, you're no relative of mine!' said _ _ _ _ _ _
13)Now it's.... time.... to.... tell a story...
14) Tell a story... _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, Tell a story,
15)Let's go through the Round window...

Tell Tale Signs I'm Middle Aged #11

I can remember, when crisps cost 3p (per packet).

When Starburst were called Opal Fruits, Snickers were called Marathon bars, Cif was called Jif (Why the change guys??).

I remember when a Creme Egg was as big as my head and Curly Wurlys' were a foot long....

and I tell the younger generation in my family about all of this and more 'from the olden days' no matter how glazed an expression they're wearing.