The Failures and the Victories

I had a bad episode this past weekend. I won't go into all the details, because its so complicated. But suffice it to say a lot of little triggers came together to set me off and I was also treated badly by my family, so I briefly lost control.

When this happens now - when my emotions take control and I lose conscious control of myself - my mind automatically seeks a way to "distract, relax, cope." The method I chose to use this time was to listen to meditations on my ipod (some I've downloaded and others I recorded myself out of my DBT book). However, my ipod was dead and I had no way to do this, and this exacerbated the problem. When I did finally get my ipod going, I listened to this one and it calmed me down.

Then I focused on coping - I used several coping thoughts from my book. I practiced radical acceptance - I accepted the fact that people were treating me bad without hurting or judging them, just accepted it so I could move on. I went to work that same day, feeling terrible, but went. I avoided situations that would make the problem worse, even though it meant leaving home for the rest of the weekend. And though I have been sad in spirit for days now, I got up Monday morning and went back to my own life.

In life we have failures, and I may always have the problem of losing physiological control and having my emotions hurt me all over. But we have victories too. And the choices I made were the victories.

I still hurt. But I'm not frantic and angry anymore - I've relaxed enough to begin the coping process. And I'm carrying on. So fitting that the other night on a rerun of "Sex and the City" this quote from Carrie - after she tried being a model and fell on the catwalk during a fashion show - caught my attention:

"When people fall down in real life, they get right back up and keep walking"

Feeling the Horrible

Six months ago, I was at rock bottom. I had gone through the tumultuous breakdown of a friendship with someone I cared very much about based on actions they had taken, and was left feeling betrayed and heartbroken. I was so far gone that I barely felt like living. And even though in hindsight I can tell that the situation was in no way the end of the world, my world was at its end at the time.

(Can you recognize the BPD traits of chaotic relationships, emptiness and emotional overreaction in that?)

My friends all tried to make me feel better: one just told me to forget this person, another tried to keep me constantly busy to get my mind off of it. But one friend (one who is now helping me see how to evaluate how I hold up others in my eyes) gave me some of the greatest advice I've ever gotten. She told me "Don't be surprised by the pain....let yourself feel it, and experience it... and only after you have can you truly let yourself heal."

So last night, when I was once again watching reruns of Grey's Anatomy, the following conversation between Meredith and her therapist brought back those words:

Meredith: It makes absolutely no sense to try to be happy in a world that's such a horrible place.

Dr. Wyatt: Yes.

Meredith: What?

Dr. Wyatt:Yes, horrible things do happen. Happiness in the face of all of that... that's not the goal. Feeling the horrible and knowing that you're not gonna die from those feelings, that's goal. And you're not done. You've made progress because you're feeling and you're telling me about it. Six months ago, it would've been just you and a bottle of tequila. My door is always open.

Now that I think about it, it also reminds me of a phrase that I've picked as one of my "coping thoughts" to repeat to myself when I'm really having a breakdown.

My feelings may make me uncomfortable right now, but they are not going to kill me.

Another one of my thoughts: I'm a sensitive person who experiences the world differently and has unique emotional experiences.

I have thoughts like these written in a tiny notebook that I keep with me at all times, along with ways to relax, defect self-destructive behavior, and make good decisions when I'm overwhelmed. Its been a big help to me.

As a person with BPD, I've always been emotional, and a lot of times these emotions have run my life. They've made me who I am, stunted my growth and made me miss out on a lot in life. But I am learning. I am learning how to feel the horrible, know I can survive, and helping myself heal. That's the goal.

Some Thoughts from My Little Notebook

I keep a small notebook in my purse right now - so that it will always be with me - with lists of things I have been learning about dealing with stress, tolerating crises, and coping. Most of these come from The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, with some being slightly modified by me. Since I've been both busy and under the weather this week and haven't blogged or written much, they'll make for an easy share today:

FAVORITE COPING THOUGHTS

• My feelings make me uncomfortable right now, but I can accept them
• I've survived other situations like this before, and I'll survive this one too.
• I can take all the time I need right now to let go and relax
• My thoughts don't control my life, I do. I can think different thoughts if I want to.
• My anxiety/fear/sadness/anger won't kill me, it just doesn't feel very good right now
• There are just my feelings and eventually they'll go away.
• I can only control myself and my feelings.
  
• I can't control how others act, but I can control how I react to others

FAVORITE SELF-AFFIRMING STATEMENTS

• I'm a sensitive person who experiences the world differently and who has rich emotional experiences (I love that one - its so true for me)
• I'm good, and nobody's perfect
• Even though bad things have happened and I've made mistakes, I am still a good person
• There's a purpose to my life, even though I might not always see it.

Emergency Coping Plan

Just coming out of some sort of anxiety attack (I don't think it is an anxiety attack in the strict sense of the word, but I know no other term for these intense onsets of anger and sadness that come with BPD so I'll just go with that). Since I just finished writing my emergency coping plans from the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills Workbook, I'll post it here and elaborate a bit:

MY EMERGENCY COPING PLAN FOR DEALING WITH SITUATIONS WHEN I'M UPSET AND ALONE

1. First, I'll distract myself by counting, reading quotes, or using self-injury replacement

2. Next, I'll relax with a bath or comfy clothes, listening to soothing music or a relaxation technique

3. Then, I'll tell myself coping thoughts and/or pray about my feelings/situation

4. Finally, I'll radically accept my situation, write out my feelings it I need to or plan to share them in therapy.

Today was the first day I've had to use the plan, and although I deviated from it a bit I think it is a good thing. Not sure what brought me to this point - yesterday was a good day, a day when .something happened that made me feel validated in how I handed a recent problem in my life. But today, I woke up with a migraine. I had to take two excederin to ward it off, and that coupled with the soda I drank put too much caffeine into my system which in turn made me anxious and jittery. I'm worried about the future and my career path. I'm remembering and angry - very angry - about the situation that I felt validated about yesterday, and tonight I am forcing myself to go out into a social situation I really don't want to do, but feel would be good for my well-being. So it all culminated in a huge rush of anger, irritability, and anxiety just a few moments ago.

So I got out my book and followed the plan:

1. I squeezed an ice cube and snapped a rubber band on my wrist as a replacement for self-injury (my anger and sadness make me immediately crave my personal choice of SI, burning). I walked around the house counting backward from 100 by 7s (I personally think this is very effective as it is not only distracting and time-consuming as I have the numerical form of dyslexia - but I theorize it activates the logical side of your brain, which I don't seem to use enough and goes out the window altogether when I'm upset). By the time I got to into the -30s I was lying on my bed, breathing slowly again and feeling somewhat calmed down.

2. I didn't have time to take a bath as I'm getting ready for my outing, but I did lay there for a bit in my favorite sweatshirt, which is very comforting to me. I did a few deep breathes, and something I didn't add to my plan but read in the book - thought about a person I love (my nephew).

3. I flipped back in the book to my chart on coping thoughts to use in different situations. For getting mad about this particular situation (a betrayal by a friend), I had written down the following:

- I can take all the time I need to let go and relax. I may not be able to control others, but I can control myself.

- It's ok to hurt sometimes, and my hurt will not kill me.

- These are just my feelings and eventually they'll go away.

I kept repeating that last one over and over, just under my breath, since I know the feelings of hurt and betrayal and anger do go away, because I have recently been able to experience days when I have let them go and don't feel the pain (that doesn't happen often enough yet, but I have come a long way from feeling hurt 24/7 like I used to, and I know I'll keep getting better).

4. Finally, I'll radically accept my situation, write out my feelings if I need to or plan to share them in therapy. Radical Acceptance is hard concept for me - I've only just learned it, don't fully understand it and don't know if I can actually manage to do it. But I try. I look at the situation I've been through, when someone I cared for lied, hurt me, and betrayed my trust. I accept the decisions that this other person made were their choices, not mine, and I can't control that fact that they valued me and our friendship so little that they made those choices. I accept my part in the rocky relationship as well, the way I lashed out at this person, fought with them, and let the hurt me further by my not knowing and using coping skills when they hurt me. I'm trying - though it is difficult - to just accept both of our actions without judging them, and reminding myself that I can change how I react to such situations in the future.

So here I am on the final step - writing out my feelings. In a way, too, I am sharing them, though not formally with my therapist or support group. But I'm sending them off into cyberspace this afternoon, and perhaps someone will read them and they'll make an impact.