I'm taking a break from my writing on my BPD symptoms to share the To Write Love on Her Arms movement with you. If you are not familiar with it, please click here to read the amazing story of how this program started. I think it is a phenomenal way to raise awareness and end stigma of depression, self-injury, and mental illness in general.
November 13th is "To Write Love on Her Arms" Day, so I encourage you to learn more about this movement and support it by simply writing LOVE on your own arm that day, supporting those you love with mental illness, and sharing this story with others.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
The Face of BPD (part 4 of 9)
Part 4 of my nine part series of what the diagnostic criteria (symptoms) of BPD look like in my own life.
Criterion #4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
This criterion/symptom to me was easy to confuse with bi-polar disorder. In fact, when I first contacted the mental health center for an assessment, I told them I thought I might be bi-polar, even though in the back of my mind I knew it was in fact probably BPD. I felt validated the first day I visited my therapist and she said that's what it was.
Anyway, this is short and sweet: my impulsive areas are binge eating, substance abuse, and occasionally, spending.
Binge eating has been a problem for me because I am an emotional eater. When my feelings take control and I can't feel better, I eat to numb the pain, and the more food I can enjoy the better I feel. My favorite food to soothe myself with is fast food. I think it is because I don't have to do any work to prepare it and driving in my car while listening to music to go get it is also soothing to me. I think the biggest emotional meal I ever ate was a super size double cheeseburger meal with two apple pies from McDonald's. In my memory, I think I may have continued to eat food from the refrigerator after finishing this meal. Needless to say, in the past five years or so (coincidentally the same amount of time I can recognized symptoms of BPD) I have gained a significant amount of weight from binge eating.
One of my new year's resolutions this year (before I knew about the BPD) was to try to control my emotional eating. I have had some success with it. I have often tried to replace eating with other activities such as exercising or reading. However, I am not totally in the clear. I still binge eat occasionally when things are really bad, and its harder to avoid when I actually am hungry. But by admitting it is a problem and watching out for it, I have cut down on the times I binge and have even lost 17 pounds this year - another new year's resolution met!
Another area of impusivity is substance abuse. When I tell my therapist and others that is not really a problem or addition I feel they think I'm a typical user denying the problem, but I'm telling the truth. I'm not addicted and I don't have a problem with drugs or alcohol. In fact, as of today, its been over a month since I've even had a drop to drink. The only time I've ever used anything is in those really really bad episodes where I just can't deal with the pain. In those times, it seems that the only option is to either self-medicate or to self-injure. I chose the former since it seems (for me since I don't have an addiction) to be the safest. And in those moments the usage is pretty tame: I have a few drinks until I'm just tipsy enough to fall asleep without thinking of my pain or my problems, or I take one leftover prescription painkiller to knock me out. Though its never gotten to the point of me being an alcoholic or taking anything illegal, I know the impuslivity of it is the problem, the link to BPD.
Occasionally I do go on a spending spree, but this is very rare for me. The most recent example was this summer, when I all of a sudden took the notion that I had to have a new MP3 player. I had thought about getting a new one for a while, and planned to do some research on which would be the best choice for me and my budget. But one day, when I had first started to fall into an episode, I suddenly decided I needed one now and drove 1/2 hour to the store and bought one after 5 minutes of decision. Impulsive, yes...though not bad enough for me to worry too much about my impulsive spending.
It is my hope that, now that I am learning distress tolerance and emotional regulation through DBT therapy, that I will learn to turn to these new skills rather than to eat, drink, or spend to make myself feel better.
full list of BPD criteria here
Criterion #4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
This criterion/symptom to me was easy to confuse with bi-polar disorder. In fact, when I first contacted the mental health center for an assessment, I told them I thought I might be bi-polar, even though in the back of my mind I knew it was in fact probably BPD. I felt validated the first day I visited my therapist and she said that's what it was.
Anyway, this is short and sweet: my impulsive areas are binge eating, substance abuse, and occasionally, spending.
Binge eating has been a problem for me because I am an emotional eater. When my feelings take control and I can't feel better, I eat to numb the pain, and the more food I can enjoy the better I feel. My favorite food to soothe myself with is fast food. I think it is because I don't have to do any work to prepare it and driving in my car while listening to music to go get it is also soothing to me. I think the biggest emotional meal I ever ate was a super size double cheeseburger meal with two apple pies from McDonald's. In my memory, I think I may have continued to eat food from the refrigerator after finishing this meal. Needless to say, in the past five years or so (coincidentally the same amount of time I can recognized symptoms of BPD) I have gained a significant amount of weight from binge eating.
One of my new year's resolutions this year (before I knew about the BPD) was to try to control my emotional eating. I have had some success with it. I have often tried to replace eating with other activities such as exercising or reading. However, I am not totally in the clear. I still binge eat occasionally when things are really bad, and its harder to avoid when I actually am hungry. But by admitting it is a problem and watching out for it, I have cut down on the times I binge and have even lost 17 pounds this year - another new year's resolution met!
Another area of impusivity is substance abuse. When I tell my therapist and others that is not really a problem or addition I feel they think I'm a typical user denying the problem, but I'm telling the truth. I'm not addicted and I don't have a problem with drugs or alcohol. In fact, as of today, its been over a month since I've even had a drop to drink. The only time I've ever used anything is in those really really bad episodes where I just can't deal with the pain. In those times, it seems that the only option is to either self-medicate or to self-injure. I chose the former since it seems (for me since I don't have an addiction) to be the safest. And in those moments the usage is pretty tame: I have a few drinks until I'm just tipsy enough to fall asleep without thinking of my pain or my problems, or I take one leftover prescription painkiller to knock me out. Though its never gotten to the point of me being an alcoholic or taking anything illegal, I know the impuslivity of it is the problem, the link to BPD.
Occasionally I do go on a spending spree, but this is very rare for me. The most recent example was this summer, when I all of a sudden took the notion that I had to have a new MP3 player. I had thought about getting a new one for a while, and planned to do some research on which would be the best choice for me and my budget. But one day, when I had first started to fall into an episode, I suddenly decided I needed one now and drove 1/2 hour to the store and bought one after 5 minutes of decision. Impulsive, yes...though not bad enough for me to worry too much about my impulsive spending.
It is my hope that, now that I am learning distress tolerance and emotional regulation through DBT therapy, that I will learn to turn to these new skills rather than to eat, drink, or spend to make myself feel better.
full list of BPD criteria here
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The Face of BPD (part 3 of 9)
Part 3 of my nine part series of what the diagnostic criteria (symptoms) of BPD look like in my own life.
Criteria #3:Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
I think many people learning about BPD might have a hard time understanding exactly what it means to have identity distrubance or an unstable self-image. I can give you lists of definitions or my own interpretation, but the best evidence I have is what it looks like in my own case. This involves my own personal sense of self, my life choices
My sense of who I am often changes. Like my moods, my feelings about who I am range from being a good person to a bad influence, from a happy over-achiever to a worthless loser. I might view myself in terms of being a family-oriented individual, then soon my focus shifts on how I want to succeed in my chosen career. My interests change as well, and I go through phases of what I enjoy doing the most. For several months I might be addicted to jogging; the next, knitting. It is hard for me to fill out "about me" surveys because who I think I am changes so often.
A large part of who we are deals with what we do with our life. My own life goals and career choices change so often, and have changed so often over the course of my life, that I am left feeling lost, floating on a sea of possibliities. In college I changed my major, quit, took a variety of exploratory courses, reenrolled in college, and changed my major again. Since graduation I have worked at a new job at least every year (sometimes several at a time). My career goals over the years of my adult life have included doctor, journalist, public relations, advertising, publishing or editing, teacher, nurse, pharmasist, legal aide, and social worker. Even today I am between jobs and looking to make a career change, yet every time I think I am sure I want to do one thing, I end up interested in another and change my direction altogether.
Very often, I feel like the character of Esther in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar:
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
Long before I was diagnosed with BPD, I noticed another peculiar aspect of the condition. The way I acted and felt about myself often changed depending on who I was around. If I around a person who I felt comfortable with, I am self-confident, laid back and fun. If I'm sure if the person likes me or think they might be judging me, I am extremely nervous, anxious and feel like I'm worthless. Around outgoing people I tend to be vibrant and extroverted; around reserved individuals I become reserved myself.
As my sense of identity continues to shift, I am hoping that I can discover more about myself through therapy and eventually come to a more stable idea of who I am.
full list of BPD criteria here
Criteria #3:Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
I think many people learning about BPD might have a hard time understanding exactly what it means to have identity distrubance or an unstable self-image. I can give you lists of definitions or my own interpretation, but the best evidence I have is what it looks like in my own case. This involves my own personal sense of self, my life choices
My sense of who I am often changes. Like my moods, my feelings about who I am range from being a good person to a bad influence, from a happy over-achiever to a worthless loser. I might view myself in terms of being a family-oriented individual, then soon my focus shifts on how I want to succeed in my chosen career. My interests change as well, and I go through phases of what I enjoy doing the most. For several months I might be addicted to jogging; the next, knitting. It is hard for me to fill out "about me" surveys because who I think I am changes so often.
A large part of who we are deals with what we do with our life. My own life goals and career choices change so often, and have changed so often over the course of my life, that I am left feeling lost, floating on a sea of possibliities. In college I changed my major, quit, took a variety of exploratory courses, reenrolled in college, and changed my major again. Since graduation I have worked at a new job at least every year (sometimes several at a time). My career goals over the years of my adult life have included doctor, journalist, public relations, advertising, publishing or editing, teacher, nurse, pharmasist, legal aide, and social worker. Even today I am between jobs and looking to make a career change, yet every time I think I am sure I want to do one thing, I end up interested in another and change my direction altogether.
Very often, I feel like the character of Esther in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar:
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
Long before I was diagnosed with BPD, I noticed another peculiar aspect of the condition. The way I acted and felt about myself often changed depending on who I was around. If I around a person who I felt comfortable with, I am self-confident, laid back and fun. If I'm sure if the person likes me or think they might be judging me, I am extremely nervous, anxious and feel like I'm worthless. Around outgoing people I tend to be vibrant and extroverted; around reserved individuals I become reserved myself.
As my sense of identity continues to shift, I am hoping that I can discover more about myself through therapy and eventually come to a more stable idea of who I am.
full list of BPD criteria here
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