About two or three months ago on a blog I read a woman posted about having a disorder. A post that hit all to close to home with me. I read it, re-read it and then tried to force it from my mind. Two weeks ago I invited her here. I'm not sure if she was the one who put up the comment I got (maybe others think I'm crazy too) but it was the reminder I needed that I needed to evaluate my life a little more. (As if all of this hasn't been enough.) So I took a break.
What she posted was Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
- Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
- A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
- Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
- Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., ....eating disorders.. )
- Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself.
- Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
- Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness.
- Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
- Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms
Even now reading that list makes my breath catch in my chest. I am, for those of you who have ever met me in real life, a very large realist. I do not like labels and I do not, EVER want to be sick or be labeled as having ANYTHING. But this thing, I can't run from it.
Those numbers up there, those were me. Up until about two months ago every one of them fit me to a tee. In the reading I have been doing it seems to indicate that people can outgrow these things or learn to manage them. I think that's what Al-anon and this place have done for me. I don't feel empty any more. I don't feel worthless. Last night I climbed out onto my roof and cleaned out my own gutters. I am woman... hear me roar. :-)
But I do have to tell you that almost every day, I self talk. There are days that I barely make it and days that I do much better. I have HORRIBLE... HORRIBLE impulsivity. If I think of something I want or think I need I will just run out and get it or do it. That one I still battle, some days successfully, some days not.
I won't even touch on number 8 because it is a side of me that I loathe. I'm a horrible, horrible angry person. DH may have been the violent one but if he wouldn't have been bigger than me it would have been me. For a LONG time there was such a rage in me that after the Munchkin was born it scared me terribly. That is when I knew I had to get a handle on it. And that is when it changed. Now, he can scream and scream and act horribly in public and it hardly even phases me.
Abandonment is my other crutch. I have more pages to write and more stories to tell but you are going to understand here very shortly that a lot of the reason I stayed in the relationship I did was because it was better than being alone. Because the thought of being alone terrified me more than anything I can ever imagine.
Just recently I started dating again. We are taking things VERY slowly, especially since the divorce is not even final yet, but there are days that I step back and have to give myself a reality check. I NEVER, EVER want to be with someone again simply because I don't want to be alone. I think for me that's why it's so important that we don't see each other every day, or every other day. So that I know that I'm dating him because I like him and not just because I think I need him.
This post has been two weeks in the making. Two weeks worth of wondering if I am strong enough to admit that for awhile I was very ill. For a long while I was just as ill as DH and now, ever so slowly I'm coming out on the other side. I'm taking back my life and I guess for me, admitting that here is kind of freeing.
Hey world... I was crazy... but I'm getting better and if I can do it... ANYONE can do it.!!
2 comments:
You have come a long way.
You are an inspiration. Admitting that there's a problem is a huge step.
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