If I could punish it out of me, I would

Update 1/8/07: I guess Layne didn't appreciate my comment, and has made her blog private. Best wishes to you.

I read a post today by someone named Layne who's pretty pissed off that she's been told she has borderline personality disorder. She's telling herself the answer to the problems she has is to Just Behave. Be Good. Problem Solved.

Being long-winded, I left her a monster of a comment. Here's what I said:

From the time I was small, the solution to every problem in our house was "grow up." Stop acting childish and accept the reality that things are tough in this world and that's the way it is.

One problem with that is that, well, I was a child for some of that time, and the direction to "grow up" was not really a solution but an insult. I understand that now, but at the time I couldn't help wondering what in the HELL was wrong with me that I couldn't suck it up, stop feeling badly and start acting "good." Why couldn't I behave like they wanted me to behave?

Look, no one wants you to have a diagnosis for the sake of you having one. The only reason we have diagnoses at all is to help us categorize problems and solutions. It sounds like you are fiercely independent (check, that sounds like me), like you are sorry for some of the ways you acted/behaved when you were younger (how old are you now?) (oh, yeah, and check, that sounds like me, too).

Here's what I do to myself, and from your writings it sounds as if maybe you do it too. Maybe not (and if you don't, I'm glad as heck because it sucks to do it). When I'm "bad," when I don't clean my house or finish my work, when I'm late paying bills or run out of gas or when my kids leave the house without their hair combed despite my best effort. When my boss is disappointed in me, when I can't get my act together. When I open Spaghetti-O's for dinner. When I burn the nice dinner I've struggled so hard to make. When my kids fight over Christmas toys I sacrificed to buy them. When I can't be understood no matter how fast I talk or how much I explain ...

When things go wrong, when I feel like I'm not behaving, when I feel like I'm acting bad, then I punish myself.

I beat the shit out of myself.

I deny myself small pleasures like perfume, I refuse to look people in the eye, I do things that harm my long-term health, I eat poorly and punish my poor dog by refusing to go for a walk. I huddle under the covers instead of going out to lunch with a friend. I go to work (I have a really GREAT job and make tons of money and I'm a total loser) and close the door and hide out and wonder when they're going to figure out what a sham I am. I act in ways that are risky ... sometimes downright dangerous. I don't cut myself like some people with borderline personality do, but I do take risks and it's stupid and I know it, but it is like I need to tell myself "YOU SCREW UP! SOMEONE NEEDS TO PUNISH YOU!"

And Layne, I've been doing this for several DECADES. And you know what? I still can't behave. I'm still not good. My problems are still not solved. God knows I want to be better, god knows I don't want to be a loser. My self esteem is in the toilet and my life looks as if it is. I am lost and alone and I feel like I deserve it to be that way.

Yes, we are good at manipulating. Yes, we are shitheads. Yes, we should stop crying and we shouldn't need therapists or pills. We should be strong and we should Just Grow Up.

Or maybe -- maybe -- we could try a different approach.

The one that works best for me is to think of myself as the child that was told to Grow Up. I think of myself saying that to my own kids, and realize how really ridiculous it would be to tell a six year old to grow up and stop sniffling about some disappointment. Or to tell a teenager to stop moaning and groaning about stuff when I know it's alot of hormones talking combined with sleep deprivation and a body that doesn't feel right.

So if I talk to myself the way I talk to my kids -- in a gentle and validating way -- I am able to have an effect. I am able to forgive myself for acting out or acting up. I am able to get myself to a different place.

My borderline personality disorder manifests itself in anger, but I know it is really predicated on hurt. Big hurt. Long hurt. Giant disappointment that the world doesn't operate the ways I wish it would. That I can't wish things true or act good enough to make them so.

And if I accept that my anger is born of hurt, then telling my angry self to shut up and grow up is really kinda silly -- right? What I should say is "I love you and want to help you."

I am in a much better place now than I was four years ago (!) when I started dialectical behavioral therapy -- a widely recognized therapy that is proven to CURE borderline personality disorder. Truth be told, I have been cured of many of the more insidious symptoms of the disorder and don't act like the screaming maniac I once did.

The truly cool thing about this therapy -- and therapy in general -- is that it's all about acceptance and understanding ourselves. It's not a weakness that we need this, it's a GIFT that we can give ourselves. If you are in a position to be able to partake of therapy, grab it with both hands. Embrace it and hold it close and love it with every ounce of your being. I'm not exaggerating when I say that my therapist (I call him the World's Best Therapist™) has saved my life. I keep asking him when he's going to cure me, and he keeps reminding me that I have to cure myself.

In the meantime, he's walking the journey with me! Right there, beside me. Someone who totally gets me, who accepts me.

Heck, Winona Ryder is a great actress, and the character she plays has a lot of the behaviors that a person with borderline personality disorder has. But she is by no means stereotypical (where is the screaming rage??!??!) If someone tells you that you have symptoms on this line, it means you exhibit some of a long list (I think it's 13?) of behaviors or patterns that make it up. By definition, then, there is no stereotypical person with the disorder -- it's like a Chinese restaurant menu where you can have any combination of symptoms.

I wish you the best, and I'll be thinking about you this evening. I wish for you that you could ease up on yourself instead of telling yourself to behave. Yes, accepting responsibility for past actions is good. Punishing yourself to prevent future behavior, well, it doesn't work for my kids and it damn sure doesn't work for me. It just punishes me and makes it worse.

One of the things I'm doing to help myself is this -- writing about borderline personality disorder. That's what this blog is about.

And another offensive instance

The posting that won't die.

This might be what I have

When I was at my worst, I had many -- maybe even most -- of the symptoms of borderline personality disorder. However, many of the descriptors didn't quite fit -- though I am reckless in many ways I never intentionally cut or physically harmed myself.

This article argues that anger itself may be a mental illness. Actually it calls it "dysregulated anger," and that rings right for me. I'm not convinced it should be a diagnosis in and of itself, but maybe it's a sub diagnosis, or sister diagnosis to borderline personality disorder? What do you think?

Or hold an ice cube in your hand

When I feel dysregulated -- like my emotions are once again ruling me, one strategy is to use sensory stimulation to short-circuit my senses. Somehow this also short-circuits my brain into forgetting for a split second that it's dysregulated, and can help break the cycle, the downward spiral into certain disaster.

Seems a treatment center is experimenting with a similar strategy.