This is why

This is why I hurt the person I love.

I love him. I want him to love me, too, but it never feels like he does. He can tell me he does, but I discount that -- I hear a tone in his voice, or he doesn't look at me when he says it or he only says it when I ask.

He says I am insatiable. A well that can't be filled. He says that he could say he loves me a million times a day and it still wouldn't be enough. I would still feel empty. I think this is true, because I don't think he really does love me.

It reaches a point, my despair, my pain, my loneliness, when I want to make him FEEL about me. I want him to EXPRESS EMOTION about me. I want to have a connection. An angry one somehow seems to my sad and mixed up -- dysregulated -- mind is better than none. So I pick. And he takes it and I pick harder, and then I'm furious at him taking it and then it gets worse, and worse, and worse and it's a huge fight and I'm screaming get the fuck out, get out get out I never want to see you again.

And this happened for years.

And one day? He got the fuck out.

And now I'm alone, and lonely and can't believe it. I guess he never did love me.

This woman understands

I was delighted this morning to find a post by a young woman who has taken the time to think through her relationship with someone with borderline personality disorder. She then took the time to write about it in a non-threatening, non-judgmental way. It is one of the most validating, straightforward explanations of this I've ever read. It feels like a dialog with the other side instead of a fight. Here's part of it. Go read the whole thing. And yeah, I have a comment there you can read too.

So now you're left in a relationship with two options; you could let them drive you up the freaking wall OR you could learn techniques to better deal with them.

...

Patience will help you in relationships where you are exposed to Borderline Personality Disorder, and it will also help the other person face their condition and work on it.

Bless you LoRetta. How did you get so wise at such a young age?


.

There I go again

Today I'm angry again. Again, and really angry.

OK, it's anger, all right, but mostly just searing, jarring pain. All it took was one word out of his mouth and I was gone, spinning into that place where my emotions well around me and Fear becomes King and Jealousy Queen and Reason just a prince.

This anger is not directed at children, and it's not directed at me. I'm not yelling in the workplace, which is good, nor in a place of business. I am happy about that.

This anger, this roiling, black anger. It feels like toads coming out of my mouth. It tastes like nasty cigarette breath, it has the consistency of boiling tar. It is visceral, it starts at the tip of my toes with a buzz and works its way up, churning in my stomach and gripping my lungs and heart. It beats its way up through my skull, pounding and pounding and pounding as it escapes my mouth, singing all in its path and creating a swath of damage so wide I doubt I can ever recover.

Tomorrow I will try again

I yelled at my little children. I made my daughter cry and sent her to school upset at me and I feel so guilty. I thought about going to get her out of class to tell her I am sorry, but I know that would just disrupt things again -- she is in a place she is happy and normal and accepted and I want her to be able to be in that place today.

My little boy's face crumpled when I told him how angry I am at him. I didn't do it in an appropriate way, but in a furious way and I am guilty about that. I was able to talk to him before his class and tried to repair the damage, a little.

I will see them both tonight when I pick them up. I will try to be there before the usual 6 p.m. pickup time and maybe we'll have time to play a little on the playground before it gets dark. I will draw them close and tell them how sorry I am for the loud yelling. I will tell them what I will try to do tonight to get us more ready for the morning so we won't be so rushed and prone to being late (which is what got me so angry, I just can't seem to make them get out the door). I will tell them we are playing outside extra as part of my apology.

They will hug me around the neck and my daughter will stroke my face and tell me thank you and say "You are the world's best mom and I know you're doing the best you can," and my little boy will say "Does this mean I get chocolate, too?" and they will run off laughing. Their hearts will be scarred, a little, again, and I will feel guilty but maybe not quite so much.

I am trying to talk to the person inside me who yelled at them, who totally lost control and indulged herself in a tantrum. Wait, indulged is a judgmental word and I'd rather not go there. I didn't totally lose control because I did manage to drive them to school and get myself to work.

I got way too angry this morning and scared my children. Which is not the kind of parent I want to be. They do know I love them, and I know they are forgiving. I will not forget this, but I will try to put it in the past, for now. I will apologize, I will try to repair the damage with the apology and over-repair with the extra time for play. I have made a plan to make the chances of it happening again less likely. That is what I can do about this. That is how I can get past this without beating myself silly. Beating myself up about this will send me to bed with the covers over my head. My kids will be out in the living room, alone, watching TV and wondering why mom isn't cooking dinner. I can be the kind of mom who cries to herself under the covers about why she's such a bad mom, or I can be the kind of mom who makes mistakes, then tries to fix them and move on.

Tomorrow morning I will try again.

Forgive myself small transgressions

As I have written before, I beat myself up when I make mistakes. My model of "self improvement" is to punish myself in hopes I'll learn a lesson and never do that again. In yesterday's post I promote self forgiveness, starting with small transgressions. A commenter agreed, but asked rhetorically, "Why is it so hard?"

I wish I knew. I wish I knew why I feel I need to be yanked into line all the time. For example:

• I ate too much last night. You fat pig! You felt so sick after all that food, you know you need to lose weight to be healthy, what in the world makes you think you needed dessert on top of all that food? You can't ever have a cookie again.
  
  
• I was late for work, again. You lazy slob. You are going to get fired. Why can't you get your ass out of bed earlier? Everyone else seems to be able to get here on time, what are you, stupid? You idiot.
  
  
• I let down a friend. You don't deserve to HAVE friends. No wonder everyone in your life leaves you -- you always let them down. I'd hate you, too, if you did that and didn't even call. What is WRONG with you?
  
  
• I couldn't stop crying. You are such a baby. Grow up. Sure, he hurt your feelings, but other people don't bawl like that when their little feelings get hurt. Get over it. Who cares what he thinks, anyway. You are such a drama queen.

Wow, even as I was typing those things, my stomach started hurting. I really do talk to myself that way. I would never talk to anyone else that way -- I try so hard to be supportive and validating. I have, on occasion, started talking to my children that way and I know instantly it is so inappropriate, so hurtful, so wrong. The look on the face of a little person hearing that kind of stuff about themselves is so, so sad that I have to know it's wrong.

I wish I could see the look on my little self's face.

Just Grow Up

Over in the LiveJournal borderline community, a thoughtful post asked:

What is up with that "pull yourself up by your psychological bootstraps" mentality that is so everywhere? I keep encountering this attitude that if I'm depressed, well, then,I just need to do somethng about it! If I don't like my life, I need to change it! I need to snap out of it! Stuff like that.When I was a kid and anyone was upset about anything, they were told to "Grow up."

Here's my comment to her.

Suck it up. Snap out of it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

That's the rhythm of what I tell myself now: Stop feeling that way. Stop crying. Stop letting it hurt.

Then, when I do things I don't like, like yelling at my kids, I say: Stop doing that. Don't ever do that again. You are the worst mother on the planet. I will never do that again. Stop it. Snap out of it, you stupid woman.

I feel as if I should beat the crap out of myself for every wrong. I should punish myself for making mistakes or bad choices. I should suffer for causing anyone else pain. I should Stop.

The problem with that, of course, is that it hasn't worked. It's a strategy I have been trying for decades of my life with no effect. I still make mistakes and stupid choices. I still yell at my kids. I still scream into my pillow. I still do.

The strategy I'd rather employ, and one I'm edging up to, is to forgive myself small transgressions. To allow myself to feel what I feel. To be what I am. If I feel like crying, cry. If I feel hurt, hurt. I tell myself to stop sucking it up. Stop it. Be what you feel. I give myself permission to feel.

I can't do it all the time, but I'm trying. I'm trying to be one percent less black and white than I was yesterday. One percent less hateful toward myself. One percent. One incident. One hateful word less.

That poor dreamy girl

I think Effie had huge abandonment issues, and I think she was very, very hurt. I'm not sure she had all the other symptoms that would make her have a borderline personality disorder, but can you imagine her hurt? She was betrayed by a man she thought loved her. Her talents were shunted aside, a woman she loved like a sister pushed ahead of her. Again and again.

When she sang that song ... "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" ... my heart broke. There is someone I want to love me. Someone I absolutely positively cannot live without, someone who can easily live without me after our nearly 15 year relationship and three kids. I am stunned by that still, though I know in one place that I need to accept his decision that he is not coming home. I still want him home. That song says it all for me.

It hurts too much.

Here is a small part of the song:

And I am telling you
I'm not going,
Even though the rough times are showing.
There's just no way,
There's no way.
We're part of the same place.
We're part of the same time.
We both share the same blood.
We both have the same mind.
And time and time we have so much to share,
No, no, no,
No, no, no,
I'm not wakin' up tomorrow mornin'
And findin' that there's nobody there.

Unusual insight

I read a post about diagnosing borderline personality today, and its introductory paragraph was full of a bit of unusual insight:

The term "Borderline Personality Disorder" is often bandied about by the media and laymen alike. Many of the behaviors that constitute the disorder are common to other disorders and indeed, normal human behavior.

I wish more practitioners were like this piece's author, Beth McHugh.