It's a holiday and I'm at loose ends. I can do anything I want to do -- I've given myself permission to do what I want. But I don't want to do anything. I want to go to bed, but can't do that all day. Don't seem to have the patience to read or watch TV, can't muster the energy to go to the movies.
It's a luxury I don't always have -- time to do what I want to do and the means to do it. I wish I could appreciate it more.
Showing posts with label borderline personality disorder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label borderline personality disorder. Show all posts
Monday, May 28, 2007
Saturday, May 26, 2007
What are you doing?
Are you depressed, too? Suffer from borderline personality disorder?
How are you working to make yourself feel better?
What kinds of strategies work? What doesn't work?
I need all the help I can get!
How are you working to make yourself feel better?
What kinds of strategies work? What doesn't work?
I need all the help I can get!
Friday, May 25, 2007
Somehow they know
We were at the elementary school, an open house night where parents were invited to come to the classrooms. My kids were so excited to show me their desks and art work and teachers. Their dad showed up, too, and I was so torn between wanting to be joyful to see him and being heartbroken that he was there.
I opted for somewhere in the middle, a little neutrality, though inside my heart was churning and my head was spinning and I was so sad.
As it was time to go, he hugged the kids -- and I could have had a hug too if I'd asked but I didn't want to ask though god knows I wanted a hug, oh how I wanted a hug. He told them he'd see them soon and didn't say anything to me and my eyes betrayed me and started watering. I turned and started walking away and then my daughter came around me and peered right in my eyes. Seconds later, my son did the same thing. By then I had squeezed the tears from my eyes and turned to them smiling.
But they knew -- they always know -- that my heart is still broken.
I opted for somewhere in the middle, a little neutrality, though inside my heart was churning and my head was spinning and I was so sad.
As it was time to go, he hugged the kids -- and I could have had a hug too if I'd asked but I didn't want to ask though god knows I wanted a hug, oh how I wanted a hug. He told them he'd see them soon and didn't say anything to me and my eyes betrayed me and started watering. I turned and started walking away and then my daughter came around me and peered right in my eyes. Seconds later, my son did the same thing. By then I had squeezed the tears from my eyes and turned to them smiling.
But they knew -- they always know -- that my heart is still broken.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Getting moving
I'm still concentrating on simply moving forward in the world. No, not moving forward, simply moving. Not standing still. Not vegetating.
I am loathe to admit it but it seems to be true: If I will simply do something, I feel better. I should be happy to admit it, happy to know it. But the truth is that depression is insidious in that way. It sucks the desire out of me, it sucks the marrow out of life. It leaves me an empty shell that doesn't want to do anything but sit and stare.
There is something in me that makes this impossible. If I simply sit and stare, I gradually grow more and more anxious, like I should be doing something, anything. So I run through the list of things I could be doing, ticking each off like beads on a rosary. But nothing seems to spark me, nothing sounds fabulous, nothing sounds the least bit fun.
So in the past few days, I have forced myself to do something anyway. Something. Go to the coffee shop. Walk the dog. Read my email. Write a post in this blog. It doesn't matter that it's a small accomplishment, having a shower every day is at least better than not having one. Putting my contact lenses in is a sign I want to be alive instead of in the hazy, fuzzy world of myopia. Buying a book and reading a few pages every hour or so is better than not reading it.
So I will keep moving. Forward, laterally, zig zag. Just keep moving.
I am loathe to admit it but it seems to be true: If I will simply do something, I feel better. I should be happy to admit it, happy to know it. But the truth is that depression is insidious in that way. It sucks the desire out of me, it sucks the marrow out of life. It leaves me an empty shell that doesn't want to do anything but sit and stare.
There is something in me that makes this impossible. If I simply sit and stare, I gradually grow more and more anxious, like I should be doing something, anything. So I run through the list of things I could be doing, ticking each off like beads on a rosary. But nothing seems to spark me, nothing sounds fabulous, nothing sounds the least bit fun.
So in the past few days, I have forced myself to do something anyway. Something. Go to the coffee shop. Walk the dog. Read my email. Write a post in this blog. It doesn't matter that it's a small accomplishment, having a shower every day is at least better than not having one. Putting my contact lenses in is a sign I want to be alive instead of in the hazy, fuzzy world of myopia. Buying a book and reading a few pages every hour or so is better than not reading it.
So I will keep moving. Forward, laterally, zig zag. Just keep moving.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Slogging along
The theory here is that by doing something -- again, anything -- I can make myself feel better. The chemical explanation is that when I do something and am successful at it (even getting up and showered and dressed), my brain rewards me with a wash of dopamine. Dopamine is the natural "feel good" chemical that our brains long for.
By hanging out in bed, by being afraid and nervous and edgy, I am denying myself the natural good feelings from dopamine. By going for a walk or reading the newspaper (or posting in my blog), my body should recognize that I've accomplished something and be happy about that.
The hard part is that the microscopic bits of dopamine generated by each individual act aren't enough themselves to get me past whatever this is that has me frozen in time. I am anxious and have a sick feeling that I'm failing at something, even when I'm not. I'm trying to ignore it and slog past. I went out yesterday evening and did manage to stay "in the world" for five or six hours without melting down or giving in to the overwhelming feeling that I needed to go home, I needed to go to bed.
It was late when I got home, and my dog was happy to see me. She was also antsy and had been cooped up most of the day so I did something highly unusual and went for a walk with her. Not a long walk -- I couldn't force myself into that -- but for 10 to 15 minutes. She was so delighted her tail wagged right up to her head. I was happy to make her happy.
I hope my brain earned a little dopamine for that.
By hanging out in bed, by being afraid and nervous and edgy, I am denying myself the natural good feelings from dopamine. By going for a walk or reading the newspaper (or posting in my blog), my body should recognize that I've accomplished something and be happy about that.
The hard part is that the microscopic bits of dopamine generated by each individual act aren't enough themselves to get me past whatever this is that has me frozen in time. I am anxious and have a sick feeling that I'm failing at something, even when I'm not. I'm trying to ignore it and slog past. I went out yesterday evening and did manage to stay "in the world" for five or six hours without melting down or giving in to the overwhelming feeling that I needed to go home, I needed to go to bed.
It was late when I got home, and my dog was happy to see me. She was also antsy and had been cooped up most of the day so I did something highly unusual and went for a walk with her. Not a long walk -- I couldn't force myself into that -- but for 10 to 15 minutes. She was so delighted her tail wagged right up to her head. I was happy to make her happy.
I hope my brain earned a little dopamine for that.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Just do it
Just do it. That's the solution my therapist has come up with for me. Continue with life, act as if it is OK, and hopefully it will be.
Don't stay in bed. Do something. Do anything.
Tonight I'm going to go out and work on a hobby I like. I am not supposed to leave for over an hour and I've been dreading it -- seriously dreading it -- all day. I don't know how I'll get through an evening of "fun" without being exhausted. I feel like I could go to bed now -- before 5 p.m. -- and sleep through until morning. In fact, I know I could. But instead I'll be out in the world. Sweating every second of it, but being there.
Wish me luck.
Don't stay in bed. Do something. Do anything.
Tonight I'm going to go out and work on a hobby I like. I am not supposed to leave for over an hour and I've been dreading it -- seriously dreading it -- all day. I don't know how I'll get through an evening of "fun" without being exhausted. I feel like I could go to bed now -- before 5 p.m. -- and sleep through until morning. In fact, I know I could. But instead I'll be out in the world. Sweating every second of it, but being there.
Wish me luck.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
No help, no hope?
I can't seem to get out of this feeling that I'm slogging through life. I can't force myself to do anything, even things I theoretically love to do. It feels like I'm underwater most of the time and I don't know what to do.
I don't know where to turn for help -- I'm seeing a psychiatrist about medication, but it seems this is a long, slow process that doesn't have any real relief. I'm struggling most with the depression, not borderline personality disorder, but the anxiety overlay of all of this makes it really hard on a day to day basis. I'm on disability leave from work but don't think I have the wherewithal to go back, to do a good job, to even want to work at all. I have to work, of course, and am suffering financially from being off. I just don't know how to be better. I desperately want to feel better, but every single thing I do is a struggle -- every task is like a mountain I need to climb and the thought of it is just exhausting. Even the thought of getting through a day.
I don't know where to turn for help -- I'm seeing a psychiatrist about medication, but it seems this is a long, slow process that doesn't have any real relief. I'm struggling most with the depression, not borderline personality disorder, but the anxiety overlay of all of this makes it really hard on a day to day basis. I'm on disability leave from work but don't think I have the wherewithal to go back, to do a good job, to even want to work at all. I have to work, of course, and am suffering financially from being off. I just don't know how to be better. I desperately want to feel better, but every single thing I do is a struggle -- every task is like a mountain I need to climb and the thought of it is just exhausting. Even the thought of getting through a day.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
My Head Exploded
So I've been up and down -- roller coaster city -- for the past month. Not sure if I'm much better. I have been suffering major depression for so damn long -- I wish there was something that could instantly fix it.
Here are the highlights of the past few weeks.
Saw my psychiatrist on 3/2. I had run out of some of my meds and had tapered off taking them. (For the interested, they were Topomax, Lamictal, Trazadone and Adderall --yeah, I was taking them all for this bone crushing chronic depression I have suffered for SO LONG. I figured it out and I've been on an SSRI since Granger was 2 -- so nearly 15 years ...) I was still taking Cymbalta (too) but had tapered it down because I was running out. I was still also taking Wellbutrin every day.
I stopped taking them because I ran out and didn't make/take time to go get an appointment. But nothing had really been working to stop my depression anyway so I was not feeling much different when I was down to 1/2 dose of Cymbalta + regular dose of Wellbutrin.
He said this was a golden opportunity to try a relatively new drug, Emsam. It is an MAO inhibitor (a type of anti depressant used for a very long time). It isn't used much because dietary restrictions go with it -- nothing aged (cheese, wine, salami, etc.) and many overthecounter drugs interact with it badly. But Emsam had a new transdermal delivery system and so it doesn't come with the dietary restrictions (but is still sensitive with OTC drugs).
I went on Emsam and off everything else cold turkey. WHAT A MISTAKE. By 3/8 I was a gigantic puddle of slobber on the floor. Couldn't stop crying couldn't stop SCREAMING at my kids, couldn't concentrate at work ... cried cried cried. The best therapist in the world (he IS) told me to go back to the psychiatrist so I saw him again that night and he said it was just the withdrawal effects and give it another week. The next day it was so much worse that I went to the psychiatrist again and insisted on getting off the Emsam and back on the other stuff. He convinced me not to, and added Xanax (sweet xanax) to help me sleep/reduce anxiety.
I worked that Friday, then slept until 9 a.m. Monday (sweet xanax). (That's an exaggeration but not much -- I slept as much as possible because I couldn't bear to be awake). However, Saturday night I had a GIGANTIC fight with my kids' dad and got into a conversation with my therapist by phone from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. (Told you he was the best therapist in the world.) He convinced me to go home finally and sleep. I did. Sunday I slept and on Monday I called in sick to work.
By Sunday late afternoon I knew the jig was up and I went to the ER. They admitted me with blood pressure 194/125 (OH MY GOD!) and blood sugar near 800 (Double OH MY GOD but I hadn't taken any insulin since Friday because I was sleeping, not eating ...).
I was there hoping to get relief from the withdrawal, but they treated the BP and diabetes aggressively as if the was my main complaint. I was in the ER from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and then around 10 a.m. this resident (I swear she was14 years old) came in to see how I was. I was no better -- hadn't even had a xanax by then for so long! She said they were going to put me back on the Emsam and keep the xanax going. Something in me snapped and I was pissed -- I said "I didn't need to come HERE to do that, why don't you re-examine the whole case and see what is really best in the big picture vs. the immediate situation." I didn't say it that nicely.
She said she'd take it back to 'the team' and talk about it. She then asked if I wanted to hurt myself (I didn't). Then she asked if I wanted to hurt anyone else. And I said "Only you. I want you to go put your highly educated brain to work and figure out how to help me. And give me something to sleep."
She said they were going to "hold off" on any medication, and then I stupidly said "Well that's stupid and it makes me want to hurt someone -- you. If you don't get out of here now I'll kick your ass." And then I decided I'd leave because at least my own psychiatrist would give me sleeping pills!!!!!!
She was back in 10 minutes with a form that put me on involuntary admission for 72 hours and I was PROMPTLY escorted to the locked ward. There are crazy people in there. OH MY GOD. The 72 hours passed v.e.r.y. s.l.o.w.l.y . and with no decision by 'the team' on what to do. First they decided on more MAO, but then changed t heir mind because they didn't think I'd comply with the dietary restrictions because of my track record with diabetes and failure to monitor the diet (true enough, but really -- I don't like gefeltefish and tofu and fava beans and rotted meat -- that was ACTUALLY on the restricted list -- so didn't think that would have been a big deal)
By the time my hold wore off I was better in general and was taking Abilify, an antianxiety drug (comfortingly called an "antipsychotic" though they assure me I am not psychotic ... who knows). It has made me somewhat manic and at the time in the hospital I couldn't sleep.
Did I mention the toothache? A back molar had an abscess, so they put me on antibiotics and said I couldn't go to the dentist because, well, I was locked up. I made a huge stink on Thursday about it and a dentist came to examine me that night said "I need to see her in my office tomorrow to drain that abscess." Friday? No appointment. A merry mixup I guess, no one coordinated a visit, guards to escort me, etc. I literally asked about it ever 15 minutes and kept track of what they said (Mostly "we're checking on it.")
That meant no appt Friday, and of course not Saturday and Sunday. When the 72 hour hold was up I was still SO PISSED about it all and then my tooth was KILLING ME. So guess what? A new hold! 14 days this time.
I asked for a hearing (my right) and contacted an attorney. The hearing was at 3 p.m. on Monday but at 11 a.m. they said t hey thought it was safe for me to go home. No new anti-depressants, I should see my psychiatrist. OH MY GOD. What I spent in the hospital for a week could have taken me to Hawaii for a week or two ... that may have been better in the long run. Who knows.
Oh, unless I want to do electroshock therapy. They offered to keep me and do that ... sheesh. No thanks, thanks very much but no thanks. I was in the hospital a total of 7 days.
Out on Monday, to the dentist immediately, he extracted the tooth (now I need a $2500 implant ...) and I instantly felt much better. Had to go buy a refrigerator since mine had been out for two weeks by then, so Granger and I went to the Great Mall and did that and I got home around 9 p.m. EXHAUSTED but had only xanax to sleep. Bad night.
Tuesday I was up at FIVE A.M. and cleaning out my kitchen s helves (the last thing I need to do -- the pile on the table is six feet high and I decide to clean INSIDE the cupboards?). Got it started, then took the kids to school, then to the coffee shop to check email. I cannot sit still, so decide to blow off the Abilify. My blood sugar and blood pressure are under control now that I am checking both and taking Lisinopril (however you spell it) for my BP. I hate being old.
Saw my psychiatrist Tuesday and he was happy to prescribe Ambien (sweet Ambien). He is a drug pusher. Really. Anyway, at least I can sleep. Still so jumpy when I saw my therapist on Wednesday he insisted I go BACK and ask for something to counter the effects of the Abilify or go off the Abilify. SO back to the psych and yeah, sure, there's a good drug (Cogentin?) that counters Abilify's manic side effects. So nice of him to offer it 24 hours earlier, eh?)
It's been no better from the jumpiness/can't sit still perspective since then, not sure what to do .... I have been up and down 15 times since starting this email. Today we had T-ball opening ceremonies, was there from 10 a.m. to 1:30, then my kiddo's sixth bday party from 2-4. What a day. Slept a little when I got home but just can't seem to get the napping science back down -- I used to be a champion napper. Can't say I feel BETTER or less depressed but at least I am functioning somewhat.
Did I mention I'm coach of the T-ball team? At a parent meeting Tuesday they said we can't have a team unless we have a coach. No one raised their hand so I stupidly did. I bought a book "How to Coach T-Ball," so we'll see how that goes. The first practice was good, I was up most of last night making the team flag for today's opening day and we had opening day activities in the hot hot sun today.
I've decided to take a month's leave of absence at work. I will get 66% of my salary, not bad and I think it will be OK. I need to get my chemicals in balance. I am so not optimistic about this, but have two new mantras: One moment at a time -- I can always count to five to get through something, even if I count my breath to five five million times.
And "One thing at a time." I can't drive and talk on the cell phone and drink a diet coke and supervise kids. I can't do this email plus a bath for Walter plus making zucchini bread and trying to do 1,000,000 loads of laundry. One thing at a time. Right?
*See the sculpture's page. Isn't it great?
Here are the highlights of the past few weeks.
Saw my psychiatrist on 3/2. I had run out of some of my meds and had tapered off taking them. (For the interested, they were Topomax, Lamictal, Trazadone and Adderall --yeah, I was taking them all for this bone crushing chronic depression I have suffered for SO LONG. I figured it out and I've been on an SSRI since Granger was 2 -- so nearly 15 years ...) I was still taking Cymbalta (too) but had tapered it down because I was running out. I was still also taking Wellbutrin every day.
I stopped taking them because I ran out and didn't make/take time to go get an appointment. But nothing had really been working to stop my depression anyway so I was not feeling much different when I was down to 1/2 dose of Cymbalta + regular dose of Wellbutrin.
He said this was a golden opportunity to try a relatively new drug, Emsam. It is an MAO inhibitor (a type of anti depressant used for a very long time). It isn't used much because dietary restrictions go with it -- nothing aged (cheese, wine, salami, etc.) and many overthecounter drugs interact with it badly. But Emsam had a new transdermal delivery system and so it doesn't come with the dietary restrictions (but is still sensitive with OTC drugs).
I went on Emsam and off everything else cold turkey. WHAT A MISTAKE. By 3/8 I was a gigantic puddle of slobber on the floor. Couldn't stop crying couldn't stop SCREAMING at my kids, couldn't concentrate at work ... cried cried cried. The best therapist in the world (he IS) told me to go back to the psychiatrist so I saw him again that night and he said it was just the withdrawal effects and give it another week. The next day it was so much worse that I went to the psychiatrist again and insisted on getting off the Emsam and back on the other stuff. He convinced me not to, and added Xanax (sweet xanax) to help me sleep/reduce anxiety.
I worked that Friday, then slept until 9 a.m. Monday (sweet xanax). (That's an exaggeration but not much -- I slept as much as possible because I couldn't bear to be awake). However, Saturday night I had a GIGANTIC fight with my kids' dad and got into a conversation with my therapist by phone from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. (Told you he was the best therapist in the world.) He convinced me to go home finally and sleep. I did. Sunday I slept and on Monday I called in sick to work.
By Sunday late afternoon I knew the jig was up and I went to the ER. They admitted me with blood pressure 194/125 (OH MY GOD!) and blood sugar near 800 (Double OH MY GOD but I hadn't taken any insulin since Friday because I was sleeping, not eating ...).
I was there hoping to get relief from the withdrawal, but they treated the BP and diabetes aggressively as if the was my main complaint. I was in the ER from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and then around 10 a.m. this resident (I swear she was14 years old) came in to see how I was. I was no better -- hadn't even had a xanax by then for so long! She said they were going to put me back on the Emsam and keep the xanax going. Something in me snapped and I was pissed -- I said "I didn't need to come HERE to do that, why don't you re-examine the whole case and see what is really best in the big picture vs. the immediate situation." I didn't say it that nicely.
She said she'd take it back to 'the team' and talk about it. She then asked if I wanted to hurt myself (I didn't). Then she asked if I wanted to hurt anyone else. And I said "Only you. I want you to go put your highly educated brain to work and figure out how to help me. And give me something to sleep."
She said they were going to "hold off" on any medication, and then I stupidly said "Well that's stupid and it makes me want to hurt someone -- you. If you don't get out of here now I'll kick your ass." And then I decided I'd leave because at least my own psychiatrist would give me sleeping pills!!!!!!
She was back in 10 minutes with a form that put me on involuntary admission for 72 hours and I was PROMPTLY escorted to the locked ward. There are crazy people in there. OH MY GOD. The 72 hours passed v.e.r.y. s.l.o.w.l.y . and with no decision by 'the team' on what to do. First they decided on more MAO, but then changed t heir mind because they didn't think I'd comply with the dietary restrictions because of my track record with diabetes and failure to monitor the diet (true enough, but really -- I don't like gefeltefish and tofu and fava beans and rotted meat -- that was ACTUALLY on the restricted list -- so didn't think that would have been a big deal)
By the time my hold wore off I was better in general and was taking Abilify, an antianxiety drug (comfortingly called an "antipsychotic" though they assure me I am not psychotic ... who knows). It has made me somewhat manic and at the time in the hospital I couldn't sleep.
Did I mention the toothache? A back molar had an abscess, so they put me on antibiotics and said I couldn't go to the dentist because, well, I was locked up. I made a huge stink on Thursday about it and a dentist came to examine me that night said "I need to see her in my office tomorrow to drain that abscess." Friday? No appointment. A merry mixup I guess, no one coordinated a visit, guards to escort me, etc. I literally asked about it ever 15 minutes and kept track of what they said (Mostly "we're checking on it.")
That meant no appt Friday, and of course not Saturday and Sunday. When the 72 hour hold was up I was still SO PISSED about it all and then my tooth was KILLING ME. So guess what? A new hold! 14 days this time.
I asked for a hearing (my right) and contacted an attorney. The hearing was at 3 p.m. on Monday but at 11 a.m. they said t hey thought it was safe for me to go home. No new anti-depressants, I should see my psychiatrist. OH MY GOD. What I spent in the hospital for a week could have taken me to Hawaii for a week or two ... that may have been better in the long run. Who knows.
Oh, unless I want to do electroshock therapy. They offered to keep me and do that ... sheesh. No thanks, thanks very much but no thanks. I was in the hospital a total of 7 days.
Out on Monday, to the dentist immediately, he extracted the tooth (now I need a $2500 implant ...) and I instantly felt much better. Had to go buy a refrigerator since mine had been out for two weeks by then, so Granger and I went to the Great Mall and did that and I got home around 9 p.m. EXHAUSTED but had only xanax to sleep. Bad night.
Tuesday I was up at FIVE A.M. and cleaning out my kitchen s helves (the last thing I need to do -- the pile on the table is six feet high and I decide to clean INSIDE the cupboards?). Got it started, then took the kids to school, then to the coffee shop to check email. I cannot sit still, so decide to blow off the Abilify. My blood sugar and blood pressure are under control now that I am checking both and taking Lisinopril (however you spell it) for my BP. I hate being old.
Saw my psychiatrist Tuesday and he was happy to prescribe Ambien (sweet Ambien). He is a drug pusher. Really. Anyway, at least I can sleep. Still so jumpy when I saw my therapist on Wednesday he insisted I go BACK and ask for something to counter the effects of the Abilify or go off the Abilify. SO back to the psych and yeah, sure, there's a good drug (Cogentin?) that counters Abilify's manic side effects. So nice of him to offer it 24 hours earlier, eh?)
It's been no better from the jumpiness/can't sit still perspective since then, not sure what to do .... I have been up and down 15 times since starting this email. Today we had T-ball opening ceremonies, was there from 10 a.m. to 1:30, then my kiddo's sixth bday party from 2-4. What a day. Slept a little when I got home but just can't seem to get the napping science back down -- I used to be a champion napper. Can't say I feel BETTER or less depressed but at least I am functioning somewhat.
Did I mention I'm coach of the T-ball team? At a parent meeting Tuesday they said we can't have a team unless we have a coach. No one raised their hand so I stupidly did. I bought a book "How to Coach T-Ball," so we'll see how that goes. The first practice was good, I was up most of last night making the team flag for today's opening day and we had opening day activities in the hot hot sun today.
I've decided to take a month's leave of absence at work. I will get 66% of my salary, not bad and I think it will be OK. I need to get my chemicals in balance. I am so not optimistic about this, but have two new mantras: One moment at a time -- I can always count to five to get through something, even if I count my breath to five five million times.
And "One thing at a time." I can't drive and talk on the cell phone and drink a diet coke and supervise kids. I can't do this email plus a bath for Walter plus making zucchini bread and trying to do 1,000,000 loads of laundry. One thing at a time. Right?
*See the sculpture's page. Isn't it great?
Friday, March 9, 2007
Sweet Xanax
On my second emergency trip to the psychiatrist this week he finally gave me something that he SAYS will make my life feel less like I'm riding spread eagle on a moving train that is fast approaching a tunnel. I had a whole Xanax before bed and I think it helped me sleep. Took a half of one when I got to work this morning and have felt like a zombie all day.
The doctor offered to put me on disability leave. A sweep of relief washed over me when he said that until I realized that I would undoubtedly lose my job if I do that. Not that they will fire me, but that they will marginalize me (even more than now) and I will come back to find something so different and frightening I don't know if I can face it.
My ego won't let me be on mental disability leave though my head says "OH YEAH BABY THAT IS WHAT I WANT TO DO."
So instead I screamed for 90 minutes, straight, on the phone with someone I thought I loved. For 90 minutes. And he kept hanging up and I kept calling back and screaming some more. I truly don't know why he didn't just turn off his phone. (Not that I'm trying to make it his responsibility to get me to stop screaming, but because I'm actually incredibly curious as to why he'd listen that long ...)
The doctor offered to put me on disability leave. A sweep of relief washed over me when he said that until I realized that I would undoubtedly lose my job if I do that. Not that they will fire me, but that they will marginalize me (even more than now) and I will come back to find something so different and frightening I don't know if I can face it.
My ego won't let me be on mental disability leave though my head says "OH YEAH BABY THAT IS WHAT I WANT TO DO."
So instead I screamed for 90 minutes, straight, on the phone with someone I thought I loved. For 90 minutes. And he kept hanging up and I kept calling back and screaming some more. I truly don't know why he didn't just turn off his phone. (Not that I'm trying to make it his responsibility to get me to stop screaming, but because I'm actually incredibly curious as to why he'd listen that long ...)
Friday, February 23, 2007
Don't call me a borderline
I have borderline personality disorder. I am a person who has a personality disorder.
However, I am not a personality disorder. I am a person.
I've always balked at the use of the term "she's a borderline." It feels wrong
grammatically, but it also feels very invalidating. When therapists write they write about their "borderline clients." Would they also say "my depression clients"? Probably not -- they'd say "my depressed clients," which is a description.
A better term I read recently described people like me as PBB. I had to scope around and see if he meant "peanut butter babies," or "pure bullshit barometers" or "pushes buttons battalion," but what he was abbreviating is People with Borderline Behaviors, or as I like to think of it People with BPD behaviors, because we're actually people with behaviors that fit the definition of the diagnosis, but we are not the diagnosis.
I know a person who believes that everything -- life -- is "just a conversation." He says that our feelings are conversations with ourselves. It's all about the language we use to describe things, internally and externally. In my conversations about BPD, I think I will try to use the term PBB. It is the only descriptor that remembers that I'm a person.
However, I am not a personality disorder. I am a person.
I've always balked at the use of the term "she's a borderline." It feels wrong
grammatically, but it also feels very invalidating. When therapists write they write about their "borderline clients." Would they also say "my depression clients"? Probably not -- they'd say "my depressed clients," which is a description.A better term I read recently described people like me as PBB. I had to scope around and see if he meant "peanut butter babies," or "pure bullshit barometers" or "pushes buttons battalion," but what he was abbreviating is People with Borderline Behaviors, or as I like to think of it People with BPD behaviors, because we're actually people with behaviors that fit the definition of the diagnosis, but we are not the diagnosis.
I know a person who believes that everything -- life -- is "just a conversation." He says that our feelings are conversations with ourselves. It's all about the language we use to describe things, internally and externally. In my conversations about BPD, I think I will try to use the term PBB. It is the only descriptor that remembers that I'm a person.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
It's about to happen
I have a chance this Saturday to either see or create my future. I'm not sure I'm willing to see it if it is not the direction I want to go, and I'm also not sure I have the ability to direct my life myself.
Last summer, on a hot day in July, I got angry at him for what still feels like a real, valid reason to me. Valid or not, though, I was furious and told him in no uncertain terms to get the fuck out of my life and "my" house. (We had moved into it together, the third house we'd rented together, about five years earlier. It was not "my" house, but that's how I referred to it when I was mad.)
I was serious. I wanted him out of my house and out of my life. My therapist and I had discussed this situation in incredible detail for four years. FOUR YEARS and the conclusion we had both drawn was that I needed to extricate myself from the situation.
I had tried to leave before. I had been staying home with our three kids, so didn't have a lot (any!) financial stability or way to move out. I went back to work soon thereafter and am completely financially independent now -- I make as much as he does. I got that financial independence and had my switch flipped when he made me so angry that hot, sticky July day. So I told him to leave.
Which he did. He went out of town on a three week business trip, and when he came home he packed up and moved into his own apartment.
The day he came home from the trip, I begged him not to move out. I had taken the previous 30 days to work through a lot of it, and I realized almost instantly what a remarkable mistake it had been to ask him to leave. I was also terrified, lonely and not at all convinced I wanted to live without him.
He would not budge. He said I had thrown him out a number of times before (true) and that he wasn't going to be a ping pong ball for me. He came clean about his feelings about me -- he was afraid of me and my anger, he hadn't really liked me for a very long time, he was only staying for the children, he had warned me not to say "get out" one more time or he would go (also true).
Look. I know how miserable it must be to live with me. I know my borderline personality disorder makes me into a total ball of fury in a matter of seconds, and that when I'm furious I take no prisoners. I know.
I can't really imagine he'd want to come home, but god I want him to come home. For me, for the kids, for him (ha!). I think there is a chance we could make a good life together. At least a chance.
A couple of months ago I stumbled across the website of a dialectical behavioral therapist who also does couples counseling. In my area!
I sent the URL to him and asked him if he'd be willing to go. He responded with "It depends. You paying? And what do you want out of it?"
I had no answer for that. The answer? I WANT YOU TO COME HOME. That's the honest answer, that's the motivation, that's why I'm very willing to pay the $250 session fee.
But I didn't answer immediately. I waited and spoke with my therapist who told me I had some choices:
-- Tell him the Real Deal and let the chips fall where they may. Maybe that would make him decide he doesn't want to go.
-- Be dishonest and say it is for some other semi-true reason -- like I want to improve our relationship for the times we have to be together, like around the kids.
-- Put my desire to get back together on the shelf -- lock it firmly away -- and go to improve the relationship in general. He caveatted this option with his opinion that he doesn't think I can do this.
It was nearly a month before I answered, and I chose option #1 -- I told him the real reason. I asked him if it's a possibility. He said he doesn't think so. He doesn't think so but he'll go anyway.
I grilled the poor man about it -- I wanted one straw of hope. One tiny little strand of hope, one sentence from him that he'd even CONSIDER coming home. Dear god let him come home. I need him home.
So the appointment is Saturday morning: 90 minutes about this. I have prepared myself the best I can. My goal will be to remain in a listening mode as much as possible, to express remorse for my hurtful behaviors and to over-repair the damage if possible. I am sure this is going to be so emotional for me that I will need a full box of Kleenex, but I don't want my tears to be the centerpiece of the discussion.
I want to know what he thinks. He as in my husband, and he as in the therapist.
I am ON FIRE. I can't sit still, I can't stop thinking about it, I can't stop crying. I can't stop crying now -- 45 hours or so before the appointment -- but I believe I can not cry during it. Yeah, right.
I don't want to manipulate. I don't want to guilt him into coming home. I want him to choose to come home. But I can't make him love me. As the song says, "I can't make your heart do what it won't."
I just so much want his heart to want to come home.
I need help. Tips, ideas, thoughts, prayers, hugs. How will I get through this? How will I convince him to come home? We were together nearly 13 years until I told him to get out. Until I threw away a chance at being together with our grandchildren, finally buying that house we can afford now. Please forgive me for throwing that away, I acted in anger and fear and I am so, so sorry. And I love you.
Last summer, on a hot day in July, I got angry at him for what still feels like a real, valid reason to me. Valid or not, though, I was furious and told him in no uncertain terms to get the fuck out of my life and "my" house. (We had moved into it together, the third house we'd rented together, about five years earlier. It was not "my" house, but that's how I referred to it when I was mad.)
I was serious. I wanted him out of my house and out of my life. My therapist and I had discussed this situation in incredible detail for four years. FOUR YEARS and the conclusion we had both drawn was that I needed to extricate myself from the situation.
I had tried to leave before. I had been staying home with our three kids, so didn't have a lot (any!) financial stability or way to move out. I went back to work soon thereafter and am completely financially independent now -- I make as much as he does. I got that financial independence and had my switch flipped when he made me so angry that hot, sticky July day. So I told him to leave.
Which he did. He went out of town on a three week business trip, and when he came home he packed up and moved into his own apartment.
The day he came home from the trip, I begged him not to move out. I had taken the previous 30 days to work through a lot of it, and I realized almost instantly what a remarkable mistake it had been to ask him to leave. I was also terrified, lonely and not at all convinced I wanted to live without him.
He would not budge. He said I had thrown him out a number of times before (true) and that he wasn't going to be a ping pong ball for me. He came clean about his feelings about me -- he was afraid of me and my anger, he hadn't really liked me for a very long time, he was only staying for the children, he had warned me not to say "get out" one more time or he would go (also true).
Look. I know how miserable it must be to live with me. I know my borderline personality disorder makes me into a total ball of fury in a matter of seconds, and that when I'm furious I take no prisoners. I know.
I can't really imagine he'd want to come home, but god I want him to come home. For me, for the kids, for him (ha!). I think there is a chance we could make a good life together. At least a chance.
A couple of months ago I stumbled across the website of a dialectical behavioral therapist who also does couples counseling. In my area!
I sent the URL to him and asked him if he'd be willing to go. He responded with "It depends. You paying? And what do you want out of it?"
I had no answer for that. The answer? I WANT YOU TO COME HOME. That's the honest answer, that's the motivation, that's why I'm very willing to pay the $250 session fee.
But I didn't answer immediately. I waited and spoke with my therapist who told me I had some choices:
-- Tell him the Real Deal and let the chips fall where they may. Maybe that would make him decide he doesn't want to go.
-- Be dishonest and say it is for some other semi-true reason -- like I want to improve our relationship for the times we have to be together, like around the kids.
-- Put my desire to get back together on the shelf -- lock it firmly away -- and go to improve the relationship in general. He caveatted this option with his opinion that he doesn't think I can do this.
It was nearly a month before I answered, and I chose option #1 -- I told him the real reason. I asked him if it's a possibility. He said he doesn't think so. He doesn't think so but he'll go anyway.
I grilled the poor man about it -- I wanted one straw of hope. One tiny little strand of hope, one sentence from him that he'd even CONSIDER coming home. Dear god let him come home. I need him home.
So the appointment is Saturday morning: 90 minutes about this. I have prepared myself the best I can. My goal will be to remain in a listening mode as much as possible, to express remorse for my hurtful behaviors and to over-repair the damage if possible. I am sure this is going to be so emotional for me that I will need a full box of Kleenex, but I don't want my tears to be the centerpiece of the discussion.
I want to know what he thinks. He as in my husband, and he as in the therapist.
I am ON FIRE. I can't sit still, I can't stop thinking about it, I can't stop crying. I can't stop crying now -- 45 hours or so before the appointment -- but I believe I can not cry during it. Yeah, right.
I don't want to manipulate. I don't want to guilt him into coming home. I want him to choose to come home. But I can't make him love me. As the song says, "I can't make your heart do what it won't."
I just so much want his heart to want to come home.
I need help. Tips, ideas, thoughts, prayers, hugs. How will I get through this? How will I convince him to come home? We were together nearly 13 years until I told him to get out. Until I threw away a chance at being together with our grandchildren, finally buying that house we can afford now. Please forgive me for throwing that away, I acted in anger and fear and I am so, so sorry. And I love you.
The bully writes back
A little history:
I was bullied by a group of people -- mostly girls -- on the school bus I rode from seventh to 12th grade. I very carefully never let them see me cry. But inside, that hazing and isolation burned a hole in my soul. I've never been willing to attribute much to it, but my therapist is now suggesting I suffer PTSD. Since I'm so desperately unhappy, and since nothing else is working, I agreed to start a course of PTSD treatment, which primarily involves desensitizing my very sensitive emotions to the effects of what happened to me.
So instead of blowing up when I feel rejected, I can conceivably say "oh, yeah, I feel like blowing up because this triggered some of the same feelings I had as a kid." Or that they simply won't trigger. Wouldn't that be lovely?
Anyway, one of the components of PTSD treatment is to re-live the situation.
About a month ago, coincidentally (it is eerie, really), one of the people who bullied me wrote me an email out of the blue, APOLOGIZING for what she did. I couldn't believe it.
After much thought and deliberation, I wrote her an email and asked her to tell me as much as she can remember about the situation, so I could use the information in my therapy sessions.
Here's what she wrote back:
I think she's full of crap and told her so. This was my response to her:
I was bullied by a group of people -- mostly girls -- on the school bus I rode from seventh to 12th grade. I very carefully never let them see me cry. But inside, that hazing and isolation burned a hole in my soul. I've never been willing to attribute much to it, but my therapist is now suggesting I suffer PTSD. Since I'm so desperately unhappy, and since nothing else is working, I agreed to start a course of PTSD treatment, which primarily involves desensitizing my very sensitive emotions to the effects of what happened to me.
So instead of blowing up when I feel rejected, I can conceivably say "oh, yeah, I feel like blowing up because this triggered some of the same feelings I had as a kid." Or that they simply won't trigger. Wouldn't that be lovely?
Anyway, one of the components of PTSD treatment is to re-live the situation.
About a month ago, coincidentally (it is eerie, really), one of the people who bullied me wrote me an email out of the blue, APOLOGIZING for what she did. I couldn't believe it.
After much thought and deliberation, I wrote her an email and asked her to tell me as much as she can remember about the situation, so I could use the information in my therapy sessions.
Here's what she wrote back:
Hmmm. I only remember one specific incident in particular. I don't even know particularly why I remember it. Probably because it was something I did all by myself just to be a bitch. You were sitting in the front seat. I sat behind you and I kept hitting the back of your seat the whole distance to school, just to be annoying.
I remember a lot of name calling on that bus. But it was directed at a lot of different people, not just you. The funny thing is that I dreaded that bus everyday for the same reasons you did. I think a lot of people did.
I can't speak for anyone else of course, but I always felt bad that I did to you what someone else did to me. Instead of standing up to MY bullies, I just became someone else's bully. I look back on it now and realize how chicken shit that was.
I think she's full of crap and told her so. This was my response to her:
You know, that isn't enough. You sought me out nearly 30 years later to offer a sincere apology. I doubt you wanted to apologize for one incident of kicking the back of my seat all the way to town.
You characterized me as a tough little girl to survive the hell you put me through. What do you mean by that? What made you say that? And why now -- so long afterward? My only conclusion is that it was pretty significant to you, too.
You said you hoped my life was great because I deserve that. Funny, but that's not how it is. My life is far from great.
If that's all you've got, so be it. But I sincerely doubt that or you would not have written to me in the first place.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
I know just how you feel, Britney
Do you think Britney Spears has borderline personality disorder?
While, on one level, I am extremely annoyed at the woman's actions and the way she seems to be self destructing, another part of me says "Wow, that poor woman seems to be self destructing, I wish I knew how to help."
I don't follow the whole saga, but the act of going into a hair salon and grabbing the clippers to shave her head indicates to me a woman out of control, and someone very angry, full of self-hatred, someone who loathes the way things are and wants to shock herself out of it.
Do you remember her on David Letterman last fall? All sweetness and light. Such a polite, funny, fun person, so happy and clear-eyed. Contrast that with the tabloid images of her today.
I am usually really hesitant to talk about BPD and celebrity, movies, whatever. It seems that the portrayal of the disorder in popular media is one of deep ignorance. What I know about Britney is that the look in her eyes on that video, the way she looks at herself in the mirror, struck something in me. I saw something that clicked and I said "Oh my god, she's BPD." I think the difference in the way I mean it versus the way the popular media portrays such things (i.e. the way they called the astronaut who flipped out "borderline") is that they mean it pejoratively while I mean it as a recognition of something wrong that CAN BE FIXED.
While, on one level, I am extremely annoyed at the woman's actions and the way she seems to be self destructing, another part of me says "Wow, that poor woman seems to be self destructing, I wish I knew how to help."
I don't follow the whole saga, but the act of going into a hair salon and grabbing the clippers to shave her head indicates to me a woman out of control, and someone very angry, full of self-hatred, someone who loathes the way things are and wants to shock herself out of it.
Do you remember her on David Letterman last fall? All sweetness and light. Such a polite, funny, fun person, so happy and clear-eyed. Contrast that with the tabloid images of her today.
I am usually really hesitant to talk about BPD and celebrity, movies, whatever. It seems that the portrayal of the disorder in popular media is one of deep ignorance. What I know about Britney is that the look in her eyes on that video, the way she looks at herself in the mirror, struck something in me. I saw something that clicked and I said "Oh my god, she's BPD." I think the difference in the way I mean it versus the way the popular media portrays such things (i.e. the way they called the astronaut who flipped out "borderline") is that they mean it pejoratively while I mean it as a recognition of something wrong that CAN BE FIXED.
Friday, February 9, 2007
Dear Bully, Take 3
Dear Bully:
I was so pleased to get your note. It is obvious to me that you have some regrets about the way you treated me when we were kids. I hope you are not in too much pain over this and that it hasn't had a negative impact on your life. That school bus ride was one of the highlights of every day of my life from seventh to 12th grade. I think you know just how much fun it could be!
To put your mind at ease, I hardly even remember the things you did to
me. You were standoffish and never wanted to be my friend.
Ironically, we could probably have been friends since we lived near
each other.
I am so sorry you have been suffering about this. Don't you worry
about me. I am gloriously happy and wildly successful in everything I
do. If there were effects of my being bullied, they were good ones! In
fact, I am glad it happened.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Dear Bully, Take 2
Dear Bully:
You write to me more than 25 years after you tortured me for years and apologize?
You want my life to be successful -- why? To assuage your guilt? So you can think it didn't matter.
Well stick it up your fat ass. I don't remember much about you -- just have a vision of a twisted ugly face, lots of ratty dark hair and a big fat girl. How you must have hated yourself to feel the need to bully me. I never did a thing to any of you -- I never did anything except try to get along, get through it, and yet you made sport of tormenting me.
You don't deserve to know how my life has gone. You don't deserve to know whether you fucked me up or not. Go to hell.
You write to me more than 25 years after you tortured me for years and apologize?
You want my life to be successful -- why? To assuage your guilt? So you can think it didn't matter.
Well stick it up your fat ass. I don't remember much about you -- just have a vision of a twisted ugly face, lots of ratty dark hair and a big fat girl. How you must have hated yourself to feel the need to bully me. I never did a thing to any of you -- I never did anything except try to get along, get through it, and yet you made sport of tormenting me.
You don't deserve to know how my life has gone. You don't deserve to know whether you fucked me up or not. Go to hell.
Dear Bully ...
I was stunned to get your email on classmates.com. The one where you apologized for the years of bullying you handed out when we were in junior high and high school.
It's been decades since I've even thought of your name, and here you pop up in my mailbox, unannounced and unwelcome.
You want to know if I'm well, if I'm happy. You say I deserve to be after all the shit you handed out. You want me know know you think I was one tough kid.
Let me fill you in:
Scarcely a day has gone by when I haven't suffered the effects of poor self esteem. It turned my high school experience into a tightwire act, where I willed myself to present a solid front so no one would know what I failure I really was. I didn't question the fact that I had no friends -- you told me every day that I was not worthy of friends, that I stunk and that I looked and acted bizarre.
It made college tough. Tormented for years on the school bus, I guess I had come to believe no one would like me, so it didn't surprise me to feel left out at college, either. I remember one of the most pleasant feelings was of being hidden, alone, in the carrels at the back of the university library. I remember thinking, "No one in the world knows or cares where I am." It was an awesome realization -- no one would miss me if I didn't come home, but no one could find me to harass me, either.
I bristle like a porcupine every time I'm forced into a human interaction. Oh, I'm facile enough with strangers, I like to chitchat in the grocery store line, people think I'm outgoing and extroverted. What they don't know is that I'm fine when I'm on my own ground -- when I start the conversation or am sought out. It's when I'm alone in a crowd that I feel naked, without skin. I imagine everyone is laughing at what I am wearing, at how I look. I worry that I stink though I know my personal hygiene is better than most. I am conscious of where my hands are at all times -- I don't want people to think I pick my nose or touch my private parts, all things you whispered and yelled at me while we were on the bus. If I had my coat over me to protect me from the brutal cold, you insisted I was playing with myself under there. If I hid it over my head to cry, you said I must be digging for boogers.
I'm 45 years old right now and it still makes me cry.
My career has been both brilliant and disappointing. I am never confident of my work, or I'm overconfident and become a bully myself. I force people to see things my way, and when they don't I get devastated and disappointed. I've often been told that I can dish it out but I can't take it, and it's true. I like to tease other people -- tease, not taunt or torment -- and yet I can't bear it when I'm the brunt of the teasing.
I am successful by material measures, but feel no joy in what I do. For I know I'm a fake. I know you know the real me, the one who lives in near poverty out on a farm, the one who doesn't have new clothes, whose hair won't lie flat, whose shoes are old and who is constantly disorganized as she rushes for the bus, half hoping every day that she'll miss it. Knowing the consequence for missing the bus would be missing a day of school, the one place she felt competent. I had to force myself to take a deep breath and climb those bus steps, but I couldn't force myself not to do it, either.
I think you could say my relationship history is one that's a failure as well. I've been married, twice, and neither man really loved me. Or maybe they did and I didn't know it, because I have a very hard time accepting love. Every word of criticism or sideways look was like a cruel lash to me. They tried to be careful, but no one can be careful enough around a person who doesn't have skin. I walk around every day feeling like I have no skin. Even a drop of rain can sear me, because I have no protection.
So regardless of how sincere your apology is, or the reason you wrote it, I can't forgive you. I want to beat the living daylights out of you. I want to throw all those thousands of punches I held every time you put gum in my hair or flicked me hard on the head with a knuckle or taunted me or told someone who mistakenly sat near me that they'd get cooties if they didn't move.
I realize now that it wasn't that they didn't like me nearly as much as that they were thankful to me for being the brunt of your teasing. They were guilty on some level for not standing up for me, for not standing up to you, but they were also quite relieved that it was me -- not them -- that was your target.
As I got older, I came to see this as my role. I was the target for abuse, and this helped protect others from the same thing. I wouldn't tolerate you beating on anyone else -- I remember pulling you off someone. I couldn't protect myself, but I could protect the others. Bring it on, bitch, bring it on. I can take it.
And you will Never. See. Me. Cry. You will never see the rivers of tears and the canyons full of sobs you caused in my life. Your teasing, your constant and brutal bullying caused something to change in my brain. Being told enough times that I sucked made it true. I believed it, I knew it, but I had to hide that I knew from you. I became arrogant, pretended I was better than you, but ... we both knew the truth. I was a fake.
And I'm still a fake in much of my life. I wonder sometimes who I really am. Who was I before I started riding that bus? Who was I before I endured an hour or more every day of name calling and abuse? Who was I before I got sick at the idea that you MIGHT torment me, so sick that my stomach was in knots whether you did or not. Sometimes when you did hurt me it was a relief, because I didn't have to wait for you to do it.
You get nothing from me. No answer, no forgiveness, no understanding. You were old enough to know better. You were old enough to know better.
It's been decades since I've even thought of your name, and here you pop up in my mailbox, unannounced and unwelcome.
You want to know if I'm well, if I'm happy. You say I deserve to be after all the shit you handed out. You want me know know you think I was one tough kid.
Let me fill you in:
Scarcely a day has gone by when I haven't suffered the effects of poor self esteem. It turned my high school experience into a tightwire act, where I willed myself to present a solid front so no one would know what I failure I really was. I didn't question the fact that I had no friends -- you told me every day that I was not worthy of friends, that I stunk and that I looked and acted bizarre.
It made college tough. Tormented for years on the school bus, I guess I had come to believe no one would like me, so it didn't surprise me to feel left out at college, either. I remember one of the most pleasant feelings was of being hidden, alone, in the carrels at the back of the university library. I remember thinking, "No one in the world knows or cares where I am." It was an awesome realization -- no one would miss me if I didn't come home, but no one could find me to harass me, either.
I bristle like a porcupine every time I'm forced into a human interaction. Oh, I'm facile enough with strangers, I like to chitchat in the grocery store line, people think I'm outgoing and extroverted. What they don't know is that I'm fine when I'm on my own ground -- when I start the conversation or am sought out. It's when I'm alone in a crowd that I feel naked, without skin. I imagine everyone is laughing at what I am wearing, at how I look. I worry that I stink though I know my personal hygiene is better than most. I am conscious of where my hands are at all times -- I don't want people to think I pick my nose or touch my private parts, all things you whispered and yelled at me while we were on the bus. If I had my coat over me to protect me from the brutal cold, you insisted I was playing with myself under there. If I hid it over my head to cry, you said I must be digging for boogers.
I'm 45 years old right now and it still makes me cry.
My career has been both brilliant and disappointing. I am never confident of my work, or I'm overconfident and become a bully myself. I force people to see things my way, and when they don't I get devastated and disappointed. I've often been told that I can dish it out but I can't take it, and it's true. I like to tease other people -- tease, not taunt or torment -- and yet I can't bear it when I'm the brunt of the teasing.
I am successful by material measures, but feel no joy in what I do. For I know I'm a fake. I know you know the real me, the one who lives in near poverty out on a farm, the one who doesn't have new clothes, whose hair won't lie flat, whose shoes are old and who is constantly disorganized as she rushes for the bus, half hoping every day that she'll miss it. Knowing the consequence for missing the bus would be missing a day of school, the one place she felt competent. I had to force myself to take a deep breath and climb those bus steps, but I couldn't force myself not to do it, either.
I think you could say my relationship history is one that's a failure as well. I've been married, twice, and neither man really loved me. Or maybe they did and I didn't know it, because I have a very hard time accepting love. Every word of criticism or sideways look was like a cruel lash to me. They tried to be careful, but no one can be careful enough around a person who doesn't have skin. I walk around every day feeling like I have no skin. Even a drop of rain can sear me, because I have no protection.
So regardless of how sincere your apology is, or the reason you wrote it, I can't forgive you. I want to beat the living daylights out of you. I want to throw all those thousands of punches I held every time you put gum in my hair or flicked me hard on the head with a knuckle or taunted me or told someone who mistakenly sat near me that they'd get cooties if they didn't move.
I realize now that it wasn't that they didn't like me nearly as much as that they were thankful to me for being the brunt of your teasing. They were guilty on some level for not standing up for me, for not standing up to you, but they were also quite relieved that it was me -- not them -- that was your target.
As I got older, I came to see this as my role. I was the target for abuse, and this helped protect others from the same thing. I wouldn't tolerate you beating on anyone else -- I remember pulling you off someone. I couldn't protect myself, but I could protect the others. Bring it on, bitch, bring it on. I can take it.
And you will Never. See. Me. Cry. You will never see the rivers of tears and the canyons full of sobs you caused in my life. Your teasing, your constant and brutal bullying caused something to change in my brain. Being told enough times that I sucked made it true. I believed it, I knew it, but I had to hide that I knew from you. I became arrogant, pretended I was better than you, but ... we both knew the truth. I was a fake.
And I'm still a fake in much of my life. I wonder sometimes who I really am. Who was I before I started riding that bus? Who was I before I endured an hour or more every day of name calling and abuse? Who was I before I got sick at the idea that you MIGHT torment me, so sick that my stomach was in knots whether you did or not. Sometimes when you did hurt me it was a relief, because I didn't have to wait for you to do it.
You get nothing from me. No answer, no forgiveness, no understanding. You were old enough to know better. You were old enough to know better.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
An ill wind
An ill wind blew into my email box. It was in the form of an apology from someone I haven't thought about for 30 years.
Smarter than average, a better student than any of them, I thought myself above them and below them at the same time. Better than them? Certainly. I had much more going for me in every way -- opportunity, initiative, brains, intuition, drive. Abilities. Dreams. If asked, I would have told you I felt sorry for the rest of them, primarily the offspring of dirt poor desert dwellers who lived way out in nowhere for various reasons, all of which boiled down to: Couldn't make it in real society. Couldn't survive in town. Needed to be isolated on farms with the closest neighbors five miles away. Liked it that way. Survivalists and white trash. No one lived there by choice, it was usually a result of fate or a mistake or a disaster.
My family was there because of fate. A disaster. A gigantic mistake, in my young girl's opinion. I hated it there from the day we arrived and fled in the days after high school ended. I like to visit now, but only when I'm driving my own reliable car or if I have an airplane ticket out of there. I don't think I could survive there; I know I wouldn't make my children live there.
I haven't answered my former bully. I'm not sure what she wants. Forgiveness? Absolution? I imagine she's in a 12-step program or has found religion. I don't know why she searched Classmates.com to track me down. I am not sure I care.
I'm consumed with curiosity. I want to ask her to detail the bullying for me. I want her to describe what it is she's talking about. To be honest, I can't remember what she looked like except that I have this vision of lots of dark hair and a big, bulky girl. A sneer.
I think of two others as my primary bullies, and have a visceral reaction when I go near where they grew up. I drive miles out of my way to avoid their parents' homes, even though one girls' parents are dead and the others have long moved away.
But this one. This one, a little younger than the others. They were a few years ahead of me in school and so graduated and left me alone for a few blessed years. This one is a year older than me, which means she was with me until my senior year of high school.
And yet I can't see her face, I can't remember a single thing she did to me. I can't remember why she thinks she owes me a "sincere" apology.
Have I blocked her from my memory? There are other holes in my memories that make me nervous -- like the fact that I can't name my second grade teacher and can't get a minds-eye view of the classroom I was in. I have every other year of grade school firmly in my mind, including kindergarten, first grade and third. But second is missing somewhere.
I haven't examined any of this too deeply, and it's time. My therapist thinks I suffer post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the bullying I endured on that school bus. I minimize the events when I talk about them to him -- which is rarely -- and yet he still thinks it is of major significance. I have asked him to help me work through it, and we started last week.
One of my assignments is to figure out what I'd like to say to this bully. Do I blast her with my intellect and crush her insignificance? Do I lay out for her the struggles I've had with self-esteem, with trust, with a deep and overwhelming sense that I simply don't belong -- anywhere. Do I tell her to kiss my ass? Give her what she wants? Tell her I hope none of her children ever has to endure anything like I endured at her hands?
There's a spectrum of responses. Do I ask her what made her torment me? What was wrong with her life that made her such a bully? Do I give a shit? Does it matter? Does it change my response? Is there anything she could say that would make me feel differently?
She can kiss my ass.
Subject: Yes, this is from your former bully
This is the apology I have owed you for many, many years. And it is sincere. I have thought of you more than any single person I went to school with. Mostly, because of my horrible behaviour towards you. I hope you are absolutely sucessful and happy. You were one very tough little girl who put up with a whole lot of bullshit from me and others on that godforsaken bus from hell. I hope you are doing well and are happy. You deserve a life of happiness for just surviving my attitude and abuse alone.
Good luck to you and your family.
She can kiss my ass.
It came 27 days ago, and not one day has gone by since then that I haven't wept about this. It validates my worst nightmare, it embarrasses me. And it frightens me. I am afraid of this.
It started in seventh grade. We lived 30 miles from town, and that meant a 45 minute bus ride every day, each way. From frigid early mornings to blizzards, we rode that bus. For me, each minute was torture. I was never comfortable. I could sleep or do homework, but I could never relax. I was hyper vigilant. I was ready to be tormented, and I vowed that no one would Ever. See. Me. Cry.
I have a hard time remembering what I went through. I know it was traumatic because I start shaking when I think about it. Tears well up in my eyes, all those tears I never shed as I sat on that bus, day after day, alone and lonely, listening to them make up taunts to toss my way.
No one ever sat by me. No one talked to me. No one dared like me. By some combination of factors, I became the pariah on that bus, and the target of all the bullying. Like the magnet or the scapegoat, I was the one who took it. I ignored it, I blocked it out, I pretended I didn't hear.
Smarter than average, a better student than any of them, I thought myself above them and below them at the same time. Better than them? Certainly. I had much more going for me in every way -- opportunity, initiative, brains, intuition, drive. Abilities. Dreams. If asked, I would have told you I felt sorry for the rest of them, primarily the offspring of dirt poor desert dwellers who lived way out in nowhere for various reasons, all of which boiled down to: Couldn't make it in real society. Couldn't survive in town. Needed to be isolated on farms with the closest neighbors five miles away. Liked it that way. Survivalists and white trash. No one lived there by choice, it was usually a result of fate or a mistake or a disaster.
My family was there because of fate. A disaster. A gigantic mistake, in my young girl's opinion. I hated it there from the day we arrived and fled in the days after high school ended. I like to visit now, but only when I'm driving my own reliable car or if I have an airplane ticket out of there. I don't think I could survive there; I know I wouldn't make my children live there.
I haven't answered my former bully. I'm not sure what she wants. Forgiveness? Absolution? I imagine she's in a 12-step program or has found religion. I don't know why she searched Classmates.com to track me down. I am not sure I care.
I'm consumed with curiosity. I want to ask her to detail the bullying for me. I want her to describe what it is she's talking about. To be honest, I can't remember what she looked like except that I have this vision of lots of dark hair and a big, bulky girl. A sneer.
I think of two others as my primary bullies, and have a visceral reaction when I go near where they grew up. I drive miles out of my way to avoid their parents' homes, even though one girls' parents are dead and the others have long moved away.
But this one. This one, a little younger than the others. They were a few years ahead of me in school and so graduated and left me alone for a few blessed years. This one is a year older than me, which means she was with me until my senior year of high school.
And yet I can't see her face, I can't remember a single thing she did to me. I can't remember why she thinks she owes me a "sincere" apology.
Have I blocked her from my memory? There are other holes in my memories that make me nervous -- like the fact that I can't name my second grade teacher and can't get a minds-eye view of the classroom I was in. I have every other year of grade school firmly in my mind, including kindergarten, first grade and third. But second is missing somewhere.
I haven't examined any of this too deeply, and it's time. My therapist thinks I suffer post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the bullying I endured on that school bus. I minimize the events when I talk about them to him -- which is rarely -- and yet he still thinks it is of major significance. I have asked him to help me work through it, and we started last week.
One of my assignments is to figure out what I'd like to say to this bully. Do I blast her with my intellect and crush her insignificance? Do I lay out for her the struggles I've had with self-esteem, with trust, with a deep and overwhelming sense that I simply don't belong -- anywhere. Do I tell her to kiss my ass? Give her what she wants? Tell her I hope none of her children ever has to endure anything like I endured at her hands?
There's a spectrum of responses. Do I ask her what made her torment me? What was wrong with her life that made her such a bully? Do I give a shit? Does it matter? Does it change my response? Is there anything she could say that would make me feel differently?
She can kiss my ass.
It's all good
Sometimes I forget that I don't care about some things. That I can survive without being passionate about a simple issue at work. That I don't have to go to the wall with a co-worker over wording of something.
Sometimes I forget to let go of my ego.
It always gets me in trouble.
I am struggling now to find my place, my purpose, what I can contribute. If I can contribute. I wonder if I'll be fired. I can't be fired -- I need my job, my health insurance, the work. I need to be here and it doesn't matter if I'm a big wig or a little one. Right? Who cares, beyond me?
It's not like this is my career, it's just a job.
Oh, wait. This is my career. I always thought this was where I'd be climbing the rungs of the ladder about now in my life. I've steadily climbed higher in salary and title. I've worked hard and had my work praised. And then I got here, to this plateau, and I don't seem to be able to perform to the level one person (who happens to be important) sees as my obligation. I thought I could work harder -- I could work harder, OK? -- but I also think the quality of my work is such that it is still head and shoulders above the pack.
He came in my office today and asked if I need help with a project or two. Sure, I say, my ego floating away on a cloud of dust. Sure, take the heart of my job away and give it to someone else. Let that person do it, let them gossip about me, let him move me out of my office into a cube, let him cut my salary.
Or maybe I can float through this by letting go of my ego. Sure, I need help. Sure, I'd love it if you'd take that off my plate. Sure, I need more time to surf around the Web, can you please get someone to do my job for me?
Sure, I'm useless. Get me some help.
Sometimes I forget to let go of my ego.
It always gets me in trouble.
I am struggling now to find my place, my purpose, what I can contribute. If I can contribute. I wonder if I'll be fired. I can't be fired -- I need my job, my health insurance, the work. I need to be here and it doesn't matter if I'm a big wig or a little one. Right? Who cares, beyond me?
It's not like this is my career, it's just a job.
Oh, wait. This is my career. I always thought this was where I'd be climbing the rungs of the ladder about now in my life. I've steadily climbed higher in salary and title. I've worked hard and had my work praised. And then I got here, to this plateau, and I don't seem to be able to perform to the level one person (who happens to be important) sees as my obligation. I thought I could work harder -- I could work harder, OK? -- but I also think the quality of my work is such that it is still head and shoulders above the pack.
He came in my office today and asked if I need help with a project or two. Sure, I say, my ego floating away on a cloud of dust. Sure, take the heart of my job away and give it to someone else. Let that person do it, let them gossip about me, let him move me out of my office into a cube, let him cut my salary.
Or maybe I can float through this by letting go of my ego. Sure, I need help. Sure, I'd love it if you'd take that off my plate. Sure, I need more time to surf around the Web, can you please get someone to do my job for me?
Sure, I'm useless. Get me some help.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Distract yourself
Simple advice, and what I tell many people suffering varying levels of emotional distress.
Just don't think about it.
There is nothing to worry about.
You're making it worse by worrying about it.
Somehow, none of those 'truths' can get through to me when I need to hear them most. I suspect it is because I know there is something to worry about, dammit, I'm worried, aren't I?
How I think about something doesn't change its outcome 99% of the time. If I worry that he isn't home yet, that he's been in a wreck, that doesn't make it more or less likely to be true, does it?
Here are the two sides: I am having emotions about a subject. The emotions are unpleasant.
There is no basis for the emotion -- say fear -- that is evident. So why be afraid?
Both can be true but I find holding both to be difficult. Yes, there is no monster under the bed. Yes, I am terrified anyway.
Yes, I am terrified anyway, and feel weary of living in fear.
Just don't think about it.
There is nothing to worry about.
You're making it worse by worrying about it.
Somehow, none of those 'truths' can get through to me when I need to hear them most. I suspect it is because I know there is something to worry about, dammit, I'm worried, aren't I?
How I think about something doesn't change its outcome 99% of the time. If I worry that he isn't home yet, that he's been in a wreck, that doesn't make it more or less likely to be true, does it?
Here are the two sides: I am having emotions about a subject. The emotions are unpleasant.
There is no basis for the emotion -- say fear -- that is evident. So why be afraid?
Both can be true but I find holding both to be difficult. Yes, there is no monster under the bed. Yes, I am terrified anyway.
Yes, I am terrified anyway, and feel weary of living in fear.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
He pulled me close and said goodnight
He kissed me and called me by a sweet name. He helped me in the car and told me to drive safely, then checked to see if I made it home.
He emailed 30 minutes later to say he'd had a good time.
Laying there, with him for hours, he stroked my arm absently, mussed my hair and traced the shape of my ear. He warmed baby oil in his hands and rubbed my back, gently but with enough pressure so that I relaxed into the bed.
He cupped my ass in his hands as he pulled me toward him for a cuddle, kissed my cheek and then my mouth. He took my hand when we walked to the restaurant and pulled out my chair when we sat.
We talked and he paid attention to my opinions; we shared tales of our work and our favorite books. I teased him about things and he got to know about things I like and why I do the things I do. He looked into my eyes when we were making love.
I left him last night wrapped in a warm embrace; I took home the memory of being with him like a shawl and pulled it around my neck as I slipped into sleep. I woke with a smile on my lips.
--------
Why, then, just 18 hours later do I despise him? How could I wonder what I saw in him, think of all the things that I didn't like: the hair on his upper arms, the coolness of his sweat, the way I felt when I fumbled for a kiss, the comment he didn't explain. I've mined every single second for the explanation, for what I did wrong, for the reason he hates me. I've cried and I've been ready to throw things and I've trolled online for someone to replace him.
Why? You ask why?
Because he hasn't called. He didn't write a single message to me, not a word on a text note or a voicemail. "Hey how are you this morning?" "Missing you this morning." "Hi."
Afraid of being the aggressor, I refrained from sending anything myself until early afternoon when I realized that was dumb. I sent a light note, a hi.
Still nothing.
-----------
This is called splitting.
I can be completely taken by this man, go out to dinner with him last night and gaze into his eyes in a series of embraces. He is a prince.
Then he can ignore me for one minute too long -- even if there's a Very Good Reason like a work meeting or a sick kid. One minute more than my system can tolerate and, well, it's over. He is a toad.
He emailed 30 minutes later to say he'd had a good time.
Laying there, with him for hours, he stroked my arm absently, mussed my hair and traced the shape of my ear. He warmed baby oil in his hands and rubbed my back, gently but with enough pressure so that I relaxed into the bed.
He cupped my ass in his hands as he pulled me toward him for a cuddle, kissed my cheek and then my mouth. He took my hand when we walked to the restaurant and pulled out my chair when we sat.
We talked and he paid attention to my opinions; we shared tales of our work and our favorite books. I teased him about things and he got to know about things I like and why I do the things I do. He looked into my eyes when we were making love.
I left him last night wrapped in a warm embrace; I took home the memory of being with him like a shawl and pulled it around my neck as I slipped into sleep. I woke with a smile on my lips.
--------
Why, then, just 18 hours later do I despise him? How could I wonder what I saw in him, think of all the things that I didn't like: the hair on his upper arms, the coolness of his sweat, the way I felt when I fumbled for a kiss, the comment he didn't explain. I've mined every single second for the explanation, for what I did wrong, for the reason he hates me. I've cried and I've been ready to throw things and I've trolled online for someone to replace him.
Why? You ask why?
Because he hasn't called. He didn't write a single message to me, not a word on a text note or a voicemail. "Hey how are you this morning?" "Missing you this morning." "Hi."
Afraid of being the aggressor, I refrained from sending anything myself until early afternoon when I realized that was dumb. I sent a light note, a hi.
Still nothing.
-----------
This is called splitting.
I can be completely taken by this man, go out to dinner with him last night and gaze into his eyes in a series of embraces. He is a prince.
Then he can ignore me for one minute too long -- even if there's a Very Good Reason like a work meeting or a sick kid. One minute more than my system can tolerate and, well, it's over. He is a toad.
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