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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Living edgy

I feel so edgy.

Like I'm late for something, only I'm not. Like I owe someone money, but I don't. Like I forgot to take something out of the oven, or that there's something I should be doing but I don't know what it is and don't have the energy to actually do it anyway.

I feel a big knot in my stomach, and it's just there, present, not causing me pain or anything but just present.

I feel lost and alone and not sure where to go today or what to do with myself. I have plenty I should be doing, could be doing, wish I was doing. But instead I'm just sitting here contemplating my knot and worrying about it.

How can I find relief?

You don't know what it's like

There's a light.
A certain kind of light
That never shone on me.

You don't know what it's like.
Baby you don't know what it's like.
To love somebody. To love somebody
The way I love you.

I cried as I rolled up the sweater

It was one I gave him, a nice sweater in colors he likes and ones I love. I smiled every time I saw it on him.

Today, I rolled it up and squished it inside the Goodwill bag along with clothes too small for the kids, a black-and-pink party dress I probably won't fit into again (and who needs silk polka dots these days?), plus t-shirts I never wore anyway but always seemed to find their way into the wash again and again anyway.

He doesn't need the sweater, and if he did he would have taken it. Taken it on that day last summer when he walked out, thanks-but-no-thanks-for-12-years. Yeah, it was a "mutual" decision, but one I revoked almost immediately but can't seem to take back, even now.

I want him to come home.

I've been hoarding his clothes as they come up. A pair of pants, a favorite t-shirt, a funny one and a sentimental favorite. I keep them in a dresser drawer for when he comes home.

Today, as I fondled the sweater and sniffed it for a nonexistent whiff of him, I realize I can't keep his things holding indefinitely. Sure, I could give them to him on one of those many days when we pass the kids back and forth. But I wanted there to be a reason to come home, and the thought of seeing him in the t-shirt, clad in the sweater, just seem too much.

So I sort through the tangle of our bedroom, I mean my bedroom. I haven't really gotten to the bottom of the layers for months, and as I excavate, he comes up again and again. Today, I got a big bag and started packing his things up to give away. He has replaced what clothes he left, he obviously doesn't want me, I mean these clothes.

Every time I come across one of his shirts, a pair of his pants, I ritualistically bring it to my nose, then put it in the bag.

One of the things in the corner of the bedroom, sitting there since Christmas, is a box full of our ornaments. The lid came off and things are spilling out. I pick up his Christmas stocking, the one that matches mine and the kids, the one that didn't hang on the hearth this year.

I bring it to my face, then put it back in the box. I draw the line right here.

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?

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 ...)

Yeah, it's that bad

It must be trying to come off one antidepressant while going on the other. As the levels of the old ones drop, I find myself crying. Screaming. Wanting to climb the walls.

As the levels of the new one rise, I feel hope creeping up my throat, too, but only for an instant. Hope is a waste of an emotion. It won't make things good happen and it won't prevent the bad. It only causes pain, the pain of failure, the pain of having something good followed by something so bad.

Hopeless and depressed. Atypically depressed, I guess. That's how it is. Depressed.

Hello, EmSam

I've been depressed as long as I can remember. It's not just like "Oh this is so depressing" kind of depressed. It's the insidious kind, the kind that steals moments of my life and never gives them back. It's the kind that makes me want to close my eyes and sleep, all the time. The kind that makes it hard to give a damn about anything.

They call it "major depression," and in my case it's chronic -- which means it is there, always. My particular type is treatment resistant, which means that even if I'm lucky enough to find a drug or combination of drugs that help me for a time, they eventually poop out.

I visualize it as a cloudy figure, surrounding me with silvery fog. It's deceptively soothing, but really is much more like numbing. I care about things and people, but not about life. I'd rather just have a nap, thanks.

I don't realize how depressed I am until I get a flash of it lifting, when I see a color I haven't seen in a while or have an inspiration to actually pursue a hobby again. I take it as a good sign when I wander around inside a craft store, for example, and imagine all the things I'd like to make. If only. If only I had the energy, or the desire for more than a flash or two.

I have tried all the SSRIs, one by one, for the past 15 years. It started with Prozac, which was described after an especially acute episode of public rage. I was scared into taking a drug I knew would alter my brain chemistry in the bizarre and somewhat frightening ways that anti depressants do.

I've been on a rollercoaster ride of various drugs since then -- when a new SSRI comes out I was switched from Prozac to Paxil to Effexor to Zoloft to Cymbalta. Probably a few others in there, too. I tried Wellbutrin and had one notably frightening experience with lithium.

Nothing lifts my moods. I am somewhat resigned to living a life that is not worth living (considering the alternative is too costly). I have researched vagal nerve stimulation and transcranial magnets. I read Kitty Dukakis' book about electric shock therapy and have seriously considered it. Am seriously considering it. Would do it if given the chance without the red tape involved.

Instead, today, I'm on Emasam. It's a new antidepressant, named for the daughter Emily and son Sam of a marketing person somewhere. Well, hello there.

Some people out there say it works wonders. Others aren't so sure.

Right now I'm in the second category. I'm experiencing withdrawal from the Cymbalta and Wellbutrin (yeah, was taking both) and am off sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs as well. From being on all of it a few weeks ago to being on only this.

This morning I thought it was going to be the end of me. I was so light headed, so frightened, so frazzled. It's minuscule improvement in the past few hours, but probably because I succumbed to taking a Cymbalta I found rolling around in the bottom of my purse. I felt like someone had given me a gift or a sign so I popped it and I think that's relieving some of the pain of the withdrawal. Or I'm imagining it. Or something.

Anyone else taking Emsam? How does it work for you?

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

Dear Bully, Take 4, the one I just sent

I am not sure how to respond to your note. It came out of the blue and raised some things I haven't wanted to think about for a very long time.

It also, coincidentally, came at a time when I am examining those things to see how they have affected my life. It's strange but true that a therapist and I have been working through my teenage years and that school bus for about six months now. We've actually talked about it off and on for the past four years but I have just been able to get around to wanting to work hard on it. He believes I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of years of being bullied. He believes it accounts for a lot of unhappiness in my life, including issues that are still very relevant today.

One of the things I need to get past this is to desensitize to it. I have not been able to go on field trips with any of my kids because I can't step on a school bus. I'm 45 years old and I'm afraid of yellow buses.

The sight of them has brought me to tears hundreds of times in my life, but it hasn't been until the past five years that I have been able to accept that the traumatic experiences of being bullied and -- worse -- being purposely pushed out of a group are at least in part to blame for the trouble I have relating to people.

I have not had a close friend my entire life, I guess I never felt worthy of it. I have a hard time being in groups of people for fear they will hate me, so I avoid going very many places. I have a terrible temper and though I do my best to stuff all the anger I feel deep inside, it comes out at many inopportune times and has terrorized my family, made me lose jobs and has in general just given me the reputation of being someone to fear. I have been a bully for much of my adult life, punishing anyone who disagrees with me or threatens me. I am not someone to fuck with. Which is probably the worst effect it has had on me -- making me a bully is truly the worst thing I can imagine happening, and yet in many circumstances I can see how I use that as a defense mechanism.

I am not telling you this to ask for sympathy or more apology. I really don't even want that. And I can't offer forgiveness, either. I just don't have that in me. You obviously know how you treated me was so far out of line that it has stayed with you your whole life, too.

What you can do to help, if you're at all inclined, is to help me put this to rest by simply getting past it. I have not been able to come up with many solid examples of things that happened to me. I remember a lot of gum in my hair and being thwacked on the head and being taunted in many ways. I think I remember the loneliness the most, just sitting there and trying to figure out what the hell I had done to deserve this. Then, at some point, I stopped asking why or what I had done and simply accepted the fact that I deserved the treatment, that I really was a piece of shit that no one could ever like and that it was so obvious that I never had to question why any more. That is how I see myself -- deserving to be disliked, something disgusting, something useless and smelly.

So why don't you tell me what you remember of it. Give me some specific examples, as many as you can. I need them for my PTSD therapy -- we'll use them to evoke the emotions I felt then as a way of desensitizing myself to them. I can get very very sad about it all, but I have put details out of my mind, I guess. I do know that on the few occasions I have to return to Beryl, I am afraid to drive by Lynn Hartling's house or where Suzy Pedersen used to live.

It's not really relevant to me why it happened. I don't really care. I just want to put it behind me and hope the next 25 years are nothing like the past.

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.

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.