Being Right or Being Happy?

Yesterday I found myself in a tricky situation.  I was visiting my Dad, and had naturally parked my car on the street in front of his house when I arrived.  

We were chatting away inside when we heard a loud car horn being beeped and someone yelling.  When we went out to see what was going on, his neighbour from directly across the road screamed several profanities out her car window at us, before driving off in a hurry.

It turns out that this neighbour believes no one should be allowed to park across from their house because it means she can't just reverse carelessly out of their drive-way without looking.  Despite this having no legal standing whatsoever, she had verbally abused my family before about this.

Immediately, my Dad went walking over to this neighbour's house to have a word with whoever was home, and I went with him to share my dissastifaction at being yelled at.

The husband was home and had a conversation with us.  He also preferred no one park there, but didn't believe his wife should have yelled about it.  

In actual fact, it's a completely normal parking spot on Australian roads.

When it became clear he would not shift his views, I had to decide: do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy?

I could have stood there for another thirty minutes debating the point to try and make him agree it's a perfectly valid parking spot.  However, we had family to meet up with, and this would have caused us to run later than we already were.

I had to stop and think about using DBT Interpersonal Effectiveness skills.

I also had to balance the "wants-to-shoulds" - as in, find a balance between what I wanted and what I should do.

I wanted to argue with this man until he accepted that he and his wife were mistaken in trying to enforce non-existent road rules.  (Which they were!)  But, my wants weren't the only things that mattered, and I knew I should have wrapped up the conversation before it intruded on any more family time.

In the end I was able to achieve my main goals as recommended in DBT:

• Get my opinions taken seriously: he was definitely listening to us.
• Get others to do things: he said he would talk to his wife and calm her down.
• Say no to unwanted requests: I made no commitment to park elsewhere given that this is unreasonable, has no legal standing and is not what I want to do.

And wouldn't you know it - as we were walking away and saying goodbye, he THEN managed to slip in TWO apologies for his wife's behaviour.

That was all we had really wanted all along! 

Past Hurts

Today's post, "Do You Deserve Happiness?" by Debbie at Healing From BPD really brought up some big, unexpected realisations for me.

She has written about how many of us with BPD respond to positive experiences in our life with hesitancy, trepidation and suspicion. We have often experienced traumatic events in our past that colour how we see our present and future. We struggle with trusting people and ourselves, and do not believe that we are worthy of good things.

Reading this post really surprised me. I already knew that when good things happen to me, I spend most of the time telling myself that it's only temporary, and miss out on enjoying positive feelings. I just thought of this as being overly protective of myself, and on guard.

But when I stopped to really think about it - I realised there is a lot more going on beneath the surface for me. I am actually telling myself things like:

• "This is going to end or turn out to have been false, like everything."
• "You will ruin this, like you always do, because you are an incompetent failure."
• "Someone you love will ruin this because they hate you and never really loved you back and want to see you suffer."

Whoa. Turns out there's a bit more going on in my head than just mild suspicion.

I am actually telling myself some really toxic things. A lot of it stems from some very traumatic times I had in a past romantic relationship. There might be some of it that comes from another place, but I'm not sure.

Clearly I have some issues to think about for myself. I might need to start by turning my mind to enjoying positive experiences.

This is especially important because it doesn't make sense for me to stop myself from enjoying things like friends, family and personal time because of past trauma in a relationship. It is not even relevant to the present experiences I'm having.

There are also some self-esteem issues that I'll look at, in terms of expecting myself to fail.

Once again, I am deeply grateful for Debbie's blog. And once again, I have lots of work to do!

Coming Out

Recently on Twitter I mentioned that I had been "coming out" to some people in my life about my BPD diagnosis. I've also started using my real name - Jess! - on Twitter and now on here for my blog posts.

This has been inspired, like so many aspects of my journey towards recovery have, by Debbie at Healing From BPD.

Reactions have varied, but whatever they have been, the first few minutes seem to be irrelevant as the person is usually just processing everything during this time. You need to explain it and give them a few moments to comprehend before you get the full measure of understanding and empathy that most people will offer.

In fact, so far there haven't been any "bad" reactions, just different ones. Anything from total surprise, to curiosity, to condolences. Interestingly though, a very common response has been the person then telling me about a loved one who also suffers from mental illness.

I have been genuinely taken aback by how many people already know someone they care about that struggles with mental health.

This shouldn't be surprising, as in Australia statistics are that 1 in 5 people will face a mental health challenge in any given year.

I believe that the more we are open and honest about the challenges we face, the easier we make it for other people who are facing similar challenges. Even for those who may never suffer from mental illness, statistics guarantee they will interact with people who do, and learning about one person can inform their caring and sensitivity towards another.

I also believe that there are benefits in naming a part of you and owning it for the world to see. There should not have to be any shame in suffering from mental illness, any more than there would be for having a heart condition or blood disorder.

Understandably, this doesn't mean anyone should have to shout their diagnosis from the rooftops, walk around in a t-shirt saying "ASK ME ABOUT MY BPD!!!" or begin every conversation they have with a disclosure of their mental health. I have chosen carefully who I am choosing to open up to and in what context. And if someone is just not up to talking about their mental health, then that is just fine too. Everyone is at a different point in their journey.

But no one with a mental illness has chosen to have that illness. We should all be proud of ourselves and the path we are traveling, because it is just a part of life that none of us are perfect. (Except you, dear reader!)

Am I Scared Of Getting Better?

Now that I am discharged as an outpatient and living at home with my folks while I work on my recovery, we are looking at my options for next year.

However, any time I think about recovering and the bigger picture, like future plans, I feel overwhelmed and extremely anxious. I think I'm scared of relapsing worse than previously. At every stage of my illness I have truly thought that it was rock bottom, and every time I have thought this there has always been further to fall later on.

One year ago I was living independently alone, working full-time in an Executive level job, seeing friends not often but when I could, paying bills, driving my car, flying interstate for work or for leisure, planning my round-the-world trip... Just generally keeping things roughly together.

Now my main activity for the day can be something like beading a necklace. And even this can be a challenge - to physically bring myself to outpatient therapy, to ride fluctuations in my moods, to deal with the social anxiety that comes with leaving my room.

I feel like I have lost so much ground, that I don't want to regain it and feel the loss of losing it again. Thinking about this, I have two strategies for tackling my fears. 

1. Opposite Action. This is meant to be used whenever the fear of something is not useful or proportional to the threat. For example, I shouldn't be scared of feeling better, because this is a good thing that I will find enjoyable. So I am trying to chose the actions that a non-scaredy-cat would chose. Today I looked online at rental properties just to get an idea of costs and locations.

2. Achievable Goals.  Breaking things down into achievable parts is useful and realistic. No one is expecting me to wake up one morning and miraculously recover from mental illness. I don't have to immediately fix my life overnight. In fact, this isn't possible. Recovery is done in bits and pieces over time.

It's ok to not be perfect and to go backwards as well as forwards. I also won't morph into a younger version of myself and be back in the middle of a previous crisis, because that isn't possible - the experience that I've gained can't be lost or taken away.

So while my future might not be Easy Street, and there will be ups and downs, I know that this is normal for everyone - even people without mental illness - and that the experiences I've already had will help me deal with things better as they come.