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!

Who Am I? No, Seriously.

Today I am thinking about the diagnostic criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder that relates to Identity Disturbance:

   "3. Identity Disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self."

I spent my two hour day leave from hospital today shopping with my Mum. Shopping is one of my favourite activities, but one that I have to be careful with to make sure I don't become overly impulsive about purchases (impulsiveness - another BPD criteria!) and to make sure that I don't spend more than I have.

However, while I was shopping today I kept noticing little internal struggles about which item looked like my "style" or what sort of "look" to go for. I began to feel really confused to the point of being overwhelmed. 

I realised that I honestly feel I have no defined sense of style for myself. 

I also realised that I am far more likely to feel confused about this if I see examples of other young women who do have a very strong sense of their own "look". 

In this case, last night I was catching up with an old school friend on Facebook, and saw lots of great photos of them and their band. I was simultaneously really glad for her and her career taking off, while depressed that I don't have a similar lifestyle for myself. 

So today when I was wandering through stores, I found myself trying to emulate certain aspects of this friend's style, and feeling even more confused about what I like or don't like as a result.

I have often felt this confusion in regard to many things: hobbies, interests, career, friends, music.

I can remember as a kid waking up one day and wanting to play the violin, convinced this was going to be my new thing, only to lose all interest two weeks and one lesson later. (I also remember my Dad driving two hours to a stockist to purchase the specific violin I wanted, and then of course having to drive there again to return it! My Dad is very lovely.)

This unstable sense of self is apparently classic BPD, and is also why we are sometimes known as "chameleons" for being so ready to alter ourselves.

I am not sure how to tackle this. I know I want to understand myself better, and then be assertive about who I am as well as pursue what I want. I think this is tied in with having better self-esteem as well.

I have started by writing a list of things I am absolutely certain are true about me. I only have a few items on there so far, but I add to it when things come up.

From time to time, I might get some help with this too, when a friend or family member will make an observation about me. For example, "Of course you don't like action films!" I guess I know I don't, but I can be surprised when I'm reminded of some things.

Other than this, perhaps it will all just have to be worked on through experience.. And maybe some more shopping.