Falling Apart & Beginning Again: Jess' Story

Today I've decided to share a bit about my story.  

You may find it interesting or entirely purposeless :) either of which is okay, but I thought it might be useful for giving you an idea of context when reading my blog. 

I'll start when adulthood sort of did...  The first two years out of high school weren't that exciting for me.  I finished school at 16, when the usual age for graduating high school in Australia is around 18, because I was skipped a grade after being told I had a high IQ.  I have my doubts about this!

Aside from a retail job and a hospitality job during school, my first "real" job as an adult was a youth worker position.  This 25 hour per week job had very little support, and I did it while I tried to simultaneously pull off a full-time study workload at University.  I ended up just doing a second-rate job of both tasks and didn't find much fulfillment.  

I also enjoyed a little bit of travel and had a couple of healthy relationships.  I sometimes got the sads, which affected one exam period at worst, but life was alright.

Then at eighteen I entered an industry in which I would spend the next six years of my life and where I would meet some of the best and worst people I've ever known.  I worked full-time in very intense and stressful environments during which I experienced upwards of half a dozen instances of workplace bullying.  (Of course, I am now better able to acknowledge my role in these situations, and no doubt those people were influenced by their own distress in our ridiculously high-pressured industry, but it truly was horrible for me and some people were just jerks... Perhaps a topic for a future post!)  

I also spent most of these years in and out of an extremely traumatic relationship with someone who was twice my age and newly divorced.  They and their ex-wife worked in the same industry as me.  Everyone knew and had to work with each other despite hatred and tension.  It was unpleasant, to say the least.

Throughout these years there was not a single day that my work tasks were limited to working hours.  There was a constant expectation to attend events and socialise with colleagues out-of-hours, which was made all the more unpleasant by the goings-on of my emotional life.  And socially it wasn't that great either - there were complex networks of who liked who, who hated who, and who was undermining who just for the heck of it.  Even my recreational reading time needed to include media and literature relating to work.  I was passionate about the cause and willing to work hard, but geez!  Years of this stuff wears you down.  On top of this, all of the actions and choices in your personal life reflected directly on your career. 

I should also point out that there were some great aspects to the jobs I worked in and that I was very privileged to have had some of the support and opportunities I did.  In amongst the hard times there were some people who were great to me and there was some very cool stuff I loved doing.  I really believed, and still do believe, in the cause behind my work, and I wouldn't change that for the world.

But it was still killing me.  So, why didn't I change anything?  Why did I stay?  And why did I lock myself into a lifestyle that was clearly making me unhappy?

I'm not one of those people who is particularly wrapped up in money or appearances.  I never pay for designer labels and I'd seriously rather shop at K-Mart.  But I locked myself into a cycle of expectations where I had to keep earning money and then keep earning more.  Once you sign a rental lease, you pay that for a year.  Once you've rented one place, you want to rent a nicer one.  Once you have your own place, you pay bills.  And once you are sitting alone in your own place with all bills paid, you eventually get bored or lonely, so you go out with friends or do some activity to keep your mood up.  (Especially when you're always feeling the blues!)  

I also did all this because I just thought I had to, because it was what adults did.  Adults have their own place, buy furniture and groceries, drive their car, go to dinners, work their jobs, get promoted, get new jobs... meanwhile, my mental health kept deteriorating.  I couldn't understand why I was feeling worse and worse despite doing all the "right" things with my life.

I really was trying hard to improve things for myself.  I would complete an extra university subject or make a new friend or try to find hobbies and projects I could volunteer in.  There were even a couple more overseas trips with family and friends.  But my condition kept going downhill.  I began to dream about just throwing it all in and running away to join the circus.  As time wore on, I dreamt about doing worse things.

 

[ TRIGGER WARNING APPLIES ]

And do worse things I would!  Sometimes I was just sad, and I would fill my time with sleep or food to escape.  Sometimes the emotions were stronger.  Emergency rooms and ambulance rides became a nauseating blur.  So many times I fought off the panic of oncoming pain with drugs and alcohol.  If I really couldn't even bear the minutes it would take for those to kick in, I would resort to self-harming - cutting, scratching, burning, hitting.

I've poured boiling water on myself.  I've torn my flesh off in chunks.  I've smashed my forehead onto cement walls.  I know that there are others who have no doubt experienced worse than me, but I can tell you that within myself I went over some cliffs.  Whatever I could do to fight off the surge of emotional pain that was coming, I would do it.  And sometimes the emotions were just a never-ending dull ache that made me choose not to put my seat-belt on when I was driving or be pretty careless about looking before I crossed roads.  I would imagine my funeral or the actual process of dying just to soothe myself a bit that there was an ending available.  In general, it was safe to say I spent upwards of 80% of my life wishing not just for death but for respite from my feelings.

[ END TRIGGER WARNING ]

By the time 2012 rolled around and my family had caught on to all of this, I found myself hospitalised and on four different psychiatric medications.  Something had to give.  Eventually, it all did.  The ridiculously dysfunctional relationship finally began to cave in for good.  (Though, he only ever truly left me alone when he found a new half-his-age partner.  Make of that what you will.)  I couldn't handle being bullied at work each day by my line manager and gave my notice of resignation.  I opted not to renew my lease, sold my furniture instead, and told everyone I was leaving to go travelling overseas.  I didn't know what I was going to do, but I just had to get away.

I was alone in Amsterdam when the nervous breakdown hit.  Hard.  I ditched the rest of my travel plans and came home to a serious psychiatric hospital stay and more medication and even more therapy.

I'd quit my job and relationship.  All my things were sold or packed up.  I had almost no friends left.  (My social circle had become entirely full of work relationships and pretty much no one was interested in me once I quit my job - like I said, they weren't the nicest of people.) 

It feels like a doomed airplane was careening and breaking apart through storm after storm for so many years, as I desperately taped its wings together and pumped the fuel lines and wrestled the yoke, like some maniacal pilot... when what I really needed was for the whole mess to finally plummet into the sea.  Now I'm sitting on a life raft, alone, at last able to tend to my wounds, and rest.  I'm bobbing along in this deafeningly quiet stillness.  You get the metaphor.  It's over.

And it's a new year, I've had a break and a lot of treatment, and I'm officially "stable" according to three doctors.  So does this mean I'm almost Recovered?  HAHAHA!  No, wow, not even remotely close.  What I am is (finally) Beginning to Recover. 

Or, more accurately, I will be in a process of "Returning to Work/Study" for some years to come - which is an Australian concept of only having one job or course of study at a time, and only doing this on reduced duties, while incrementally returning to a full-time capacity, under the supervision of treating doctors.  This means I can do things, but they will need to be balanced with medication and therapy for a long time.

I've chosen to move to a bigger city and go back to University.  I'd like to study so that I can enter a new industry, and because I truly enjoy it.  I also think a new city is going to give me the space I need from old friends and old habits.  I'm still keeping some of the support with me though, as my best friend and her lovely sister are also moving at the same time.  (Plus the city is super cool and much bigger than my boring old home town.)  My family have even agreed to help me out with financial support and ensure that I'm returning home very frequently for stability.  This all fits in with my doctors' plans, so it's looking good.

In finishing my story, here are some lessons I have taken from my years of misspent youth which I implore you to consider lest you ever find yourself in the same place I was in...

A job is a huge part of your life, and any problems at work should be taken seriously.  How you are treated and whether you have a healthy work-life balance are especially important.  Report instances of bullying or harassment.  Talk to your boss about fair expectations from you as an employee.  And if you just don't enjoy your job, keep looking around for others until you find a better fit.

Try not to get stuck in one mindset and never cut off your own options.  All the cliches are true, the world truly is full of limitless possibilities and if you want to wake up tomorrow and do something completely different, DO IT.  

Screw the norm.  You don't need a big house, car, or impressive-sounding job, to be truly happy.  In fact, you can have all these things and be very unhappy.  Believe me!  What really matters is family, friends, and doing what you love.  The rest is negotiable.

Never sell yourself short because you really do deserve every good thing in life.  You deserve happiness.  You deserve a vocation that you love.  You deserve happy and healthy relationships.  Even if you have some crazy dream job or lofty ambition, give it a go!  You'll never regret the immense love and respect you show for yourself when you seek to achieve your goals.

If I could speak to my seventeen year old self, they are the things I would tell her.  Instead I have written a long and boring blog post to you!  If you have managed to read it, please know I am sending you a genuine and heartfelt thank you for doing so. 

P.S.  Of course, I should say that my mental illness likely required a genetic predisposition and would have involved contributions from other traumas in my life.  But, would I have ever reached such a severe point of crisis had I spent those years in a normal workplace and normal relationship where I was not prevented from living a healthy life?  No.  Never.  (Again, I'm an adult, and I am responsible for my choices.  But seriously, I encountered some messed up people and was put in some extremely distressing situations.  TO THE MAX.  If I ever write a book it'll be titled "Crap After Crap TO THE MAX" and no one should read it.)

P.P.S.  If I can somehow keep myself intact despite many attempts to achieve the opposite, I truly believe that other people going through mental health challenges can get there too. 

BPD & Object Constancy, Or, Why I Love Presents

Anyone in therapy or studying a form of psychology might be familiar with the concept of "object constancy".  This refers to a person's ability to recreate or remember feelings of love that were present between themselves and another person after the other person is no longer physically there.
 
For as long as I can remember, this has been something I have struggled with.  Even in primary school, I can recall how much I'd treasure scraps of notepaper from class that would "prove" I had interacted with a friend via some scribbles, or any other token or souvenir that could only be attained by being someone's friend.  Photos or presents are ideal.  Whatever the keepsake, I never have enough.  It never feels like enough.
 
This is because of my ineptness at maintaining object constancy.  I always struggle to feel loved by a person unless they are in the process of demonstrating it to me - I just can't feel it unless I'm seeing it, touching it, or hearing it.  Otherwise I feel totally disconnected, and potentially abandoned.

It's not that I don't love or appreciate the aspects of relationships that have lasted over time, it's just that I just can't remember them on my own.  I need prompting.  I have to be reminded of individual events, stories, and resulting emotions from throughout the relationship to get the full benefit of them having occurred. 

I can only imagine how exhausting this is to those who love me.  My relationships are a never-ending quest for the other person to prove their loyalty, devotion, and caring.

But because my brain can't preserve those efforts, it's the emotional equivalent of typing up a Microsoft Word document that can't save.  Every time you close the window, whatever you've written is gone, and you have to start again.

I'm not sure who gets the worst end of the deal with this symptom.  My loved ones, who can never do enough, or myself, given I can never feel permanently loved.

It's entirely feasible that a boyfriend of years has met a new partner since I saw them two hours ago, or that a best friend hates me after one cranky text message, or that a family member has disowned me because I didn't give them a Christmas hug.  It's feasible that people would do this to me, because I could do it to them.

It's that classic BPD trait of being able to "switch" or "split" and see someone as either all good or all bad.  Lacking object constancy is a big part of what makes this possible.  It's easy to switch to hating someone for one wrong move if you're unable to remind yourself of the many, many times they've done something right.

In reverse, I can honestly say that it is entirely possible for me to love a friend I have known for one day as much as a friend I have known for one decade, if the chemistry is right and if I view them as "all good".
 
Researchers have linked problems with object constancy to dysfunction in the area of the brain that deals with emotional memory.  The memories are there, but some parts of the brain just aren't talking to each other for me to be able to access them.
 
Dealing with this symptom is just another case of having to intervene in my thought processes manually, where a mentally healthy person would enjoy it on automatic.  

For me, I find it helpful to carry around pictures and notes from loved ones, as well as any gifts I've been given. Also, on the more extreme end of things, I've got my four closest family member's names tattooed on my back.  Every morning I look in the mirror and am reminded.

If I come up with other ways to deal with this, I'll be sure to post them here.

The Up-Sides Of Mental Illness: Compassion

Recently, a friend shared with me a practice he's been using at the end of each day to boost his confidence, mood and sense of self.  Interestingly, this friend is of good mental health, but still finds it necessary to work on "improving moments" from time to time.

The technique is something most of us have probably heard of in one form or another.  It's to list three things at the end of each day that you are grateful for.

I initially didn't think much of this, until I actually gave it a go.  It's really helpful. 

Some days, even if it's been a really bad day, I am still grateful for something as simple as sanitation.  If this sounds like it's not that big a deal to you, then I am almost certain you have never been to China - believe me, when that pork dumpling platter started to go south on me, and there was nothing but a hole in the ground behind the restaurant where kids were playing... Well, you can take my word for it, access to a sanitation system is a blessing.

I've decided I'm going to use this more often, to get in the habit of changing my perspective on things to see all the angles.

So, I'm starting a series of posts about the positives of having mental illness.

Lately I've noticed that my own mental health struggles have allowed me to be much more compassionate to others experiencing the same.  This seems obvious, but it pops up in places I wouldn't expect.  

Today, when I was stopping by the shops to pick up some groceries, a man was being arrested in the car park and was causing quite the kerfuffle.  

It took four police officers to hold him down, and two more to keep pedestrians away and prepare the police van to transport him.  He was screaming and shouting that these weren't police officers, but were secret police, that had poisoned his water.  Most people were standing around rolling their eyes and shaking their heads.

But my first thought was that the guy probably suffered from mental illness, and that if he had a choice, I was sure he wouldn't want to be in the situation he was in.

I can guarantee that a few years ago, before becoming mentally unwell myself, there is no way I would even have considered that.  I still probably wouldn't have been as judgmental as the people standing around, but it wouldn't have immediately occurred to me how involuntary his predicament was.

In all honesty, I can say that I appreciate being able to access this compassion and understanding for anyone who is let down by their brain in the same way that I have been.  

This isn't to say that I'm Jesus or anything, but I think it actually feels better to experience the emotion of compassion rather than emotions like judgment or disgust.

Wising Up To My Old Tricks!

Today I was reading a blog post from a new and different source to what I normally read, and I found myself becoming suspicious of this person and angry at them.

I did my usual trick of trying to Distract by continuing to read the post.  For me, Distraction is a good first step tool to use, as my emotions come and go so quickly it is always worth seeing if they will dart off as fast as they came.

The feelings persisted though.  I realised I had to consciously address them when I noticed myself wanting to react to these emotions.

So I spoke to myself out loud.  I non-judgementally listed how I was feeling and what thoughts those feelings were giving rise to.  Straight away, I was able to tell myself that these emotions were coming from past experiences, where I had been hurt by people who this blogger was now reminding me of.

It's amazing how often the purpose of my emotions turns out to be my brain trying to protect me from a perceived threat or harm.

After realising this, it's hard to be all that frustrated with myself or my disorder.  I mean, in its own way, my brain is just trying to look after me.  It's even kind of sweet! 

But, I know that more often than not, having BPD means my brain is using ineffective or misinformed methods when it comes to emotions and relationships.

I just need to practise rewiring and redirecting these good intentions so that they more effectively respond to what is really happening.

 

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!