*Warning: Triggering as fuck. Do not read if you are in a not-so-great place either.*
I really should have seen this coming.
The Christmas/New Year combo is a double-whammy for me and always has been. Both are dates when you really can’t help but reflect on where you are vs. where you’ve been vs. where you wanted to be at this time of year. Both are dates that involve an absolute overload of warm fuzzy feelings and happy families and fond memories and joyful hopes.
Unless you don’t have those things. Then the whole fucking season is a reminder of why you should just give up and save yourself – and others – a lifetime of pointless struggle.
I was feeling sort of hopeful about my recent therapy (and therapist). Then our last pre-holiday session was an absolute disaster. As in, “Let me talk about myself for an hour and not even realize I’m triggering/upsetting you and not helping AT ALL by bringing any of this up.” For me, strong emotions always = numbness and shutdown now, so I was seriously dissociated by the end of the day. It got worse and worse until I flipped out on my roommate, smashed my phone, trashed our house (smashed pictures, dishes, etc.) and left for my parents’ on Christmas Eve feeling like I usually do after I let myself feel any of the pain and anger I usually numb myself to: a monster that needs to be put down. Got to my parents to find my roommate had, in a state of terror, told them everything. Told them they needed to monitor me because I seemed suicidal. Which I was. But I was furious at him for saying anything and I still am and I can’t help it.
What the fuck is wrong with me? It’s all I can think when things are like this. I get back into the cycle of questioning why I’m like this, why it never stops, why I keep thinking anything will change… the answer, deep in my gut, is always the same: it’s you, you’re the problem, you will never change, and you’ll be saving everyone so much pain if you just end it.
I feel like such a horrible thing, such an ugly shell of a human being, and like the grain of humanity that I cling to is being warped and twisted with each passing year into something I can’t live with. I’m right back where I started – except not, because I feel lower than ever knowing how many times I’ve felt like this and how each time I thought “well things can only go up from here.” It turns out I was wrong every single time.
I don’t feel worthy of anyone’s love or attention and I can’t stand the infuriating, pathetic, childish BPD tendencies I have to demand both when I know no one in their right mind should give me either. The thought of hanging on, for years and years, a burden on my loved ones and the hospital/health care system with my increasingly dramatic, self-harming attempts for attention makes me feel sure I would be doing the right thing by giving up now.
Why do we bother when we feel like this so often? Where is the upside of any of this? I can’t see it even though I know parts of me really want to and have tried so hard in the past.
Half of a Soul - Life with BPD 
What a nightmare. You have every right to feel and think all the things you’re thinking and feeling. Those feelings and thoughts won’t necessarily equal fact, but you are absolutely entitled to them, however many times they come around. Where is the big picture upside? To be honest, I can’t see it myself at the moment. But you, your writing, your thoughts, are one upside for me. And you being able to express how you feel in writing, might be a small upside for you? Tiny compared to the massive weight of the future bearing down, looking and feeling like it currently does, but maybe big enough to carry you through small steps, until another small upside comes along. All therapists fuck up – I idolise my previous one and think she was perfect, but even she did incredibly triggering things sometimes. I’m not minimising what she did – it sounds like a major screw up, but she may yet redeem herself , and if and when you decide to, you could always challenge her about it, however uncomfortable that sounds right now, and however much you might hate her right now. And as for someone telling your parents – I would have flipped out too, and be feeling just as you are now.
Little though its worth, you have _my_ attention, even if you feel you Dont deserve it. And although I Dont know you personally, I really like the person I read about through your blog, even if you really don’t like her or think that shes worthy of that liking. She’s honest and she’s brave, because of her words, her sharing and her giving of herself, and that’s a big deal, at least to me.
If you need to self harm, Dont judge yourself. We wouldn’t do it if it didn’t make things better, or help us survive. It may not be the ideal coping mechanism, but sometimes its all the resource we can muster. But put off any bigger decisions until another day . I Dont really want another day either – but maybe we can wait together, and see what happens. Take care cat, thinking of you xxxxx
I can understand everything you say here. It is a tough time of year. New year time is worse for me, but I try to enjoy it in a different way to going out socialising. I hope your mood improves real soon
😥 You guys break my heart – in a good way. THank you so much for your comments. @StillHiding, it is the telling the parents thing that is killing me. I asked for details of what was said to them and I really shouldn’t have. The thought of those words – very intimate descriptions of the things I struggled so bloody hard to hide for years and years – being said to them makes me feel cold and sick with anger and shame. I know I should mainly just be appreciative and grateful that they reacted well/with compassion (and they did. So that is a tiny positive.) but I feel like part of my BPD has always been clinging to grudges and anger in an effort to “protect” myself and now that aspect is running rampant. It is not a pleasant feeling….
Dearest cat, I know, but only fully realised it after I’d posted 😦 Initially I thought that because you’d had more ‘physically obvious’ difficulties when growing up (you’d mentioned the cutting and eating), that at least some of this was familiar to them, even if not openly acknowledged. Not that that would really make any of this any easier. I Dont like to think or feel myself into the ‘parents finding out’ locked box, because its probably my biggest fear and the one thing ive always been sure would be the thing most likely to tip the scales from thinking about suicide, to trying it, so I think my unconscious defence was almost to focus on the thing less likely to trigger me – I’m sorry 😦 (and I’m also ok, by the way, in terms of triggering, but thank you for posting the warning at the top xx).
And I Dont think I’d realised your room mate had given away quite so much 😦 that must feel excruciating 😦 I’m really glad they reacted well, but theres no ‘should’ about how you feel about that. What is now out there cannot be unsaid, and the compassionate reaction might make it a tiny bit easier to deal with it, but its still a huge violation, and a hole in your defences, and that is extremely unpleasant… 😦
If hugs could make their way across the seas, youd be feeling one right about…….now xx
You’re a precious girl and life is extremely painful and almost unbearable at the moment, but we’re thinking of you and know you can sit tight through this… Xxxxxxxxxxx
@StillHiding – no need for ANY apologies! (seriously – not at all) Your words are so helpful and mean so much to me (as per usual, in fact). I really like the image of a “hole in the defences”; that is exactly the phrase for the feeling I get most BPDish/triggered by. At that point (i.e. when the I notice the hole), I seem to become incapable of thinking or doing anything other than devoting every energy I have to plugging the leak. Doesn’t matter if it’s harmful, crazy, very unlike (daily/”normal”) me, or whatever, suddenly I’m trying to fill it with the same panic and desperation as the crew of a ship that’s just sprung a leak. And one of the biggest ways to bolster my defences when they feel breached is ANGER… super protective, almost violent anger (I feel a post coming on, despite the late hour here…). Thank you so much for the hug – I will gladly take it! And send a big one back… thinking of you and of all of us suffering from borderline tomorrow (or today, depending where you are) with an attempt at hopefulness for 2014 xxxxxxx
Thank you for the hugs back – attempts at hopefulness being made over here too. We’ve got just over half an hour to go, but I’m going to bed! …. Xxxx