Things have been good this last week. He moved out 12 days ago now but we are still seeing each other every day. He reports to me that he feels positive about things between us now that we aren't living together. As for me, I'm still trying to process what's best for "us" and what it is "I" want from our relationship.
I don't know if him moving out makes me feel better about things or not. The emotions and fears are still there, haunting me, constantly, and I just can't get away. Instead I numb myself, unconsciously, then notice that actually I am not feeling anything at all. The existence itself of my emotions is enough to tell me that something is here, inside of me, living. The numbing of them on the other hand has me questioning the validity of the emotions themselves in the first place. How is it that I can feel so many things and not feel anything at all, all in one time. Does my mind just work at super-sonic speed and actually there is a sequence to it all that I'm unable to keep up with in my logical thought processing. The human mind is a funny thing, so many bits and pieces to it and still research continues on to figure it all out.
I completed more research online to see about this Borderline stuff. It says people who are Borderline feel "empty" and "full" all at the same time. Is that me? Am I really Borderline in Denial? The same questions are in my face, only I force myself to look away because if I stare at it all day I will just be one of those zombie-types, fixated on whether or not I am BPD when it doesn't really matter. Whether some DSM IV Manual sticks me in a particular box isn't the issue here. It doesn't really matter which box I fall into, or whether I fall into one at all. What really matters is control; Being able to control the things that go on inside my heart; the intangible things that I have not yet been able to grasp in full. MAKE IT TANGIBLE. Attack the things that I can catch in time to stop the pain that they ultimately cause when I react impulsively.
IMPULSIVITY.
I'm pretty sure I have always been impulsive. Something happens, I react. I want something, I buy it. I crave something, I eat it. I feel a certain way, I say it. For the most part, I have this impulsivity under control but in situations where I feel threatened it takes over and leaves me acting out in ways that have undesirable consequences. I say things out loud that most people only think inside their heads: hurtful things, hateful things, things that damage the emotional wellness of people I love. Things that leave me feeling self-hatred and wanting to curl up and die in a corner. I think this is where the low functioning Borderlines commit suicide, or harm themselves, which is something that I definitely think about but don't ever act on. More so its an internal journey that my mind takes into a world of ideas about ways to commit suicide without being detected and without hurting anybody. Somehow the journey always ends with full acknowledgment of the consequences that come with suicide: the hurting and pain suicide causes your loved ones, and I know I would never act on the impulsive thoughts of death and suicide.
So what is all of this anyways? How does my brain operate and how is it that I have become the person I am today. How does a former youth in care, who comes from a background of trauma, violence, abuse, neglect and abandonment become a management level government employee, successful in completing two University Degrees yet still unable to manage her own emotions and relationships? Nobody really knows the "real me" who exists underneath my success.
If this is BPD, then how am I ever going to learn to regulate my emotions? Some researches say this emotional dysregulation is a physiological flaw and that the Borderline has no control over changing his or her emotional experiences.
Given the stress and trauma I experienced as a child/youth, maybe the pathways in my brain have been offset from the normal brain processing that occurs throughout childhood. As a child or youth an individual's brain is developing an understanding of the world. Automatic responses are learned by the brain and by the body. Stress and trauma in early childhood affect this process and leave long term effects that are difficult to correct.
Am I physically unable to activate the neurological networks in my brain that regulate emotions? Were the pathways that were created in my brain as a child off-routed and ingrained so deeply that its impossible to reverse and redirect my thought processing?
My whole life people have told me I am "resilient" and that I have "overcome so much." I am the shining star to every social worker, probation officer, counsellor, youth worker, or group home staff that knew me from the ages of 12-19. It's amazing that in recent years I have looked through my "file" from being in care of MCFD and not one page acknowledges the experiences that happened in my life prior to age 12 when I was taken into care. They completely leave out the most vulnerable years of my life, the years when my "development" was most interrupted, yet all the writers of those documents (Social Workers, Caregivers, Probation Officers) had such great plans and insight into what I had needed during those teenage years. Maybe those people had asked me about my past, and maybe some of them know more than I think they know about me, but when I think back on it all I don't ever remember talking to them about the brutal murder in my house, or about the sexual assaults that I had been victim to. This is where the PTSD comes into the picture. Of course, I have no absolute diagnosis but their are elements of multiple mental health disorders operating within me. It's all a matter of pinning them down one symptom at a time and taking control over them. I know I can do it.
I have so much to learn and to think about still. I'm trying to take this slowly and let it all sink in to a place of rest but sometimes its too overwhelming for me. I am taking advantage of my work benefits and accessing a good counsellor who has helped me along the way. I also went for massage therapy since its 80% covered in my benefits and tried to focus on relaxing. Relaxing is something I am not sure I know how to do. I've been go-go-go for as long as I can remember. It started out with living in group homes where my house-mates were children being sexually exploited and coming home from bad dates while they came down from hardcore drugs: cocaine, Ecstasy, heroine, crystal meth, you name it, they did it. The house was always full of yelling and screaming and conflict. After this I started University where I worked 2-3 jobs while studying full time and engaging myself in all sorts of adrenaline-type social activities. I'm not sure I have ever "turned myself off" and "relaxed." It's a goal of mine though, to relax, to spend time alone, to unwind. The massage I went to was one of my first challenges: spend an hour relaxing. Don't think about things. Just relax. Feel the massage, enjoy it, feel your muscles let go. My mind wandered about 6 times during that hour and I had to tell it to come back to the moment, stay away from the past and the future, LIVE IN THE NOW.
I am slowly but surely learning more about myself each day. I am growing. I am becoming a better person, and one day I can be happy just being ME.
All my relations.
