The Demise of a Family

I’m feeling pretty low, so I’m going to write this. Maybe just as a vent but there really is so much to say, and so much encompassed here.

The crumbling of my marriage has made me think a lot this past year, especially in the last few months after separating for a second time. I know, and have for many years, that the relationship is no good and that it must be severed. But deep down, there is some part of me that still longs for that “perfect family”. The one I envisioned before I had kids. The one that has passed and that will now never be. Part of me doesn’t want to let go of that dream. But I have no choice, and I have to.

I wanted a loving husband, a supportive partner. Someone to share life’s ups and downs, the joy and sorrow and everything in between. Someone to grow closer to as the years went by, not further apart. Sadly, I didn’t get that, and I really in ways can’t blame anyone but myself for making bad choices and continuing on down a path I knew wasn’t right early on. But such is life, hindsight is 20/20 and a whole slew of things seem to come together to make the perfect storm at the time that becomes nearly impossible to escape from. The never ending cycle of people, of relationships.

When our kids came, I had a whole new dream…the dream of being the PTA mom, the mom that is involved in everything her kids do, who is patient, who is their biggest cheerleader and always encouraging them to be the best they can in life. Unfortunately, because of my own issues, I was at a disadvantage when it came to parenting, and I never really realized that. I found it to be hard, harder than most and often wondered why it was so hard and not as enjoyable as I had envisioned. Granted, a lot of things contributed to all that – relationship troubles, being alone, family troubles, mental health issues, kids health problems, moving, work and school issues…in short, the stresses of life hit me hard.

For a long time I managed to hold it together. I struggled with my moods, with depression and suicidal feelings terribly. I tried to continue to put on the brave face, to be the “good wife” and the “good mom” and show no chinks in the armor. But it was really hard to do, and eventually I did break.

After having my son, my stresses in life have only magnified. I love my kids tremendously. In fact they are the most meaningful thing to me. But I worry sometimes that I am a bad example for them. I worry that they see me “too sad” or “too angry” or even “too happy”. I try to exemplify all the traits I wanted to as a mom but each day is a struggle when you do it alone and are trying to maintain your own sanity, and take care of the needs of everyone else on top of it. For years, I have been both mother and father, nurturer and disciplinarian. I have to fill every role, and it’s not a natural place to be – to have to be everything to everyone.

Over the past two years the burnout of the stresses of life have slowly crept up on me to the point where I sometimes have so little energy I can barely get up off the couch. I wouldn’t even describe it as depression. More like – apathy, or even ambivalence. A complete drainage of the mental and physical energy that I need just to get through the days. This is life, and this is the way it is. Some things I can work on, some things I can change. But some I can’t. It isn’t going to get easier until my kids are grown, and I know that realistically. My family will never be “normal” and the broken things between their dad and I will never be mended. What’s done is done. And I accept that, but it doesn’t make me happy. Like I said, a part of me still longs for that ideal nuclear family – mom, dad, kids. The happy picture perfect scene out of a magazine.

I wish that life was not so hard and I wish there was more happiness, more lights to cling onto in the dark pit. I take them where I can find them, wherever that may be. And I keep getting up each day and carrying on, because that’s the best I can do. It’s all I can do.

Sometimes, I wonder what the point of all this is

I don’t even know where to begin this or if I will post it. I alternate with writing in my journal privately and stuff that I post here. I tend to have a bit of a problem with self-disclosure. I overshare. So it’s always a battle to try to decide what to post and what not to post, what is “too much information.”

Anyway I am really feeling miserable today. I really feel just angry and like crying at the same time. There’s a little TMI for you…sometimes, when I get really REALLY angry, I start crying. Doesn’t happen often but when it does it makes me even angrier! Especially if someone is around because they assume I’m sad when really I just want to smash something. I think it’s more of a result of trying to hold anger in. That and probably a bunch of frustration thrown in.

I’m just sitting here listening to angry & depressed music, thinking about all the reasons I feel crappy. And I’m just going to go off about it now.

I feel crappy because I have been sick off and on for a month. I’ve literally been to the doctor 3 times this month for different ailments! I know it partially due to stress and my immune system being compromised. It becomes so mentally draining. I want to go to sleep for a week but I can’t. Not really an option. I have kids, and their issues to deal with. But you know, no one can be “on” all the time. It’s impossible.

I volunteered to make a cake for the fall carnival at my kid’s school. Then I got sick. Now I’ve been rushing around trying to get it worked on (caking is a hobby of mine, so I don’t just throw a mix in a mixer. I make everything from scratch and usually each cake is a 10+ hour endeavor.) So I had this awesome idea and got it pieced together last night only to awake this morning to find my skeleton (cake topper) falling apart and cracking! I’m soooooo mad and upset about it. Not just because it’s not hardening like it should, but because I am doing this for a raffle to raise money for the school. And I’m thinking, who is going to buy this f*%^ed up cake if I can’t fix it??!?!? I have til about 1 PM tomorrow to figure it out *depressed sigh*

We bought a new car today. Ok, it’s not a “new” car. It’s new to us. We needed something so that I could take my girls to school. They have been having issues with problems on the bus and refusing to go to school. They somewhat agree if we drive them (to be fair, it is mostly one of my girls.) We were trying to get by with 1 vehicle for the next year because we plan on moving across country. But with all this huge stuff going on with my kids, it wasn’t feasible. So we bought a mini-van. Yeah, I am now that mom. It’s cool because it’s got a lot of convenient stuff for a person with small children. And my kids really wanted a mini-van, they think they are “so fun”. So now, I have turned over MY TRUCK (which is like my baby) to my husband. It sounds like a stupid thing to be upset about right? I mean, it’s just a car. But it’s my car. It’s big and shiny and has personalized plates and bright pink seat covers…it’s always been good to me. I really love it. On the way home from getting the new mini-van my husband says “The first thing I need to do is get rid of these seat covers!” I’m sure he will drive it around at 80 MPH all the time and in a year it will be a dented piece of $h*t.

We were so busy today we wound up going out to eat with the kids at a sit down restaurant. They were so wild, especially my son. He was flailing and fussing and trying to run away most of the time. It was so stressful, I could barely get any food down because I was just trying to manage the situation. Enjoyable family time? Yeah right.

Life is boring. The past two days I have just been plagued by this overwhelming sense of boredom and blah-ness. Part of it is the weather. I hate it where I live, and I hate winter, period. There is nothing to do in winter, there is nothing to do where I live. Which is why I am moving soon, away from cold and snow and boring isolation.

But even beyond that, life is just boring. It just seems sometimes like everything is recycled. You get excited about something but then it lasts a short while and it’s over. You have to find something else to get excited about. Once you’ve experienced something once, it’s like it all becomes the same. You’ve had sex once, you’ve done it a million times. You’ve eaten one piece of chocolate mousse, you’ve eaten a million. You’ve watched one movie, you’ve seen them all. You know what I mean? There is no real point. It’s just various versions of the same thing. But we’re always seeking out distractions, diversions from the monotony of life.

I live a life without love. Not entirely – I love my kids and they love me. In fact I would say they are the “loves of my life”. The only things (besides God) that I do love. But I guess I mean love in an adult sense. Romantic love, partner love. I sort of gave up long ago on the idea, and I accepted that. I was fully prepared to live life alone and just do it on my own. Detached? Jaded? Maybe. But functional. Then when my husband moved back in, everything became f*%#ed up again. Being constantly confronted with negativity and hostility takes a toll. I waffle between being hopeful and hopeless about it. Most of the time I just don’t care. Like I say, I’m detached. It’s a weird feeling. My motto a long time ago became “It is what it is.” I even found this at the store months back. I contemplated buying it.

I did see a young couple today though, and they brought me kind of low. I was in our new mini-van, waiting for my husband and daughter to get a few things while my son was napping. A car pulled up across from us, and there was a young couple. They were laughing and smiling and when they parked they just sat talking. Then they had a cute little peck. Then they held each other’s faces and kissed tenderly. They sat quite a while, talking, laughing, kissing in the darkened night, thinking no one could see. It was very sweet. I remembered being that young person like them, sharing those moments of laughter with someone I loved, being so hopeful. Then you make choices, you grow up, you realize life didn’t turn out the way you hoped. And you can’t turn back time. Life is what it is now, and I accept that.

So there is my bleak outlook on life for now.

 I could go on and on…but I won’t. Just life. Everyday life.

Irate at misinformation and ignorant characterizations of people with bipolar/borderline/mental illness!!!

It is scary how much lack of information or misinformation there is out there regarding mental illness. I think this is obvious to anyone who deals with these issues personally, but it never ceases to amaze me, no matter how much time passes. I think it’s getting worse in this age of technology. So many people post things online and anyone can access them and read them and think “Oh, this is the way it is” or “Oh, this is true.” Granted, truth is subjective in nature, depending on what you’re looking into. The “truth” of one person’s experience may not be “truth” to another person. I am all for sharing personal experiences because I think that is really how we all learn more about mental disorders and how the brain works and functions. If no one ever shared, very little would be gained. We would be subject to the interpretations (often wrong) of the doctors and authorities and those around us. That is why I think it so important for mental health patients to speak about their experiences, and to educate the public and educate doctors and clinicians as well.

I have noticed when I do research on mental health topics I find interesting, there is ALWAYS misinformation that pops up. Sometimes it is just a random opinion of someone that is inaccurate or ignorant. Sometimes it is information that is actually posted on what many consider to be REPUTABLE sites! A HUGE offender is the website “PsychCentral”. I have seen so much offensive, inaccurate, erroneous information regarding mental health on that website that frankly, it is scary.

I have also noticed several websites of private psychiatrists, psychologists and the like describing mental health afflictions like bipolar and borderline. I’ve been appalled at how many of these characterizations are over simplified or simply WRONG. I think this is due to a few things. 

A) These clinicians do not LIVE with these issues personally therefore they lack an inherent understanding of them and how they work or feel on an internal level. They use themselves as a reference point and assume that they know what all people are feeling or thinking when they don’t. They’re simply projecting their own thoughts onto others and making generalizations based on that. 

B) Their knowledge base mainly stems from what I would call “textbook knowledge” or what they learned while in graduate school. A person can have all the book knowledge in the world but without a deeper understanding and intuition into the area, they will not “get it”, they will not truly be able to piece things together on a visceral level or in a holistic way. I’ve dealt with many clinicians who even years into their profession, discussed disorders in a “textbook” way only. I liken it to male gynecolegists/obstetricians. Sure, they have some knowledge. But could they ever REALLY know what it is like to carry a child and give birth, and advise someone accordingly? Not really. Their answers will always involve “textbook” replies. They take a pre-set model (which may not even be accurate to begin with) and they then apply this model to their patients. If a patient presents differently, it is assumed it is the patient that is wrong, and not the pre-set model. I think in a way so many doctors today lack problem solving skills or critical thinking ability. They may be able to recite a long list of medications and textbook presentations of known illnesses but beyond that, they can’t really offer much. 

C) They have biases. Let’s face it. EVERYONE has biases whether they realize it or not. How we grew up, our religious (or lack of religious) views, our experiences with particular groups of people – these all influence our thoughts and opinions. The problem with bias is when it causes a person (or people) to make unfair generalizations about others. To say “People with bipolar disorder have difficulty regulating their emotions” would be accurate. I doubt anyone with bipolar would take offense to such wording. But to say “People with bipolar are angry and lack self-control” is not totally accurate. Are some people with bipolar that way? Sure. Is EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. with bipolar that way? Uh, no. People on the “outside” who are looking for information may take it as true and then THEY have a negative pre-set model in their head, if they were ever to meet such an individual. They would already have a preconceived notion and bias themselves, just because of what some random doctor said. (And while I’m at it, I just have to mention, they obviously aren’t even good doctors at all or they would know their characterizations were incorrect and lack sensitivity.)

It bothers me SO much because I think how an unknowing individual might go searching for information and what do they get? Search results with a bunch of garbage mixed in with some pertinent information or accurate/helpful insights here and there. I recall searching for information years back and being disheartened by it. It was filled with negative messages and despair about how the disorders were hard to treat, there was no cure, the people were “difficult” etc. All the horrible stigma surrounding them is actually in these cases increased by the very people who are supposed to be advocating for these people, their patients! If I read one more doctor talk about how “manipulative” BPD patients are and how they “lack empathy” I think I will reach through my screen and choke them (Oh, how BORDERLINE of me – I must be exhibiting some psychopathology by that comment! *note sarcasm*)

Characterizations like that convince me that these psychiatrists/counselors lack knowledge, understanding and even compassion, and have an inability to see their patients or anyone with a mental disorder as human beings. They are talked about as if they are mere things, like they are without feelings, consciousness or souls. And frankly, it makes me irate. Why? Because all people want to be heard and to be understood. And people who deal with mental health issues certainly don’t need people within the mental health field making them feel worse about the very things they are trying to work on or improve, or characterizing them in pompous, condescending ways. I can’t help but wonder why people get into this field if they lack that fundamental empathy and compassion for those they are supposed to help?

So, what happened to all the GOOD doctors in the world? Are there any left?

Bipolar mania - misconceptions about symptoms

So, I’m going to describe a bit of what has been going on with me a little here and more in upcoming posts/videos, hopefully I can because I fully realize that my mind is not functioning as it should right now. It is very hard to concentrate.

I don’t know when this most recent period began. My moods have been fairly erratic the last few months, and I now realize they are often triggered by outside factors. I no longer see my bipolar/BPD/anxiety/depression as discrete “disorders”. I see them as a combined form of 1 thing where at times, one comes to the surface while others recede. However currently I’m literally experiencing almost everything a human can simultaneously.  So instead of referring to a particular disorder I’m simply going to address what I’m experiencing.

The textbooks always talk about those “stereotypical” behaviors – promiscuity, impulsive spending, reckless driving, yadda yadda yadda. It’s safe to say I’ve experienced most of those textbook things. But the thing I hate is they never describe what is going on internally when a person is doing those things – what drives them to do it, what their internal state is like. They generally just address outward behavior or “symptoms”.

I went off meds in January of this year. So it’s been almost a year without them. Like most people who have taken psychoactive meds, I don’t like doing it. (Post for another time). I was willing to accept the fluctuations and deal accordingly. In the last week my anxiety symptoms and mood fluctuations have become quite severe to the point that unfortunately, I have resorted to taking some medication again to try to tame it to the point that is manageable. I don’t mind going through the ups and downs. But when it gets to the point that my mind is so confused/erratic/discombobulated, I literally have a breakdown of mental functioning. I’m on my second day of resuming Zyprexa and waiting to see how that goes. It tends to work quickly. Here are a couple things I’ve noticed over this year (off meds).

        1) I have had far more elevated periods than depressed periods. Often, the feelings actually combine. I wouldn’t call that a “mixed” episode as doctors like to do, because it does not involve simply 2 mood states of elevation and depression. It literally involves every emotion possible. Yesterday a friend asked how I was feeling and I said “I feel like everything at the same time.” I was angry, happy, sad, anxious and excited ALL SIMULTANEOUSLY. I could not separate out one feeling and say “This is how I feel.” Needless to say, it can then cause a great deal of confusion within a person’s mind (as it did to me.)

                     2)  I’ve also noticed that I’m particularly sensitive to triggers in my environment. I’m far more affected by sensory input than I once realized. It is frustrating because it can cause a pretty serious dysregulation of mood. I have to try to find ways to mediate my surroundings which can be difficult. I cannot tune out all the triggers or become “immune” to them. Which sucks.

                  3)  Altered mood states for me involve just about everything. One misconception about bipolar or other similar mental illnesses are that they involve just MOOD or EMOTIONS. Not true. It involves a distortion of – time, memory, behavior, thought processing and others as well as emotion. So basically, it’s “the whole shebang.”

So I’ve been feeling a lot of – well, everything! It can be beautiful and horrible at the same time. Overwhelming feelings of pleasure mixed with intense feelings of agony, periods of confused elation, agitated elation, agitated anger. Periods of memory and time lapse, and dissociation from my mind and body, both heightening and depression of my nervous system. Well, it can make you an interesting person to be around or talk to, but it can be exhausting to experience it, both physically and mentally. It’s like living a constant paradox.

Diagnosis of BPD/Borderline, and making sense of the chaos

Hi everyone…it’s been a long long time since I’ve written!!! Life is so complicated, as it always is J There are ups and there are downs and in betweens.

Today I want to talk about a subject I have not discussed much on my blog, and that is Borderline. I myself was diagnosed with borderline last year when I went through a particularly heinous episode of a couple of months that pushed me back into counseling and psychiatry after a long break during my pregnancy. I did not know what was going on with me at all…it was very extreme. I was fighting with my husband all the time and having these rages that would start at my toes and literally go up through my head like a white hot heat. I’d never felt anger like that before, like some crazy wild animal – the intensity was far beyond what I had ever experienced. Having mostly been an inward turning person throughout my life, expressing angry rages outwardly was scary to me, yet I felt completely out of control of my emotions and behavior. I began having traumatic flashbacks to my childhood that would hit me out of nowhere, while shopping or doing laundry or driving. I began having panic attacks where my heart would race and I would be short of breath, hyperventilating, sometimes for hours. I began severely dissociating (although I did not know what dissociation was at the time). I would be walking and talking and having no idea what I was doing, where I was going. I felt very “muddled” in the head during those times and would find myself putting garbage in the refrigerator or driving off someplace where suddenly, nothing looked familiar and I had no idea how I got there. My emotions would fluctuate between extreme and overwhelming to numb or non-existent. I literally felt as if I were going crazy and KNEW I needed help. I did not recognize the person I had become.

So, on top of having bipolar, I was diagnosed with borderline, and initially, I actually felt relieved. I thought “Ok, this makes sense” and did a lot of thinking back on my life and feelings and behavior. I came to recognize a lot of things that I never did before, almost like blinders coming off. But then after a couple of months, it started having the opposite effect. The more I learned about borderline the more bleak it seemed. People view those with borderline as “crazy” “unpredictable” “angry” “mean” “unfixable” and whole host of other very negative descriptors. There is very little understanding out there about it. Much like when I was diagnosed with bipolar, I did not like the idea of being lumped in with “those people” especially since I DO NOT do some of the more egregious things that many borderlines do (verbally assaulting others, physical aggression, manipulating behavior). I can’t say that I have NEVER been mean to another person verbally but overall, it is not what I would consider a part of my “personality”.

So that brings me to the other point that I didn’t like about being diagnosed, and that was the label of borderline itself. The name “Borderline Personality Disorder” originated when it was believed that the disorder existed on the “border” of so-called neurosis and psychosis. This is now known to be untrue but the name remains. It has insane amount of stigma associated with it, probably moreso than any other mental disorder. People just hear the word borderline and they immediately get a horrible idea in their heads and think you are the scum of the earth. Which, honestly, I know I am nowhere close to being!!! I’m sure there are some borderlines who ARE that bad but again, I’m not a ticking time bomb walking around hating everyone and just waiting to unleash my anger. Quite the opposite. I’m generally a quiet, meek individual. Growing up my anger and negative feelings were turned inward toward myself and came out as depression, suicidal thoughts, self-injury and those types of things, rather than angry tirades and verbal abuse of others.

I really think that “Borderline Personality Disorder” is in itself a misnomer. I do not believe it is a disorder of personality, which implies that it is some sort of core fault and that those with this disorder are “bad” people. The truth is that with more and more research being done into BPD and mental illness in general, the more the findings are showing that it is a complex interplay of both nature and nurture that causes these disorders to arise. In the case of borderline, individuals are believed to be born with a highly sensitive temperament which, from the start, predisposes them to various issues. So there’s the nature, the hereditary element of it. Then add in what is described as an “invalidating environment” in a child’s formative years – that can be anything from being ignored or criticized by their caregivers all the way through severe forms of abuse or neglect. So there’s the nurture aspect of it. The outside factors that influence and shape a person’s neural pathways in the brain which then control their thoughts, beliefs and behaviors later in life. It’s a big can of worms, essentially.

So, the idea of this being a personality disorder just doesn’t sit right with me. When you take into account that the vast majority (some studies have said as high as 80% or more) of people with BPD come from traumatic or abusive backgrounds, it really seems like a way of punishing the victim unfairly. Truly, BPD to me does not seem to be a personality disorder, but actually a disorder of trust and attachment which was skewed and malformed at a young age. As a result, people with BPD struggle with relationships and their sense of self/identity. Most of the classic BPD issues (fear of abandonment, lack of trust, love/hate relationships, outbursts of anger) can be traced back to events which occurred in the person’s life. They weren’t just born “bad”…like a malleable ball of clay, young children are impressionable and shaped by the experiences around them. I think if people understood this basic premise they would understand those who suffer with BPD a little more and try to understand what hell it must be (and I can speak from experience, it is at times) for the person living inside that body and mind.

Now, that is NOT to say that because those with BPD come from backgrounds of trauma that they can just throw their hands up in the air and say “This is how I am. I can’t do anything about it,” and just subject others to inappropriate behavior. Just because things happened to us as children, doesn’t give us a right to say “It’s somebody else’s fault” and subject others to the same things we were subject to. There again, I see another distinction between myself and the “classic” borderline individual – I recognize these areas I need to work on and accept that. I’m not happy just living in chaos. There are many BPD sufferers who choose not to do anything about it, and to me, that isn’t OK. We didn’t ask for these problems but the fact is, they are there. And they must be dealt with. Those with BPD (like myself) do have the capacity to improve, we do have the ability to get better at managing our intense emotions and relationships with others. But that can only occur when we accept WHAT IS rather than denying it.

So I guess in that sense, the diagnosis has helped me. I’m understanding more and more about myself as time goes on and working hard at getting better control over things, which probably never would have happened had I not gotten the diagnosis. After I was diagnosed with bipolar 4 years ago, I automatically lumped all my emotional states into that, but now I see that not all the emotional issues I have are bipolar related. Many of them are borderline related. The causes are different, treatments are different. I finally, in my third decade of life, feel like things are starting to make sense to me. I feel much better than I did then, emotionally. I feel stronger. For most of my life, I felt weak and fragile and wore a mask to hide all those so called imperfections from others. I’m finally starting to actually FEEL the inner love and peace rather than just pretending that I do. DBT has helped tremendously with this. It is hard work but I recommend it to anyone suffering with BPD who wants to better their life situation. We cannot control our genetics or what we were born with, we cannot control past events or things that were done to us when we were small and powerless. But now, we are grown, we DO have a choice. We do not have to be angry, sad, helpless. We can begin the process of healing, of taking back the power that was stolen. The power is all inside of us…we just have to believe in it.