A New Year....Hopefully Mindfully and One Day at a Time

Welcome 2011.

I hope this year will be better for me. Last year wasn't horribly unbearable, but it was crappy enough in a lot of ways. Of course when you are me, and have Borderline Personality Disorder, Emotional Dysfunction, Anxiety, Depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder, VERY low and possibly at times non-existent Self-Esteem, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, Sleep Apnea, and ride the borderline of being Diabetic.....well, lets just say things can be pretty crappy and unbearable for me that aren't for most people. That was a freaking mouthful!! I may even have left out some disorder or another. Anyhoo, it's all one big vicious circle for me pretty much on a daily basis, and can be for the people around me too, though I try not to drag too many people down with me. :P

It's kind of hard to make this public knowledge here, but on the other hand, I know there are many of you who having known me through the years will suddenly have the proverbial light bulb turn on over your heads. :) It may explain a lot to you, or you may not even care, but that's O.K. too.


I was talking to my daughter and asked her how she dealt with her bouts of depression. She told me that she just finds ways to get herself out of it and moves on. My son has expressed a similar solution, as in sucking it up, dealing with it, and moving on. Here's the kicker for me about that. Apparently there is at least one if not more chemical disorders in my brain that won't allow that function for me. I have to be on numerous medications and follow various sets of skills I have in workbooks to make my mind do what it's "supposed to" to deal with even daily life. In other words I have to work with practicing and using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy from books and worksheets that most people can just automatically perform in their brains without even thinking about it. It's not easy. Some days I think I probably need to lug my binders around with me, but that's not necessarily practical. You can't just pick up a book in the middle of a disagreement and say- "Hold on a sec, I need to check how I am supposed to act here and respond to you." A lot of it does get ingrained in my memory, but when the emotions take over as they do so often, everything else becomes useless.

Some days I can be as "normal" as anyone else, whatever that is! In fact, for years, I passed myself off as "normal" somehow. It just all caught up with me one day a little over 3 years ago and BLAM! Not a good scene at all. Does anyone remember that show "Night Court"? There were a few episodes with John Astin playing Harry Anderson's step-father. He had just got out of a mental institution and said with a maniacal look on his face- "But I'm doing MUCH better NOW!" Well, that's kinda how I feel. I wasn't institutionalized though, so it could have been worse, right? :)

Other days......ehhhhh.......not so much. One of the tricks to all this is to be able to recognize triggers or feel it coming on, but my Distant Early Warning System isn't always in operation. Then everything can crash and burn in seconds over something very inconsequential. The fallout isn't very nice either. It's confusing as all Hell too, to be sad and feel like no one cares about you and feel so lonely, yet at the same time you want to hide and avoid people. It's also very hard when you have been negative your whole life pretty much, to try to do the opposite and be positive. The worst is when you have been working SO HARD to be positive and then a negative thing comes along and cancels it all out. Another thing is that even though I know I have been working so hard on keeping it all together and didn't act out or have a meltdown, yet at the same time somehow can't see it, or acknowledge it. Weird, huh?

I think that's enough revelation for now.

My intentions with this blog are to help myself, by writing, though I will leave the really sordid stuff for offline journaling. I also hope to spread some awareness and promote acceptance for mental illness. Oh, before I forget, I am including a link to a pretty decent definition of Borderline Personality Disorder for those interested, or of course you can Google it yourself.
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=17770
If anyone actually reads this and responds, I would appreciate it.