All the King’s Horses

Its been a while. It’s been the kind of a while that stirs up a “get stuff off your chest” post…It’s been a maelstrom of meditations, medical problems, friendship fallout, and catching myself in symptomatic behavior. To be honest I’m still being carried by the swirl. I know I’ve written about this before, my difficulty with relationships and BPD, but things have come to such a screaming apex that I thought it might be time I wrote out just how it feels being this socially inept.

Firstly, my long suffering relationship with DG has come to an end. He’s no longer in my life. He moved on, found new friends, and is happy as a clam from what I gather. Its rubbed in my face to be honest. It’s a cycle that’s become overly familiar over the years, simply because there is a clear cut pattern that replays with every relationship. There are a few obvious phases that sometimes overlap and sometimes come alone and fierce.

Anna Karenina

This is the phase of pure paranoia. Things will be going along swimmingly until we spy a tiny, probably meaningless and unintentional hint and spend hours trying to decipher the meaning. We weave these thoughts into an ever increasing web of certainties that may or may not have any basis in reality. Consequently, by acting insecure and suspicious, we push away the very people we fear losing.  Like Anna Karenina,  the smallest signs of being abandoned take hold with a ferocity painting only visions of endings that no reassurances can overcome. While those feelings led her to suicidal resignation, I’m trying to reason my way out of mine.

Humpty Dumpty
The big one with BPD that I can tell you is happening for me right now is the cycle of putting someone on a pedestal (idealization) and then just as quickly, after whatever trigger occurs, feeling nothing for them or even worse, feeling anger toward them (devaluation). I can tell you that I had no idea I was doing this until the pedestal broke, but looking back, this person’s word was gospel to me, every opinion the totality of truth. Now that the break has occurred, all I can see are the fractures left over from the fall.  People are angels or devils with no in between. It’s a hard way to see the world and it’s never made an appearance so strongly with me as it is now after DG. Even Though I recognize what’s happening as symptomatic, I can’t stop the feelings from overwhelming me.

I’m no longer fairest in the land, it’s Snow White.

Here comes the anger and the jealousy. The view is extremely selfish… everyone wants to be favored; to think they’re the closest, the most important…but when the illusion is broken, it’s a long way down to the concrete. This comes into play when you are no longer the center of attention like you once were. It comes with the inevitable pulling away that comes with every friendship whether it be the arrival of a significant other, new friend, new co-workers, whatever the new and exciting thing may be. We feel replaced, no longer good enough (that is if we don’t have the solid self esteem to show us otherwise – which we usually don’t). So, my friend found a new friend. Most people deal with this in a healthy way hanging out with other people who want their company. Focusing so much the one perfect person, however, made that impossible. In the all or nothing thinking, there is now nobody left. I felt devalued and it set of the chain reaction of devaluation and landed me in my angry little hole. Being pushed off to second place (or lower) is something I’m keenly aware of.

Fear and Loathing and the Devil Ether

This all leads me to the fact that while I know all of this, and can recognize the symptoms, just like the devil Ether, “you can actually watch yourself behaving in this terrible way but you can’t control it.” The feelings are so overwhelming. You can reason with it. You can try to think your way out of it, present it with alternative scenarios, shame it, cry and hope it goes away, but in the end, the emotions have their day. You find yourself thinking terrible things and plotting until you snap yourself back to reality.

It isn’t easy. No one can Live up tho the picture I painted, no matter how loving or kind. No one can live up to the best friend myth that I keep looking for either.

The problem is I’m still, well,  I’m mad. Angry. While that’s an honest feeling, it also ranks me in the “unhealthy relationship” category and pushes me even further down the scale of people likely benefit from friendship. I’m still behaving in this terrible way by feeling betrayed and reacting to what was to me, a very real event. So, it’s kind of like shooting yourself in the foot accidentally. It seems I might have to get used to the idea of of being fully on my own and learning to like it.

Odd Man Out

It’s been a while since I’ve been up to writing, not because of anything in particular, but because of the pure monotony. I’ve been in a funk, realizing that every day is like the last and everything I do is a “have to”. I’m feeling on the verge of one of my roller coaster moods and I’m not sure if it’s the boredom that anyone would feel in doing the day to day drudgery or if I’m on the upward swing of my illness. Whatever the case, alone is alone.

No, this one isn’t about romance, but a wider spectrum of relationships that encompasses everyone I know. Charlotte Bronte once wrote “the problem isn’t that I’m single and likely to remain single, it’s that I’m lonely and likely to remain lonely.” There is a big difference. Being the odd one out sucked in school and it’s no less painful now. Why am I feeling this abrupt need for company now? As usual, it’s in the face of seeing others’ camaraderie.

There have been changes in the immediate circle of people that I interact with. All of that is positive for the most part, but when everyone goes on to have a good old time and forgets you exist, well, that’s a little less awesome. It’s a hazard of the fact that I’m alone in my office all day, which I think is the root of my problem. I only get to interact with people that are grieving, have a problem, or are in need of information. There’s no one to talk to for the rest of the day, and recently, it’s taken every ounce of strength to get through it.

I look forward to going home, but it’s more of the same, the weekends, the same yet. A pile of chores and tasks. No company except my boy who has more pressing things to do, like play his video game. It’s becoming a lonely existence and I’m jot sure why it’s not bothered me before. Probably because I get a little resentful of the fact and then want everyone to leave me alone. It’s an unfortunate dichotomy of the illness that we create the very thing we fear.

I don’t want to be alone and want to be included in the love fest, but because I’m forgotten, I’m resentful and seek the very isolation I’m upset about. Attention feels like pity. I think my upswing this time is an angry one. When I go hypo-manic, it’s not joy or excitement that’s awakened, it’s angst, impatience, and resentment. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that company? Right.

I need my spring of inspiration refilled. It’s run dry. I’ll go do some randomness I’ll regret and come back to my senses, nothing having changed really in the end. I, of course, realize none of this thinking is healthy. If I want true change, I’ll have to learn how to interact with people in a less raw way. It’s still difficult not to take everything personally or as a commentary on my fitness as a worthwhile human being. It simply feels like people continually overlook me as a companion…that everyone else is preferable to me… and that’s a painful thing to feel.

It’s all part of it, I know, but it doesn’t make it better. Knowing where it stems from isn’t helping much either. I can catch it, realize it and redirect myself and hope that my company is enough for me, write a little, and wait for it to pass. Woo. Can I party or what? I think this is how people end up drinking by their lonesome and end up alcoholics. In my case, my imagination can furnish me friends and I can pretend that I’m loved. Yeah, I need some rum…

People. Pssshhhhht!

February’s theme in the Creative Every Day Challenge is “Hearts” and this month mine has certainly been cleaved in twain over and over again. I tried to be ok on Valentine’s Day. I wanted it to go by uneventfully, but some jackhole from my past hurt me and hurt me bad. I had a reason to be foul. Yes I did.

I had this fleeting idea that I might get back together with someone from my distant past. We discussed it, we toyed with it, and on Valentine’s Day he showed me just how much I need to not be considering that as an option. He apologized for hurting me but I was foolish to let him near my heart again and should have learned my lesson long ago. It was a glitch in the smooth passing holiday I was trying to ignore. Then, after him, slightly scuffed and shaken, DG threw me a little further down the lane of the scorned with an email that was 100% a “Piss-off” letter.

The thing is, I’d gotten over that. I made sure of it (with magical spells and all to get over the dumping he swore wasn’t a dumping…). I just missed our friendship, our conversations like I wrote the other day. I made a comment out of the blue because I have been truly upset at the zero time I’ve been allotted and all the brush offs, so he decided to write me a break up letter and it was pure and to form. You’re a lovely person but…(Dumping!). At this point in my life I need to focus. All I can offer you is friendship (which is all I wanted in the first place!). It just upset me like nothing else and I can’t tell you exactly why. Maybe it’s because he keeps repeating the rejection, as if I was too stupid to understand it the first time. As if I wasn’t aware that the brush off is a rejection every single time I say hello. It hurts every single time. He also sort of insulted me in other ways but I believe that’s because he doesn’t understand the scope of what I suffer with, but I didn’t need it nonetheless.

All I wanted was a reasonable amount of time and attention. We used to be actual close friends, check in on each other, speak regularly, joke, laugh, care, and so forth. He turned it off overnight. I don’t, for the life of me, understand what happened.  My instant gut reaction was that he never meant anything he’s ever said to me; that now, without a payoff, I’m not worth the time and trouble.

Is that what I deserve for caring about people? Well, Psssshhhht.

At any rate, despite his belief that I’m after something more, there is nothing now or ever that will induce me to let him near my heart again. Friends I hope we may remain since I’ve shared so much with him, but if this continues, I’m not sure that we will. It’s been a hurtful few days. What I’ve tried to do, instead of going back down my usual track of believing that all men are bad and uncaring, is to tell myself that this has just cleared the decks for my future. Now I’m open to meet someone who will truly value me should that opportunity present itself, though for right now, I’m just fine on my own. Two people let near the proverbial heart, two that stabbed it. Brilliant moves by me, again.

My son hits the double digits tomorrow and I’m going to use my energy to celebrate him and show him a good time. I so hope I can help mold him into a good man. These years are crucial and without a role model here, and I feel right guilty about this, I wonder how he will be. I can’t teach him to be a man, but I can show him what a woman shouldn’t put up with and what behavior makes mommy feel like an old sack of discarded tangerines so he knows what not to do to his girlfriend. A mother can hope.

Speaking of hope, I’m not ready to give up on me yet. I’m not back to bitter, just a little flustered by recent events but unlike my normal routine, I’m spinning a silver lining and seeing the open door instead of the closed window. Anyone who knows me will tell you that’s a bit of a miracle in itself.  This is a personal one and from a raw place, but some things you just need to get out. I’m hoping this will put it to bed. The deck’s cleared. I wonder what’s coming my way now? God, I hope it’s better.

Square One

I’ve wanted to post a lot more than I have. There have been a lot of daily prompts that I’ve found interesting and could have made funny. I’ve wanted to be funny. The problem is, I’m back to where I’ve started feeling weird. I’m in the midst of an anxiety attack. Square one. Not a great place to be. Not funny for sure.

One of the prompts was called Mirror, Mirror and wanted to know what you see when you look, you guessed it, in the mirror. Lately, with my recent weight gain, it’s been less like the evil queen I’ve so identified with and more like those boobie dolls Cher was making in the Witches of Eastwick…but now, I’m to shaky to even look. The mirror is showing me a strung out junkie but not because I am, but because that’s what I feel like.

Yay for my psychiatrist. He has tried. Really he has. He’s tried a number of combinations to make me feel better but I think we’ve yet to get it right. As of now. the stuff I’m on makes my skin crawl. I want to do laps and squats and run away and back again to get the feeling in my legs to stop. I can’t sit still. Writing is really hard as is sitting to do my job of data entry. I, of course, have some pills for that too, but it’s up and down. Ugh! Some days I feel exhausted and just want to sleep, others I want to exercise all day, which you’d think would stop this whole weight problem wouldn’t you?

That’s another thing. I’m disappointed. I’ve gained a full half of my lost weight back. I can’t tell you why. Self-sabotage? Self destructive behavior? When I look in the mirror, I’m not sure who’s looking back; the queen, the Borderline, the good listener, the aspiring writer, the loving mother, the anxiety-ridden mother, the self-conscious overweight woman, or someone else.

I was in the bathtub earlier and it occurred to me that no matter which was true, and I took a good hard look at what was in front of me, that I didn’t hate what I saw, boobie doll or not. I was okay with me. I may not be the ideal of the 99.9% but I think I’m ok. I think it’s ok to like me the way I am . The only thing I’m not ok with is the way I feel right now. I want to feel normal, whatever that is. Not strung out, not exhausted, not full of the heebee jeebies, not needing to run a marathon, not needing to sleep; just able to sit down and read a book or write a post like anyone could. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.

Day 8: No. 2 Pencils Only

Question 8: Do you have any other diagnoses? Which ones?

This is a cheerful list of questions now isn’t it? Next they’ll ask why my Aunt Griselda decided to disown the family and why, or what that growth is on Uncle Otto’s shoulder. Seriously I should have read them…Anyway, other diagnoses.

It’s a rather short story.

I was first diagnosed a while ago with general anxiety and depression back when I pregnant and getting divorced. It was a hard time, They put me on antidepressants and that was the end of it. After a while, I  stopped the pills because I had to breastfeed. That was my first cold turkey stop of the meds.

A few years later my doctor put me back on antidepressants because of my anxiety and once again, after a while I didn’t feel like they were working and I wanted to go all natural so I stopped all of the pills I was on. I felt good for a long while but as it always did, the anxiety and depression cycled through and snowballed until I got so run down I couldn’t function, think, focus, or even stand up without dizziness. This was the time leading up to my breakdown. I call it a breakdown because it culminated in me unable to get up off the floor and unable to stop crying. It was a scary time.

Once that pile of fun occurred, I was finally sent by my doctor to a therapist and a psychiatrist. I’m still in the midst really of finding out just exactly what’s going on with me. I was first diagnosed with Severe Panic Disorder and Severe Depressive Disorder. Then it progressed and my upswing happened and I was showing signs of possible BPD, Bi-polar and maybe even PTSD, which are under one umbrella of dissociative personality disorders. I’m still not quite sure what exactly is going on. I’ve just begun to travel down the rabbit hole to discover my particular brand of madness. Everyone has their own.

As time wears on, I may discover something wholly different from what my current labels are. For the meantime we’re sticking with the Severe Panic and Depression because apparently the other things aren’t deemed serious enough to be covered, which amazes me since those things have ruined my relationships for as long as I can remember. I’m thankful that I’m now aware of it. Hopefully no more labels fall my way but if they do, I’m ready with sword (pen) in hand to start hacking away.

 

Day 7: I’m Not Myself Today

Question 7: Have you ever dissociated? If so, how often?

For everyone who doesn’t know, which included me too a few months ago, dissociation is a term that encompasses a variety of experiences including derealization ( a sense of unreality) and depersonalization (the feeling of watching yourself as separate) and other forms and varying degrees of detachment. It’s all extremely hard to imagine until it happens to you. When it happened to me, I was convinced that I was crazy and almost got on the bus to the hospital so they could lock me up.

I have had moments a few times under extreme stress. To my friends, these moments are described as going “Pink Floyd”. I feel like my hands are suddenly numb and the first thing I do is hold them up to see if they feel like they belong to me. It sounds bizarre, and believe me the feeling is no less so. That first depersonalization moment when I felt like my hands weren’t mine, was one of the scariest things I ever felt. I thought I had gone past the point of no return. Everything went numb and then that strange feeling took over. I was staring at them like they were on tv, like I had no control over them, They were alien. I remember it vividly. I was standing in the kitchen next to the sink. My husband had just told me that he was leaving. I felt so much all at once and then it felt like I hit tilt…overload.

The second time was similar and also after a point of great stress. At this point I was on my way to work walking the last stretch and trying to decide if I should take the shuttle back toward the hospital or continue on to work. I went to work and then it didn’t happen again. Not until recently.The first therapist I ever had shrugged it off as not that serious when I finally told him about it. He never bothered to explain exactly why or what had happened to me. I was amazed that anyone would classify those experiences as not that big a deal.

Over the years as my anxiety increased, the numbness returned a little at a time, but I never had another as severe until I wore myself down with constant anxiety to a breakdown. With severe depression and panic I ended up with a new therapist who was much more understanding. I ended up back on medication but in the beginning I had one more depersonalization episode and this one was by far the worst.

It was in the midst of a panic attack. I called my therapist to ask for guidance.  I went for a walk afterward to distract myself from my thoughts but outside didn’t look quite right. I couldn’t feel my feet or my legs though I was walking. The flowers that were normally my favorite and would bring a smile didn’t faze me. They seemed colorless as did everything else. I continued moving, or watching myself moving forward. Then something happened that finally shook me awake…after the fact.

I got scared…by a little girl…

I was watching her cycling toward me on her little scooter, pigtails flowing back behind her and, well, I stood terrified in the middle of the sidewalk. I even walked in the other direction until she passed so I could continue on home. Whether human contact was too much at that moment or if it was simply that anything would trigger my panic I’m not sure. The good thing was that it passed and gave me a reason to laugh at myself eventually. At the time it was terrifying and the world, for a few minutes really did exist in shades of grey. I look back and think on that numbness as the opposite of how things usually feel. This is an illness of extremes. That is the terrifying opposite of my normal which tells me how far my pendulum swings.

Day 6: Insert Morrissey Song…

Question 6: How’s your love life? My first thought was to start off with a fit of mad laughter a la Jack Nicholson’s Joker. That mad laugh/cry he erupted into upon first seeing his face after being dropped in the vat of chemicals by Batman was pretty much my reaction to the question. I mean, come on! My love life? A question about that now?!

I suppose the reason it stings is because my hopes and dreams with DG have just gone up in flames faster than Atlanta in Gone with the Wind. They were nice dreams. They encompassed more than my romantic hopes but my career and travel goals as well. Now I have that pierced through the heart feeling and nothing will fill that emptiness. I guess that’s the empty feeling so talked about in borderline circles.  Just last night I became the tired cliché, eating a pint of ice cream in sweats and watching things that made me cry. I had no desire to do or even plan anything that before would have lit up my entire mood.

You know what brought that on? He signed off quickly for the millionth time, but when he abruptly left, he signed off with “All the Best” where he used to say “Love” or “Yours” or “Always”. I know it’s normal and friendly like it should be now that things have been returned to a status of “friendship”, but it gutted me, obviously. A tiny thing flips a switch and I feel it like a tidal wave. It brought to light something else. Simply by the way I am, I push people away. I have for a long time and I began to see the pattern and how it fit with the definitions of Borderline.

I spent some time talking to a trusted friend and I can say that I’m coming to realize just how hard it is with me reading every little shift of interest as the end of all hope and the impending departure of my friend/partner/whatever. It’s a little hard to take. I mean, how can I ever expect anyone to deal with me? It makes the future of a love life look bleak indeed. In that light, seeing that all of my desperate attempts to have someone care for me as much as I care for them is futile. All of my anxiety and pain seems like cheap melodrama to those around me because they can’t feel it or even imagine it…I just look like a drama queen having fits, but that’s not really the case. Feelings sweep me up and overwhelm. Everything is a reaction to them. No premeditated dramatic soliloquy possible. Just a trigger and an opposite reaction, though in this case, not equal…

Once my friend knew that this is what I was feeling and not me in some way trying to comment on his lack of friendship, and that some decisions I needed to make at the time I simply couldn’t because of those triggers, it made our friendship so much smoother. It reminded me of something I watched last night that hit me like a ton of bricks and explained the situation perfectly and succinctly. Kevin Bacon’s character in “The Following” has a habit of pushing people away out of fear and being unable to let people in, not unlike a borderline (you’re either all in or all out). His partner was giving advice to someone who cared for him. He said, “He’ll push, just don’t budge.”

Just don’t budge.

That’s what it’s going to take. I don’t know all that many people with that kind of patience or the understanding to know that it’s all unconscious on my part. The anger, the depression, all of it. I’ve been truly lucky a few times in that I’ve found two best friends, one of them oddly my ex husband, who won’t budge. If I get truly lucky, maybe there’s a guy out there who’s willing to stand his ground as well. Until then, I’ll be here eating my ice cream.

Days 4 and 5: Apocalypse Now

The friend I described losing yesterday once described me to someone as hating life. That’s not entirely accurate. I love life. I do, though I may not beam it every second. I love a million things about life, like a good thunderstorm, clean sheets after a bath, cheesecake, movies, tea…but on occasion, and I’m sure he couldn’t understand this, it gets to be all too much. The feelings overwhelm and the world turns to a cacophonous cloud of noise that makes my skin crawl…like right now.

That’s the reason I’m combining two questions into one post and writing them a day early. It’s a raw moment. I took a big downturn today and I thought that maybe being completely honest in this state might be helpful in some way to someone somewhere.

The questions respectively are: Have you ever attempted suicide and have you ever written a suicide note? I’ve decided to combine them because two posts on this subject would just be too much. As of now, I’m having an anxiety attack. Panic more like. I’ve had to stop a few times because my heart is pounding so hard I can hear it. I’m not sure if it’s the subject matter or the fact that I’m feeling badly again over the loss of people I’ve cared about. It truly feels like I have a big hole in my chest…but moving on…

There have been many times I’ve come very close to ending myself. Why do I admit that? Why talk about such a dark subject at all? Because I’ve managed to thankfully make it past them. When I had nowhere to go, no job, and a baby to feed I came closer than I ever have. I remember the utter hopelessness and isolation I felt. I felt completely worthless and overwhelmed. It was raining non stop for days. I remember just sitting in the car crying harder than I ever had and trying to decide whether to bring the baby inside the church and leave him so he’d have a chance. No notes. Not ever. It was always a private thing.

In the end I managed to talk myself out of that idea and conquer the overwhelming feelings. Like every time before it, I’m so thankful I did. So many joys I would never have known came in the years that followed.

I had one worse one, right before my breakdown. I was at work, once again feeling overwhelmed and undervalued…invisible. The only way I can truly describe it was despair. I felt heavy, pulled down and the room I was sitting in suddenly seemed darker than it had been. There was once again that feeling of having a hole in my chest but simultaneously a pain like being speared through the heart at the same time. I was ready to disappear. Everything was too much but one thought was enough to bring me out of it. My son. I thought about how I’d never see him or hold him again and how he’d never be able to understand. I survived that day too and again, I’m so lucky I did. Some days he’s the only thing I have to look forward to, but one reason is enough. He’s always been more than enough.

So now that I’m once again in pain and having a panic attack over the loss of a friend and someone I loved completely, I realize that having those anchors is vital. Whatever it is for you, hold on to it for dear life. There really will be something you’ll be glad you didn’t miss.

Day 3: Don’t Let Me Get Me

Question of the day! It’s another tricky one too. Do you self harm? If Yes, how?

My immediate, knee-jerk, black and white answer would have to be no, I’m not one to practice self harm as it’s usually portrayed. That portrayal is most often seen in the highly misunderstood practice of cutting. From what I understand, a lot of people with BPD do practice cutting as a form of relief, which may sound weird to the person in the street, but a little understanding goes a long way and I’m starting to get it.

Being no stranger to the S&M community, I have seen it done as an offshoot and understood it in those terms, but as far as urges to do myself harm, that I only began to understand recently when I began to have compulsions to somehow get my pain out physically. It was an entirely different little monster. I haven’t begun to cut or anything of that nature personally, but I think that we tend to do ourselves harm in a number of ways. The compulsion was strong and out of nowhere. It surprised me like nothing else, but getting some of the pain “out” when I was feeling particularly bad did actually calm down the feelings.

The other thing is that while I’ve considered myself on an “upswing” or what I usually refer to as my “drastic” periods when I want to rearrange all my furniture, dye my hair, get tattooed, and  say screw it to most of my normal concerns for the sake of living fully in some impulsive way, I’ve actually caused some real detriment to myself which could be considered self harm, or at the very least, lack of self care.

The first thing was that I went off my diet. I’ve been pretty strictly off wheat and grains which has helped me in so many areas including massive weight loss and elimination of aches and pains. When I fell off that wagon, eating every bad thing, I also fell off every wagon I ever climbed up on faster than a cheetah on fire. Nothing could stop me. I started drinking again (though not to extreme), smoked, stopped a lot of the self care that I knew I should do like exercise. That’s what I consider an upswing, because I suppose, during these periods I’m actually…happy. I’m content even though I can begin to see the fallout of my choices.

So, I suppose my answer is actually yes, I do practice self harm, but by that definition, everyone does at one time or another if not to that extreme. My coach once told me that I should look at self care like taking as good care of myself as I do my son. I can tell you if I did that, things would be a lot different. Knowing that difference would be wonderful is still not enough yet to get me off the bent. It’s part of my personality. I’ll get sick of it again…like I was this morning when my pants didn’t fit. It may be time to climb back up onto that wagon if I can. Hopefully the tide will go with me…

Day 2 : Friendship

Day 2 of the 31 days of BPD. Question: Why did your last friendship end?

Ok, trick question. I had two go south at the same time, but I suppose that only one is truly lost as far as friendship goes. It’s ironic. I’ve been very suddenly and thoroughly depressed over my loss of DG. I know it’s for the best. I know the timing stunk. I know that if we were meant to be together, heaven and earth would have aligned to make it so, or one or both of us would have. I’m just, dare I say it, heartbroken.

On the bright side of that coin, we remain “friends”. Sort of. Things have felt strained at best which is why I lumped it into this category like a sack of dead wombats. (Yeah, I don’t know where that came from either…) I’m still making him a holiday present and sending a card. Just because it’s been tough and hasn’t worked out doesn’t mean my feelings left so I’m trying to maintain and hopefully rebuild.

So, comes the other painful loss which is less all out painful, but it was still someone whom I trusted and put stock into. It fits this subject because he turned his back on me suddenly and completely (like you would a sack of dead wombats). He went from being supportive one minute and the next, he was announcing rather dramatically and publicly that he was out. Apparently this was due to my “negativity”. Now, I don’t know anybody who is chipper and happy all the time…and to blame me when I really can’t be seemed just plain petty and mean.

I suppose his excuse will be that he doesn’t want to subject himself to my depressive attitude or my moodiness, and to be fair, that’s fine. It’s his prerogative. (Why did I use that word? Bobby Brown earworm…enjoy that!) But truly, leaving is about the worst thing you can do to someone who has severe abandonment issues, like BPD sufferers who push people away just to keep them from eventually leaving. It’s that strong a fear and it usually ends up happening in spite of us. Most of the things we do create the very things we fear.

The big problem I have with this sudden departure was that there was firstly no warning and secondly, it’s completely hypocritical. He’s not positive a majority of the time. None of that matters now. He couldn’t accept me and If someone can’t accept you for who you are, then they aren’t your friend. I can accept that we probably just fed each other’s negativity and that wasn’t a good mix. I’m just lucky that I’ve got the ability to see things that way now instead of going into a deep depression that turns the pit of my stomach into a bottomless one and assuming all people will reject me.

On the bright side (Yes, I do see them! Silver linings occasionally as well! I even sometimes..*gasp* even make jokes!) I have had an outpouring of support from people who have shown me that they do accept me. I’ve been happily surprised that by opening up, which I’ve been so afraid to do for so long for fear of rejection and abandonment that there is actually love and acceptance on the other end. I’m still an invisible disaster for the time being, but now I can no longer cry in self pity at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life. I truly do have friends. Maybe not a town full, but they’re there. All I had to do was open my eyes to see them.