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.

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.

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.

Day 29 – All my friends are imaginary

Who is your closest or most special friend that you’ve never met and what do they mean to you? How did you cross paths? Talk about how you “met” them: Facebook, Twitter, an online support group, etc.

Well isn’t that a pip? It took me a while on this one. Is it a typo? Is it my best friend or is this a build-a-best-friend workshop where I can stuff him with rainbow fluff, hug him and squeeze him and name him George? Given how “Met” is in quotations I’m guessing I can make up anyone I please. Do I wanna be besties with the Joker? Sheldon Cooper? Emily Bronte? Did I meet them in a bar, at Gotham’s diviest bar? At a physics symposium or run across Wolverine while renting a horror flick at Blockbuster? The mind reels with possibilities.

I’ve decided to do a bit of a split between the two on this occasion. Actually, it’s a stretch but go with me on this one and then see if it works for you.

I met her on a cold night in the dark back alley of one of my stories. She’s always there, lurking behind the sharp German expressionist corners of the more dramatic passages. She’s a hard one to pin down and I’m not sure I actually have yet. I only get snippets through the fog banks but what I see of her is both aloof from the world and longing for it at the same time. She has the loneliness of an outsider forever watching through the windows into the happier stories in this world. She comes to see me when I’m at my breaking point. offering me her companionship when there is no other and reassuring me when I need a reflective opinion. Sometimes she’s unruly and says horrible things. She says things I would never let anyone else get away with but she’s just trying to protect me. She wants me to remember danger and to tread lightly which I’m grateful for but sometimes I’d like her to shut up about it already.

She is beautiful but doesn’t know it. She’s talented at a number of things but denies it. On occasion though, she shows me that I can do what she cannot. She roots me forward and energizes my dreams. She’s there when I need to vent frustration. She’s there to cry with. She’s there when I’m angry and need a voice. She’s everything to me and all at once nothing to me. I try to get past her and then try to find her. She’s the only one who will walk with me until the end and I need to cherish her more, compliment her more, giver her more time and affection. She deserves my love as much as everyone else in my life and more. She deserves recognition and remembrance. She may be flawed, but she’s the only one I’ve got to keep me company when I’m alone.

What is that song? I’ve been to Paradise but I’ve never been to me? Horrible song, agreed, but there is a point in there somewhere. If I need to make up an imaginary friend, I may as well get to know the little me that’s in there that goes ignored and chastised most of the time. Not a horrible idea I think. Sure I’d rather hang with Wolverine eating popcorn, but maybe I’m not such bad company in the long run.

Day 15 – Closure

Day 15 and we’re half way there. Today’s subject is truly difficult. I thought I knew what I was going to write about but a strong feeling of being punched in the gut has instructed me otherwise. I promised myself I’d be 100% authentic in this challenge and I intend to keep that promise to myself. It may not resonate with everyone, but honesty is usually the best way to go. So, narrate a conversation between you and someone in your life who you never had closure with (a friend, an ex, a family member, etc.) What would you say? What would they say? What outcome would you hope for? Instead of a two-way conversation, I just have something to get out that doesn’t really require response and would probably do better without one.

I’m not sure what outcome I’d hope for. I’m not sure what any of it is about. I don’t know what I want to be said. I just feel awful and I’m not sure exactly why. I thought I was over this. Long over it. The last time we talked about it, you told me you had still harbored feelings but no longer did. It was too late for me to do or feel anything about it. I was just stunned for a while and then got over it, I thought I had…again. Now, hearing how much you like someone else should make me happy. It gutted me instead. I didn’t expect that. I have no basis in reality for it. Perhaps I’m just selfish and don’t want to be replaced. I have noticed your absence. I did figure that your time has been spent mostly now with the new friend. Why am I not happy? Why do I feel pierced?

There’s nothing to say and there’s nothing to be done. It didn’t work before. Nothing has changed so much that it ever would now. It’s old water under a crossed bridge. So why am I crying? There’s no point opening up old wounds. This time it happened to be accidental. I’m sure it’ll close on it’s own. I don’t want it to mean that you don’t tell me things. I don’t want it to mean that you keep secrets. We’ve always been open about everything but this. I will learn to handle whatever this is.  It’s that old fear of being left alone. It’s the bigger fear of losing the best person I’ve ever known over something that should have been easy and should have flowed. I’m no more ready or stable. I’m certainly no younger or any more free-spirited. I guess I wish we could just have been more open and had it all on the table when it mattered. There’s really nothing to say now that does. No outcome that will make any difference. I just love you. I guess I always will. It will never be a “thing” and that’s okay. It obviously wasn’t meant to be and I’ll deal with it. Just don’t ever go away.
WM

Day 13 – Sub-Text

Describe how you met the last person you texted and talk about your friendship/relationship. Isn’t that a pip of an assignment? It just so happens that the last text I sent was to the Doubtful Guest…my Mr. Big. I think I may just refer to him as D.G. from now on. It’s short and sweet, like J.R. or D.J. Works for me. Anyway, I was hoping for an answer I didn’t get.  As always, things are complicated with D.G. He’s far away. He has his own son about my boy’s age with many of the same things going on; school, homework, holidays, etc. There’s a huge time difference. When I’m free he isn’t and the like. It can get frustrating sometimes. At any rate, on with the story.

D.G. and I met through a mail exchange service. I had just watched a heartwarming and rather odd animated film called Mary and Max about a little girl who becomes lifelong friends with her pen pal and thought it would be a sweet idea. I wanted new people to talk to and I missed writing letters. I made a few friends and still write to one other fellow I met there about once a month by old-fashioned paper mail.

D.G. was interesting from day one. He wrote me this hugely long introduction letter that reminded me of Edward Bloom from Big Fish, just a little larger than life with stories too numerous and amazing to be entirely true. Something strange happened from that first letter. I can’t tell you what it was. Usually I’m very guarded with new people, especially if I suspect them of being possibly full of it, but I wrote a long letter back. I was much more freely myself than I normally would be with a stranger. From that day on, we emailed back and forth four or five times a day.

We became fast friends and talked about anything and everything which was wonderful. He told me about where he was from, I returned in kind. He believed in my work. he sought to bring me up instead of tear me down (a new thing for me). He got my weird references for the most part, everything he said was something I would say, and then it got even more interesting. There were times when he seemed to know exactly what I was thinking. He’d email me something I had been thinking the night before, no kidding. He would write long letters of his opinion that were exactly the same as my opinion. I thought either he’s in cahoots with Ed Harris producing my lifelong tv show (thank you Jim Carrey for the paranoia) or we really are meant to be great friends and maybe more.

We’ve had some ups and downs since, mainly due to the fact that I had feelings and never managed to reconcile them until recently when he admitted to his own. I kvetched I can tell you. I was miserable as a person could be. I could write an entire chapter but it’s best to stay to the main bullet points here. Basically, I’ve given up the outcome to fate. I haven’t given up hope but there’s still a huge distance and other things to overcome. He’s everything I want except for the most important thing…readily available.

Things have distanced us over the past year. He has more concerns (some serious ones) and less time. I’ve had some setbacks and need more support. It hasn’t found a happy medium yet. Some days I feel like all I get is a drive by greeting or a message to explain the lack of a message, and it’s crushing. Other times it’s like the first days when we talk and laugh over everything and make grand plans. There are still new and exciting things to learn.

For the tough bits, I blame the increasing tension of distance. He’s not here to hold me when I’m sad or to bring me tea when I’m sick. He’s not here to cuddle with on the couch or to laugh with when I make a stupid blunder or trip gracefully over something in plain sight. He’s not here to say goodnight to or to geek out with eating junk food and picking apart movies made from our favorite books. Sometimes that breaks my heart. Sometimes it makes me mad.

For now we just text and call and email and hope that when the time is right, serendipity will kick in…or it won’t and I’ll find out that it was all a huge pile of wishful thinking and feel the hopeless part of hopeless romantic for trying to push a close friendship somewhere it was perhaps never meant to go. A relationship is hard to quantify with so many intricate moving parts and outside influences. I have my own biases and blind spots. I can only hope that they’re not too huge at this point to know when to walk away for self-respect’s sake. If it all goes to hell, I’ll be somewhere crying, yelling at Ed Harris and shaking my fist at the sky.