Lying as a way of avoiding distress.

Masking the truth

This is a topic I find quite painful to discuss. It brings up a lot of shame, leaving me feeling as if I tumbled naked out of a warm bed into a cold room and there was no time to cover up before a crowd arrives to view my embarrassment. Yet, I feel it's important to talk about this. After doing a good deal of reading on shame recently, I see how confronting it head on seems to be the only way to dissipate it fully. 

I must have been about four years old, when my nursery school teacher turned to my mother with a furrowed brow, a concerned tone and said something along the lines of ... "Some children lie, maybe to get out of trouble or to play 'make believe'.... that's harmless and can be corrected as the child grows older, learning it's not nice to be dishonest. But your little one's fibs are troubling. She truly believes her made up fantasies are real. I don't think she sees the difference between reality and fantasy."

When I was in second class in primary school (8 years old) I told my teacher and friends at the time that my Mum was expecting another baby with my Dad. My parents had been separated since I was four, it was a messy break-up, with lots of anger, manipulation and public arguments.  So you can imagine my Mother''s surprise when she came to pick me up and the other Mum's were congratulating her on her pregnancy and recent rekindling of her marriage. Looking back now, I think I did it to try and solve the problem. If I told enough people I had a happy family, then maybe it would come true. I remember fully believing what I was saying was real. This particular lie had a horrible outcome, it was of course found out and I was humiliated by having to publicly apologise and recant the lie to all my classmates. It not only filled my heart with shame, but compounded the reality of my distress of living within a fragmented family.

Another example is a bit more recent. I don't tend to tell people I had to leave my university course because of illness, I mince the truth, I brush it off, say I did finish and quickly change the topic. There are sooo many other examples, but I don't feel able to disclose them just yet. but I can allow you a glimpse at some conclusions I have come to about my lies.

I lied to avoid the distress and the chaos in my life. However, the truth can and does emerge at times which leads to more chaos in an attempt to avoid the past and the destruction that always follows. I can understand why so many family members and friends started to distance themselves from the me. This then started the cycle of avoidance and low esteem. The feeling of abandonment and the lies. No one likes to admit to making mistakes or "wrong calls".

It was about control with me. When my life was so out of control, I could have a little through lying. Sometimes it was to avoid conflict. I couldn't stand anyone being mad at me. I often find myself lying simply because I can't stand one more moment of my real life. Sometimes the lies are of how I wished things were or happened instead of what the real situation is.

When I am really distressed I can't tell the difference between lying and telling the truth because I say what I think people want to hear. I don't tell whoppers as I am too terrified of being rejected if I am found out - but I fudge, exaggerate, deny things and change my facts all the time. I only just discovered this as I have been lying to myself for so long too about this! It's really hard to realize and admit that lying comes so naturally to me that I don't even notice I'm doing it. I would characterise it against the DSM criterion 'frantic attempts to avoid real or imagined abandonment' - I would say my pathological lying is part of my ongoing attempt through frantic 'relationship management' to make others happy and therefore unlikely to reject me.

People with BPD often experience deep and entrenched shame; lying may be one way to conceal mistakes or weaknesses that increase shameful feelings. People with BPD are often also very sensitive to rejection, so one function of lying could be to “cover up” mistakes, so that others will not reject them.

I think I lie lie as a means of protecting myself from rejection or a survival technique, and it did seem that a good deal of my lying was some kind of defence mechanism to avoid any intense feelings of failure and self-loathing.

Given that a BPD hallmark is interpersonal relationships that alternate between idealization and devaluation, the person with BPD may distort facts aimed at the person with whom they desire a personal relationship. … In the moment, their desired objective, whatever that may be, takes such precedence over speaking the truth or behaving honestly that the potential consequences of their conduct are reduced to shadowy details.”

Sometimes we may judge ourselves harshly and expect others to do the same. Lying serves to deflect shame when something might make us look bad, thereby maintaining whatever self-esteem we have on a temporary basis. … We believe that anything ‘bad’ would make others reject them. … Lies may mask real feelings and put up an impressive façade. Lies may help make sense of why things happen to us in our mixed-up identity.

In other words, some of us with BPD lie to avoid abandonment or to avoid self-hatred.

What are your experiences with lying and the presumption of lying?

Compassion for my Past Self

What if we looked at emotional sensitivity as simply another way to experience life? I would like to live in a world where there is more than one way to be social. 

The expected way to relate to others comes through external channels, such as other people, home, school, work and the general public. These come with a prescribed way of acting and being. 

But what happens if it’s impossible for you to swallow an approved social remedy? We feel like we are missing out on life because there seems to be a piece missing. We compensate for the overtly stimulating world with coping strategies. I turned to food, study and avoidance. They became the rules by which I could function for a time. They were my compensatory methods for living in a world full of difficulties. In a world which is overwhelming, emotionally over-stimulating, and just too demanding, this was a smart strategy; I had to establish a way I could live amidst a world of social encounters I couldn't relate to. 

Food was my numbing essence, it was comparable to a resolved hug from a caring parent, full of comfort and compassion and unconditional love. I ate until my world made sense again, until I felt the familiar pain and stretch in my stomach that reminded me that I was a living, breathing human being. The food passed my lips like smooth caramel that cascades from high up off a wooden spoon as it’s ladled from a hot sauce pan and falls back into the sweet sticky mass.. I ate to fill the missing piece I lacked in life. I ate until I felt like a full person. 

The release after overeating came like the shutter release on an old manual camera. All it took was one finger gently pressing down on the right spot. The picture of the inside of that toilet bowl will be burned into the back of my mind forever. 

I wasn't a natural academic. I worked hard to find the peace and control good grades offered me. It was a steady focus I could control. It also gave me an excuse to practice my third coping method; avoidance. I arrived to school early most days, and rarely went home before 8 pm  The library and study rooms became my best friends. I loved the stillness; I loved the silence they offered. Finally I found a place that didn't overwhelm me. I had my own small place which I inhabited. Yet due to dyslexia, I couldn't always concentrate on school work for long periods of time, so often I would read or day dream about the stories I read. I became aware through literature how the characters in the books dealt with life. I was drawn into the safety of the stories and the friends I gained by scanning each line. I learnt how to be from those books.

Even when it came to sport, I avoided team games and opted for swimming. It was a solitary exercise. When I put my head under the water, the world became still and quite. The gentle echoes were comforting and safe for me. And this way less people asked questions as to why I came into school so early. I could cry easy in the pool and nobody knew. 

As I look back at my teenage years I can see clearly that I have always been a very sensitive person, easily overwhelmed and highly emotional. I didn't know that then though. I just thought that my general ‘being’ was wrong and non-functional. 

Okay, these coping methods were never going to useful forever, but in a way I am sort of proud of my little adolescent self. She found a way to survive, to live and to get by in a scary lonely world. So now I don’t look back with scorn at my past behaviors  I look back with compassion for a girl who didn't know any other way to stay alive. And in twenty years I will look back on what I will have learnt and see that right now I am doing the best I can do right at this moment. I will always face difficulties, I don't like to think I will be this way for ever, but the harsh reality is that

Progress

I get little fits of 'energy' from time to time. They scare me, yet paradoxically they motivate me into productivity. Its like I realize that; all too soon I could be back in the familiar haze of depression, so in a fury of energy, I have to take full advantage of any brief respite from the emotional hell when it comes. 

Yesterday the two girls I lived with moved out. They were students and had finished their exams, so have now moved home for the summer. For at least the next three months it is just me and the landlady living together in my house. I like it this way. I really do not enjoy living and sharing my space with other people, yet financially I have little other option. Call me anti-social, I don't mind. I agree!Anyway, back to the topic at hand; It gave me a perfect opportunity to give the kitchen well over due clean. As you can imagine; cleaning is not high on any students agenda. The place was festering with months old grit and grim. 

The most outstanding part to this idea was not that I found the motivation to clean, no. It was that I wanted to clean it for me, not anybody else, so that I would have a nice comforting environment to live in. When I realized this, I sort of stopped in my tracks. I can't remember the last time I was this kind to myself, this compassionate. I see it as progress, I really do. I know from previous 'healthy' periods in my life, that when I take pride in my own choices and in my environment that I am doing well. I am living for myself again now, heck, I want to live! That's a big difference from a mere month ago...

With regards to DBT, I can most certainly see a noted improvement of late also. There are so many things I know have contributed to this bout of wellness, all of which I feel have been needed in conjunction with each other rather than in isolation.This includes my very successful treatment stint in the Center For Living, also I am now attending OA regularly and have started eating and sticking to a food plan daily, my sleep has vastly improved due to a more structured routine, and I am volunteering twice weekly and meeting new interesting people and most importantly I am making friends and family a priority again, I am resisting the urge to isolate. I have reduced my vulnerability factors drastically by really concentrating on PLEASE. By doing this I am giving myself an opportunity to have happy, or 'normal' life, or if we go all Marsha on it 'a life worth living'.

That is not to say that all is peachy all of the time. I had a good chance to practice self soothe only hours ago. I was at a public lecture tonight in a private hospital here in Dublin. The same hospital where I spent five very unwell months two years ago, and where I received my  BPD diagnosis. Even though I loved the security this hospital offered me from reality, the 'bubble' effect I like to call it, I also have very negative memories of the treatment I received there.

One incident in particular involved the very Doctor who was giving the lecture tonight. He was not my Consultant, but he was on call for the night in question when I became very dysregulated. I had not yet received a formal diagnosis at this stage and had no idea what was going on with my emotions. I thought I was a horrible person, my self worth was nonexistent and I was seriously contemplating ending my life. Now, obviously being in hospital, this wasn't really a viable option and thankfully I at least had the sense to express my thoughts to the nurse on duty. 

Little to my knowledge at that time, the formal protocol for suicidal initiation during the night is to page the on call Consultant. I got the addiction specialist, who, in my opinion didn't know any more what to do with a Borderline any more than a man does with a bottle of moisturizer. 

In retrospect, all I needed was to talk, to distract, to be thought distress tolerance. Simple as. But instead I got put in the high security ward as I was a potential danger to myself. I cried and shouted and pleaded and begged, until this Doctor was left with no other option than to sedate me, and turn me into a deserving zombie. I fitted right in on that ward then. 

I was so angry at him. I felt let down by him. All I wanted to do was get relief from the hell going on inside my mind. I needed someone to explain what was happening to me. I needed validation that at that time suicide was the only coping method I possessed. 

So to get back to the present moment, I was taken aback when  this Dr strolled up to the podium and began talking. I had no idea he would be speaking. I got flashback of me, the bawling, screaming mess sitting in-front of him as he sent me 'down stairs'. Down to where the real crazies were.

 I wanted to yell at him "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO ME!" "DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW WRONG YOUR TREATMENT PLAN FOR ME WAS!!!!!" "STUPID IDIOT!"  I sat stewing in my anger for at least 15 mins. I couldn't take in a word of the lecture. 

Then suddenly, my WISE MIND kicked in. "He was only following procedure, he was doing his job. He didn't know the correct way to deal with an emotionally sensitive person. He was making sure I was safe. " 

My anger started to decrease slightly. I then reminded myself that I was not under his care and that I had a wonderfully supportive treatment team who specializes in treating BPD. I used OBSERVE to bring myself back into the present moment and really paid attention to what he was saying, letting all judgement flow through me. I then took out my hand cream from my DBT emergency kit and soothed myself back into calmness by gently massaging the cream into my skin. 

It was only on the bus on the way home that I reflected on my fantastically skillful evening. Who would have thought that the quivering wreck of a girl in that ward nearly 2 years ago would be able to mange her emotions in a such a skillful way! I really wanted to go up to the Consultant after the lecture, to show him how far I have come. I imagined the wonder and pride on his face and hoped he would feel humbled by my progress. Maybe I even wanted an apology from him. But once again my wise mind took the driving wheel and stirred me away from confrontation by asking what I really wanted from him.

I wanted validation and I know well enough now that looking for it from others is not as reliable as giving it to yourself. So one blog post and a very skilled evening later, here I am patting myself on the back, and forgiving myself for the chaos I created that faithful night 2 years ago. I didn't know any other way to manage my emotions. Thank God I do now. 

Focused blindness

This weekend is lasting much longer than I have ever experienced time before. Its almost as if time is not real for me. As if I am watching my life from afar in slow motion. Yet the slowness is refreshing, I am learning so much about my fucked up and naive mind.

I find myself looking back at my life with retrospect, and wondering if I have made my life so unbearable by my thoughts and judgments then surely I can also make them stop, right? Now, just to figure out how to do that....

I am deeply ashamed that I have been such a bitch to my mother, she is the only person who truly loves me unconditionally and all I do is push her away. There only way I can describe it is to explain how I hate wearing glasses. I am totally blind, as in I can't even see the number on the bus 5 meters away and have to ask the other people at the stop what it is. And when there is nobody there I wave my arm out praying that I get lucky. So why don't I wear them? Well I hate the clarity that they give me. I can't stand to see others faces and eyes peering at me. I can see the dirt and grit on the windows and all the flaws in the world. I hate it. No, I much rather the safe haze of partial blindness with no sharpness or scary lines.

My mother in my life is like wearing super strength glasses. She forces me to see the dirt and grubby stains in my life without offering me the choice to have an intermission and take them off for a while. She makes them be super-glued to my face. Permanently. While my father and  my therapist offer the safety of the blur and let me keep them off for as long as I want, even though it is only making my eyesight worse in the end. I control the focus with them. 

Yet I know that how hard my mother pushes me is only for the best. And that how hard I push her away is only making me worse.

Mental Illness: My Gift

Today I attended a 'Wellness Workshop'. It was a day-long seminar run by a fantastic organisation here in Ireland called S.O.S. (Suicide or Survive). I really connected to the speakers and feel that it came at just the right time for me as I haven't been coping that well lately and needed a boost. 

I took so much out of the day, but what I found myself being drawn back to all day was quite a controversial topic. And that is; that my mental illness has been the greatest gift I have. I came to this conclusion because, I feel that BPD has gifted me the power of understanding, of empathy and hope, of motivation and passion for change and most importantly; a desire and a drive to help others, to care and to reach-out.

I really want to explain what I mean without sounding patronizing or Pollyanna-ish. I haven't gone into much detail about my personal story on this blog yet, and I am still working up the courage to post about it. But I will share with you a wee bit now for the purpose of explaining myself properly.

Two years ago, almost to the day, I suffered the loss of my twin babies during pregnancy. This loss was far from an easy blow to absorb. If you have not experienced grief or shock to that degree, let me tell you, it hurts. Emotionally obviously, but also physically. It's a pain deep in the pit of your stomach, in your core. Its a suffocating agony in your lungs and a sharp stab to your heart. It is not a feeling I would wish on anybody, not even my enemies. 

Here is where I could dwell on that awful chapter of my life, I could describe that horrible day to you, but I don't feel it would help you if I did, so I choose not to. Rather, I want to focus on how I feel this period has shaped me into who I am now, how I live and how I view the world I live in.

Without that perpetrating event two years ago, I would not have faced up to my problems. Some people call it their 'Rock-Bottom', or a breakdown, or their breaking point. It changed me from the person I was then to the person I was after. Without it, I would never have sought help and would still be using the extremely destructive coping mechanisms I had so successfully developed. I would go as far to say I mightn't be alive today, if I am being totally honest. 

The accessories to grief; shock, confusion, despair, anger, sadness, etc. are what saved me from myself. I FELT something finally. I was smacked in the face with emotion for the first time really, and I couldn't deal with it. I needed help. Since getting that help, I have questioned everything, I have left no rock in my life un-turned.  I have searched for answers and explanations and most importantly, I have never accepted 'no'.

You see, that blow of grief provided the foundations for my survival.  I learn't my hardest lessons from that period of my life.  I am now more mindful of my emotions and my triggers. I can recognize when I need help, and can actually ask for it. I am grateful for my blessings and have learnt who and what are the most important to me. I am not too sure I could have done all those things without the bitter foreknowledge of my grief.

I actively use RADICAL ACCEPTANCE here. Yes it was such a horrible thing to have happened to me. Nobody should experience the loss of their own children's lives. But oftentimes, we learn the most valuable lessons from our hardest and most devastating experiences. I still have not fully accepted the loss just yet, only yesterday I was sitting in Mass screaming at God 'WHY ME!!!!', I so often baulk in the injustice of it all. But I let myself feel that way sometimes, because that's OK too.

Back to the workshop, one of the facilitators coined a phrase 'Think in Ink'. I loved it. He made us put our biggest hopes and dreams and goals down on paper. In ink. Mine is to go back to University and get my degree in occupational therapy. When I wrote it down, I thought to myself; 'I am going to a damn good occupational therapist'. I haven't been that positive about myself in a very long time. And most importantly, I BELIEVE it. I am not just affirming to myself. I know I will be a great O.T. some day. My personal experience is going to help me to help others.

It excited me and motivated me to kick my disorder up the bum, to rid it from my life, to accept that these thing happened but to wave goodbye to them and look forward to what is around the next corner.

RADICAL ACCEPTANCE

I often wish I could change the past and make it perfect. I feel like I am attempting to paint a masterpiece of which I am so proud of and is so wonderful, but the ground work for it has been tarnished and what went before has destroyed the base that I now am working off. But in reality, ‘perfect’ is a fallacy, because, no canvas is ever bump free, and anyway, why would anyone want that? There would be nothing to catch the light!

I understand that there is nothing that anyone can tell me to make my past seem more perfect, because, in short there is no way for that to happen. Here is where the skill ‘RADICAL ACCEPTANCE’ can help, if I could only get my head around it.

The introduction of this skill was very turbulent in our group, with many willing to learn about it, but in practise not quite able to put the skill to use just yet. I personally can see the benefit of acceptance, but every time I try to apply it to my life I am met with a niggling voice, complaining that I shouldn’t sit back and accept all the injustice in my life, I should stand up and make noise about it! Give out, make a scene and don’t take it lying down!

So what is ‘RADICAL ACCEPTANCE’? It is an honest acknowledgment of what is going on inside you, and a courageous willingness to be with life in the present moment. You can accept an experience without liking it. In fact, let’s say you are feeling stuck in anxiety and disliking the feeling. RADICAL ACCEPTANCE includes accepting both the feelings of anxiety and the aversion to it. In fact, acceptance is not real and not healing unless it honestly includes all aspects of your experience.

The difficulty with ‘RADICAL ACCEPTANCE’ is that it requires patience and ability to be present with your own emotions. Both of which, for me, are very hard to learn also.

I find that at the moment, all I can do is be happy with what I am trying to achieve right now and be proud of every little achievement I accomplish that I wouldn't have been able to do skilfully before. All that matters, in reality is the here and now, you have to be here now in order to live now! The past is nothing that we can work with, and in a perfect world, nothing that we should concern ourselves with.

Things of the past have influenced me as a teen, a student, a daughter, a sister, a friend and now as a woman. The past most defiantly still influences me and the person I have become. Therefore I cannot simply put it out of my head and forget about it. It is part of me.

I also think that as I have gotten older, I have learnt the importance of reflection. Take for example, my situation with University; I often feel it unjust that my fellow classmates have all graduated and are now moving on to exciting careers and new stages in life. I have felt that that is where my life should be, that I am a failure for having to drop out two years ago when I became unwell. It reached the point that I could not be there as a friend for them and congratulate them on the amazing success of completing a degree in Occupational Therapy. I was green with spite and envy. I denied myself the opportunity to be happy with them in their success and lost some friendships in the process.

If I am to apply the skill of ‘RADICAL ACCEPTANCE’ to this situation, I must change my reality of the situation. Okay, I may have had to drop out, move home and be admitted to a mental hospital for five months. But I wouldn’t be getting the help I am now if it were not for that series of events. I would not be facing up to my problems in the hopes of someday living symptom free. That series of events HAS happened and cannot be changed, I CANNOT turn back time. All I can do is deal with events which crop up NOW, in this moment and plan to cope with those that may arise tomorrow. Notice how I am not saying it was fair that I have this mental illness, or that I like it (in fact, I hate it!) I am simply acknowledging that it is something that happened and that I can do nothing about other than work my hardest now so that it does not continue to affect my life in a negative way. It doesn’t mean that the feeling is “right” or “wrong.” Nor does it mean that I must be passive, and not take actions that might be helpful.  ‘RADICAL ACCEPTANCE refers to my relationship with the reality of “what is” in the present moment. By arriving honestly and with openness to this moment’s experience, I might just have a chance to create the possibility of then responding with wisdom and compassion. 

These big things in my past are my biggest barriers, my biggest burdens. But, it is more so my attitude towards these big things in my past that hinder my recovery.