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

New found RADICAL ACCEPTANCE

As the leaves fall and the trees turn bear in anticipation for the ice queen to spread her frosty breath, I have settled down calmly with recognition of the change of the seasons. I do mourn the balmy summer nights where the sun's rays stretch so generously into the evenings giving endless days and shorter dark, scary nights, but as sure as summer must end, winter will also pass in time.

DBT has thought me that rarely are things permanent. The gift of acceptance (when I can practice it) has allowed me to live a life less terrified by despairing thoughts and emotions. They do pass, maybe not quick enough, and maybe not for long enough, but the brief respite between the terrors allows us to reach deep inside ourselves and enjoy the time when we are in control. When the haze of distress lifts, it provides a short period of wisdom where preparation can take place, where gratification can develop and life can be lived.

Recently I have been living in an all too common mist of fear and anxious thoughts. It’s a fear fog which has established itself atop my recovery mountain. It’s holding me back from seeing the view from the top. I am out of breath and exhausted from climbing so high and so hard. Each step developed my emotional muscles and built my tolerance to exposure. I have had to face tough terrain and steep cliffs. Now as I reach the top, I am so so close to achieving the glorious moment of breathtaking beauty, the stunning view from the peak of the mountain. Yet my view is clouded with terror, and I am waiting for it to clear…..

Apparent Competence Vs Unrelenting Crisis

 So much has been going on over the last few weeks. I have been earnestly applying for internship posts, which finally paid off as I got the precious news that I have been accepted to a great service here in Dublin. 

I am still riding the wave of progress and have realized that if I allow myself to just go with the crashing, foaming tides of negative emotions that sooner or later the tempestuous waters become calm and bearable again.

Anxiety is my constant companion once again, making simple everyday tasks extremely difficult. I was startled by the stunning resident robin in my garden yesterday. He sings a morning tune to me most days yet as he fluttered up to graze on the crumbs I left for him on the window sill, I saw a black ghostly shadow then screamed aloud and scared my poor feathered friend away. Then on the bus into town this morning I felt the all too familiar experience of an oncoming panic attack. I froze. I couldn’t move from the spot I was invisibly glued to, which would have been fine if it were towards the back of the bus, out of the way, but no, I froze right in the entrance passage way staring ahead like I was witnessing a murder! Grumbles and rants from tarde commuters finally brought me to my senses and I ran off the bus and into the quite street around the corner. I burst out crying, snots and all, at the realization that my emotions are starting to control me again rather than me controlling them.

But being the borderline that I am…. my apparent competence shines through whist the unrelenting crisis’s fester away under the surface threatening to assault my passive attempt at creating a life worth living. 

You see, when I find myself amidst of fog of fear, it tends to stay with me for much longer than would be expected in those without an emotional vulnerability, making the next onslaught even more unbearable. Slow return to emotional baseline is the problematic cornerstone for me. Typically, a crisis will occur before I get a chance to return to my emotional baseline, which results in me staying very highly aroused emotionally on a continuous basis.

My therapist and I developed a plan to tackle the anxiety ambushes. I am to do a CBT thought record each time I notice a negative automatic thought. I must fight back with evidence which does not support the thought yet still validate where the fear might be coming from too. Then I create a balanced thought taking all evidence into account. This is proving to be a fantastic way to battle the thoughts.

Next I must reduce my tension through visualization and become more mindful of my body and cultivating compassion for myself. This is done with formal mindfulness meditation. I am loving John Kabit Zinn at the moment. His voice is so soothing and comforting.

Finally if I am to live the life I want to live, I must tackle the behavioral outcome of my anxiety. This involves the graded exposure I so dearly HATE. I mean I just don’t get how exposing a borderline to heightened emotions is a good thing! My heart is even racing now as I type this! I guess going for the interviews did help me get over my fear of interrogation, but I felt HORRIBLE the whole time I was doing it. Truthfully, I am pretty sure I will always feel some degree of dread when it comes to interviews, but least now I know I won’t actually DIE from them like I thought I would before. I will though, still be going as far out of my way as possible to avoid another one in the near future.

I have come to the conclusion and have RADICALLY ACCEPTED that I am always going to feel emotions to the extreme. I will always have to manage and control my urges and behaviors, but like anything; practice makes perfect.

What my recovery looks like to me

It is soon approaching Eating Disorders Awareness Week (20th-26th February 2012.) And it was suggested by a fantastically inspirational Blogger and You-Tuber; Rachel who's Blog Lost in Translation can be found here (I highly recommend you check her out!), that I write a bit about my reasons for recovery, what it looks like to me and why it is worth it.

To be honest I find this topic quite difficult to write about, because, beneath the obvious (and equally important) surface reasons for recovery such as improved health, emotional stability, a meaningful life and mended relationships there is a unfathomable search for who I am, my genuine self, which until found, will always compel my ED to rear its none to pretty head again. This is what my recovery looks like to me. It is the arduous search for, and discovery of a true identify not associated with my eating disorder and a conclusion which sits happily within my heart.

I am still most defiantly searching, and for this reason I do not consider myself recovered, even though I am ‘Clinically’ recovered from the criteria which bind me to a diagnosis. I am still scaling the walls of the dark well of my eating disorder, but I now have a torch, a pick and a rope and am clawing my way out, slowly.

I am quite enjoying finding out whom I am all over again. It’s great to have the opportunity, a wonderful mental health team, (some) support from my family, the head space and physical health to fully apply myself to this life-changing task. It is a full time job, and much like Gretchen Rubin, who spent a year exploring what her life meant to her and what makes her happy through her ‘Happiness Project’ blog (Another MUST READ!) I am allowing myself the time this year, and possibly even next year to find what makes my life worth living, what will get me out of bed each morning, what makes me happy.

I have been told that every fragment of your personality, your "self," serves to create the whole of your genuine self, therefore I do not ever want to forget my illness or the profound effect it has had on me, so, for me recovery is not about leaving ED behind and closing the cover on that part of my life. Instead, by acknowledging it and RADICALLY ACCEPTING that it has been part of me, that it happened, and that it was, at one stage the only way I knew how to cope, I can find solace and strength to search for a better way to cope with the emotions which fuelled it.

The genuine self is going to look and feel different for every single person, but the one thing that all will have in common is that the genuine self is the recovered self. By creating and accepting the genuine self, we become functional, healthy adults capable of facing life’s hurdles. 

Your genuine self will be unique to you. You may share similarities with some folks and be extremely dissimilar to other folks, and yet both groups of people can be your friends. When I have solidified my genuine self, I hope be able to recognize that everyone else around me also has a genuine self. People need not share the same thoughts, beliefs or opinions on any subject, let alone all of them. By embracing my own genuine self, I’ll suddenly be free to embrace the genuine selves of those around me because they will no longer represent a lot of work – I will no longer need to change them or convert them to your my of thinking. I’ll be content to allow them to be exactly who they are while I continue being exactly who I am. And if, or should I say when, I encounter someone who wants me to change, I’ll weigh their request against my genuine self and be able to determine whether or not that aspect of me is open to change or not. Sometimes these scenarios might mean that a particular person will chose to avoid me because of my refusal to bend to their wishes, and my genuine self will be okay with that. I’ll know that their boundary was unhealthy and that it’s probably best to end the association with that person.

The genuine self, for me at least, is really a remarkable sense of inner peace and tranquility. It doesn’t mean that I’ll have earned a pass into Nirvana or Utopia. Nor does it mean that my life will be a constant state of "smooth sailing." There will still be upheavals, fights, moments of extremes – that’s part of life and it cannot be changed. With the solidity and security of my genuine self, though, I will be able to weather those ups and downs with the calm and peaceful understanding that, no matter what, I will conduct myself in accordance with the beliefs of my genuine self.

This is what my recovery looks like to me, and remember, your picture will be different and unique and life-changing and most of all, deeply personal to YOU. 

Black and white thoughts, searching for the grey!

Today I was faced with a stark reality check.  I do not have the objective ability to have a balanced view of situations and am thus ruled my my dichotomous thinking. 

Under extreme stress, I find it can be comforting to oversimplify.

I will eat, or I will not eat.

I will live, or I will die.

This rational streamlining allows a sense of peace in the midst of turbulence. Yes, there are plenty of things that are black an white. Simple things. Is the toaster plugged in? Is the door locked? 

But the reason we have words like maybe, probably, partial, more, less, etc. is the grey is all around us. Everything has details, data, different ways to present and interpret the details and data, these different ways of presentation and interpretation is what causes grey.

When the stakes are not quite so high, perhaps a little room for the middle ground would be advisable. There are more choices than you think.A little "wiggle room" goes a long way when navigating through people, events and circumstances. Very little in my own life has ever been distinctly good/bad or black/white in any way, shape or form. Most things are just a subtle shade of gray when examined closely.

So much of the world is best described in an analog way not a digital way and definitely not in the binary way. So much is best described as a continum: I will not eat, I will eat a tiny bit, Iwill eat a moderate amount, and so on with an infinite variety of amounts.

Either / or is just the easy way out. I must leave a little room for humanity to breathe. If the middle ground is removed, how many of us still stand? My life is too complex to be able to discount gray areas in order to accommodate absolutes built on foundations that aren't solid simply because I am are either too fixed in my ideologies to be able to critically assess a situation or too intellectually lazy to do the heavy lifting, so to speak, when it comes to handling difficult ethical dilemmas, I simply use a catch all.

Emotional Stability at Christmas

Christmas is a stressful time. Even those without a mental health problem find the holidays difficult to get through, so it goes with out saying that, when an eating disorder is thrown into the mix too, there are bound to be problems.

For me and many others, there is a sadness, grief and loneliness behind my Christmas cheer. My disordered family is thrown together and the intensity nearly always bubbles over into arguments and squabbles. I am deeply ashamed to admit that there is still a stain on my family home's sitting room wall, where I threw a glass of wine at my sister one Christmas, missed and instead imprinted a cherry red mark on the cream wall as a memento of my rage!  

Late nights, rich food, extra alcohol, traffic and crowds, shopping and finances, cooking and cleaning and all the other tasks of Christmas, all make this time of year a protracted emotional time.

There ARE a few things which DBT offers us for a successful way to ride the holiday wave. I personally am concentrating on  COPE AHEAD. The more I plan for and organize the less likely that something unformulated will shock me into an emotional backlash. All my clothes are washed and outfits put together. I have made plans for friends to ring me on Christmas eve, Day and Stephen's day as supports and handy excuses from the dinner table. 

I am putting together a wellness toolbox to bring with me as part of SELF SOOTHE. This box is a little like what you might bring to keep a child entertained on a long car journey. I have knitting, coloring pencils and paper, magazines and books. I also have my DBT notes and MINDFULNESS exercises. I have 6 reminders on my phone which simply say 'Check-In'. these are to remind me to recognize my anxiety and take regular MINDFUL breaks throughout the day. I find things always seem less overwhelming after a few deep breaths.

I will also be practicing RADICAL ACCEPTANCE. I need to have realistic expectations. My family will not suddenly change into the perfect Brady bunch overnight. And if I can ACCEPT that my family are not perfect I think I have more of a chance of dealing with the potential holiday fallout.

I plan on respecting my values. I do not want to compromise my recovery 'just because' its Christmas. I am going to eat intuitively. So if I am hungry and dinner is not ready yet... well sorry, but I will eat anyway! 

Christmas is supposed to be a happy period and therefore a perfect5 opportunity to make new better memories for future years, so ACCUMULATE POSITIVE EXPERIENCE is another skill. I am going to spend time at the end of the day to reflect on what things went well and add them to my positivity book.

Are there any other tips you guys have?

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE xxx

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 SELF ACCEPTANCE

If I let myself, I may start to believe that the magazine cover girls (whose photos are air-brushed and trimmed in, mind you!) are the norm and that the rest of us are somehow deeply flawed. What I get then is the soundtrack of "I hate myself" or "I hate what I see in the mirror" playing over and over again in my head, fuelling my endless dieting cycles and painful frustration.

If I am to have any measure of success, it is crucial that I permanently press stop on that soundtrack and work to genuinely accept my size and, by extension, myself. For someone who has been listening to this self-disgust soundtrack forever, size acceptance is pretty scary. Does accepting yourself the way you are imply that change may be impossible? 

What I am trying to say is that; denial is not acceptance. Rather, self-acceptance means adopting a NON-JUDGEMENTAL STANCE toward yourself. It's the ability to see things as they are in the moment without harmful, self-critical voices interrupting your view of yourself.  Self-acceptance is instrumental to reaching your healthy, natural weight. Size-acceptance means focusing on the things you like about yourself while working to modify what you don't like.

This process is at the core of the dialectic of CHANGE/ACCEPTANCE. If I get back to a DBT skill of weighing up the PRO'S and CON'S of tolerating distress, I must ask; "How well has not liking myself worked so far?"  The truth is, it hasn't. In fact, if I dislike my body, it's that much easier for me to abuse it.

If I try to apply this to my own life and situation, I feel less able to be as practical as is needed to fully commit to this. Maybe the skill TURNING THE MIND might be of use here as I prepare myself for acceptance of my body. I must turn my mind towards accepting the reality that my natural weight and size are not what I feel they should be. I am not part of the 5% of women who are long, lean and have model measurements. Therefore I must commit to choosing that my reality is that I have hips and broad shoulders which are all part of being a woman.

I am not happy with my legs, they are riddled with varicose veins and often retain water. That is a fact. Starving myself is not going to change it. So for today, I am making a commitment to RADICALY ACCEPT that these things are part of me, I may not like them, nor say that I am happy about them, but they are there.

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.