As the Shell Crumbles

Somewhere right around eleven years ago, I experienced a trauma that shook me to my core. It wasn’t the first major trauma that I’ve faced in my life… but it is the one that I can distinctively pinpoint as the start of my decline into serious mental illness. It was one trauma too much… the straw that broke the camel’s back. In the months that followed this trauma, a few minor breakdowns occurred and I tried my best to hold myself together. A new fear had formed, planting itself deep in my life and I tried with everything inside of me to hold it down and keep going, despite the cracks I could feel growing ever deeper in my mind, my heart, and my soul.

At twenty-three years old, I didn’t have the stability or support to acknowledge, let alone face any of this trauma… I didn’t even know that it was trauma. And I certainly didn’t know that working at a job, with direct ties to the trauma I had faced, was continually re-traumatizing me with every shift that I worked.

For the next year, life was busy… too busy. Already a mom of three, I would learn soon that I was pregnant once again. Money was tight, and our house was stressful. Along with financial concerns came the pain… hip and back pain that was beyond what I had experienced with any of my previous pregnancies had left me unable to work and on medical leave. Partial placenta previa had affirmed my decision to take time off of work, and left an additional fear on our shoulders as we waited for the all-clear – the knowledge that the placenta was no longer in the way of my cervix and a continuing risk factor for me.

Over the same year, our daughter who was two at the time; was facing an entirely different trial – her kidneys wreaking havoc on her little body. Trying to control her condition was not working, and as summer hit, we were booked into Sick Kids Hospital for her to undergo a fairly major surgery. Thankfully, everything went according to plan, and a few weeks later, our little girl was back… happy and playing and finally well.

I didn’t know that within two weeks of our daughter’s surgery I would face another health concern myself. Still only barely seven months pregnant; I woke up one morning in the worst physical pain, I’ve ever experienced and had my husband take me to the hospital. At first, my symptoms led them to believe that my appendix had ruptured… but an ultrasound soon disproved that theory and showed them instead that it was my gallbladder. Gall stones trapped in my bile duct were yet one more reason to worry, and the pain as my son consistently kicked the inflamed regions was excruciating. Off and on throughout August and most of September… I faced repeated incidences of the same symptoms. The stones usually dislodging and giving me a few days of peace before another flare up.

Finally in September, I arrived at the hospital; sick, tired, and in pain. Speaking calmly but firmly I told the doctor that they needed to take either the baby out, the gallbladder out, or both. I wasn’t leaving without something being done. Labour was induced that afternoon; and after only a minor allergic reaction to an IV antibiotic, my fourth and last child was quickly born.

Ten years ago this past September, our family was completed. A decade. 

And while I found joy in the small moments, that trauma that I experienced the year before had begun a chain-reaction in my life beyond what I, or anyone else could have predicted. 

I once had a wise person tell me not to think in days, or months, or years when it comes to periods in my life. (Okay, she told me this way more than once!) Instead, she advised me to think in decades… a concept that I tried to process and work with, but until recently had been unable to commit to.

But as this past year has floated on past me; it is a thought that has continually come back up.

Up until this past year, I could look back at my life and speak about the trauma that I have consistently faced with a straight face, a few tears, and an acknowledgement that parts of my life hadn’t been rosy. I honestly believed that I had worked through a lot more of what has happened, than what I have.

In a previous post, I mentioned that this past nine months or so, have been the most difficult months I’ve ever experienced.

For a long time, I’ve tried to right the situation.

Nine months. It seems like an incredibly long time to struggle with life – to experience depression and anger and a loss of focus, drive, and hope. Nine months seems like a long time to work on trying to change your life while you continue to hit brick walls. Nine months seems like a decent time frame to get it back together following another traumatic revelation, learn to smile, and actually push through the trauma and reach the other side… wherever that other side might be.

A couple of months ago I was trying to understand why I hadn’t gone anywhere in my recovery… instead I felt like I was spinning further and further out of control.

Over the past two to three months, I have had to learn that nine months was not an adequate time frame for my personal journey towards full healing, to even begin.

It seems kind of crazy. I’ve known about mental health for a long time… and I have experienced fluctuations, ‘aha!’ moments, and triggers. I’ve walked the walk, and I’ve done the work to learn and re-learn how mental illness has affected me, and the ways in which to not only manage it, but to treat it. The past four years, have been an intense and ongoing battle inside my head as I have worked towards acceptance and healing… as I have forced myself into behaving in different manners, and trying to understand where the uncontainable emotions come from.

Almost three months ago I was lying in bed broken. I literally could not move, let alone think straight.

I didn’t know if I had any fight left inside of me. I didn’t know why I was the way I was… and I hated myself. I wanted to run away… I almost did. A grown woman, looking to run away from everything… including her family and the life that she had consistently fought to build.

I’ve taken a lot of time over the past three months – a needed time of quiet… at first I believed I needed to force my brain back into functionality… to return to where it had been, so I could quite simply get back to living life.

But each step I’ve taken in that direction, has reminded me that it’s not possible.

Eleven years since the trauma that began to crack me down the middle… and I finally feel as though I’ve been truly broken - a truly odd feeling for someone who thought she was so much further along in her journey. For the first time ever, I can see the shell of what I was, in pieces on the ground all around me… a small and fragile centre huddled up and exposed where the shell used to shine. For a decade I’ve tried to mend the cracks and pick up pieces and rebuild the puzzle. I wanted the shell. I wanted the normalcy. I wanted the lies.

For the first time I see the real me.

And though my shell is broken – unfixable – the inside is there in one piece, naked and humiliated, and scarred, and terrified to come into the light, terrified of the world seeing the small and fragile person within.

It took a decade plus a year.

Nine months was nothing. Nine months was the final breaking away… the changes that I had made through my work on myself, the mental illness, and the way I lived my life… forcing the final breaking apart.

I’ve frequently spoke of my journey – and that’s the funny thing about being on a journey… you never know what’s around the next bend. What new revelation, breakdown, or stall will occur as you observe the world both around and within you.

And life is like that… built up out of moments – both good and bad – each pattern of events unique… each person’s journey incomparable to another’s – although the similarities able to connect us.

So often, we look at one event - or a short period of our lives, where it's been rough... or where we've been out of control and unable to manage. Sometimes it's a period, where life has seemed to pass us by, as we have just floated through - struggling just to hold on to some semblance of sanity. I've been there. I've done that. 

Now I'm taking a few steps back... looking at the big picture. Letting the shell crumble. Allowing the vulnerability to shine through and make way for true growth. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. It's also the most valuable.

For the first time in a very long time, I can look back over eleven years and let out the breath that had been suffocating me. I can breathe clearly now... my head beginning to make sense again. The calm that I generally feel as I look awkwardly around me different, scary, and unfamiliar... but nice.

I still struggle. But the picture looks better now... open... real... complete in it's in-completion.

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Borderline Truth

Your truth. My truth. THE TRUTH.

It always amazes me how people see the truth as such a subjective matter that can automatically invalidate another person's experience. Being a person who has struggled with big emotions for a long time, it hasn’t always been an easy concept for me to grasp – the difference between my truth, your truth, and the real truth.

Once my Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) was diagnosed – it became impossible for My Truth, to ever be even close to THE TRUTH again.

It’s not that it wasn’t truth… in fact, more often than not, the BPD that I have felt weighed down by, has in fact made things more clear and concise; my fear of not being heard or properly understood, ensuring that I analyse everything that I say repeatedly before I ever actually speak… with only a few selected people allowed in to see more than what I allow to pass through the filter. Unfortunately though, the truth does not always set us free… and being labelled as a ‘borderline’, has crossed my thoughts and emotions into this territory marked ‘over-emotional’.

Over the last couple of weeks specifically, this label – this assumption has plagued me with self-doubt, unease, and a familiar depression; as I was slammed emotionally into a darker place. Speaking out at first was not an option… and when I did speak out to a few friends, it was filled with self-pity, self-loathing, and full on fear – fear of not being heard, fear of abandonment, fear of them taking the ‘other side’, fear of a lack of understanding, and fear of not being articulate enough – of going too far, or exaggerating, or straight up making things worse. But my biggest fear was simply being told that my experiences weren’t the truth.

Because for the past four years, that was what I was told that borderlines did. They lied, manipulated, exaggerated, blew up, had a lack of emotional regulation, and destroyed the lives of those around them. Those in my life have said to me in the same sentence – ‘don’t blame your BPD’ and ‘that’s your BPD talking’. It’s a double edged sword, that really has no merit.

Because along with the BPD diagnosis – I did something else - well several things actually -  over the last four years. I have received counselling, I have worked through DBT (a therapy program specifically for BPD), I have built an understanding and emotionally stable support system around me, I have attended for a time a recovery step-program, and I have continued to implement and put into place those skills, the knowledge, and the analytics to know and pinpoint my behaviour better than ever. I’m not perfect, and I have moments – hell, sometimes I even have days, where I slip up and I feel defeated - like I will never gain freedom from this diagnosis… but I can honestly also say that I have never been at the place of self-awareness I’m at now. Mistakes happen. Emotions can still get the better of me at times… I have hurt people in anger or pain, and I have allowed them to hurt me, because I’m not perfect. Because I’m human.

And where I’m at now is angry.

This week I was told once again, ‘that’s YOUR truth, not THE truth’… another hint at the BPD, and a history of unstable emotions. Another sentence made in anger, so that I would doubt my experiences – not as a BPD sufferer, but as a human. Automatically, because I was hurt, because I refused to allow another human to determine my fate, and because I am in the midst of a painful experience; my thoughts, emotions, and words were automatically considered invalid because of my BPD.

I’m angry, because for a long time – I didn’t know that they were wrong. I couldn’t separate the fact that just because another person disagrees with me, that it doesn’t make the truth any less true. I have been convinced for so long, that because of the BPD, my voice did not deserve to be heard in the midst of trauma or pain. 

Psychologically, I’m facing a major trauma that I should have dealt with many years ago. When I tried to place it… to change things within my life and work through it; I was told ‘I’m sorry you feel that way, but that’s YOUR truth, not THE truth’; simply because the person involved didn’t like what I had to say. When I pointed to supporting evidence, it was ignored – as though my BPD mind, simply made it up… poof.

The past week has been brutal. The previous couple of days, darker than some of my others as I allowed someone else to convince me that I was broken – not good enough, unstable, and incapable. I allowed myself to nearly make a major decision, based on another person’s opinion of how difficult a person I can be due to my mental illness. I doubted myself, because I’ve been taught to doubt myself and question every thought, emotion and word.

Today I did a quick google search on BPD. Clicking through some of the links, I was amazed at some of the references to ‘surviving borderlines’ – aka, how to tolerate someone with this diagnosis. As though we are somehow less human, less than capable of loving and being loved. With a focus on the instability of our emotions, we are labelled as difficult to treat, difficult to love, and difficult to even be around.

When I scrolled through some mental health groups that I belong to, there was a stark contrast between those with the disease, and those who love someone with the disease.

I saw the patterns emerge and I was in awe that they seemed to replicate my life. BPD’s have mood swings – intense and unstable mood swings. Until we manage to figure out ways to begin to manage them – they never really disappear, but we learn coping strategies to deal with constant fluctuation. The difference is, that when something big happens (positive OR negative) our reactions can seem to the outsider, extreme. Trauma is especially bad. But the commonality in all of it, was that it continued to get worse – the stigma strongest against this specific diagnosis, as we are taught to doubt every thought and feeling before it’s allowed to be ‘truth’. And unfortunately, in my specific case,  the more work that I have done to combat the 'out of control' nature of the disorder, the more it upset the balance in life. Where once, my BPD could be used as an excuse, a distraction, or as evidence of instability... I now have changed viewpoints, perceptions, and an incredibly strong sense of self-awareness (most of the time anyways).

On the other hand, I saw loved ones talking and sharing about their friends or family who had been diagnosed. I saw an interesting trend (in my mind you, quick scroll), that seemed that at first diagnosis, the loved ones felt a sense of relief…. Finally answers. But as the diagnosis aged… every emotion, every problem, every trauma that the BPD sufferer faced was too much for the loved ones to deal with… the BPD was blamed for everything from general anxiety, to feeling hurt over betrayal, to crying over a sad movie. When the loved ones made a mistake or hurt the BPD - it seemed like the instability of the emotions was a scapegoat. Even when the BPD emotions happened as a direct result of the trauma inflicted on a person, they were blamed for having the disorder in the first place. 

It became a mindset. A case of this is what happens in BPD… I better look out for that at every turn. Nothing is real.

As I scrolled through old threads of conversation and examined my own life a little deeper, I felt the anger grow stronger. I remembered the small comments and the sideways glances. The calm and collected talks that became nightmare fights, because everything became a part of my mental illness... even on days where I was in control and doing well... I couldn't escape the weight of it. It’s the stigma  that has existed within my own home.

One of the environmental factors that is a key indicator of developing Borderline Personality Disorder, is a continued pattern of invalidation in childhood/early teenage years. And yet, as soon as someone is diagnosed with BPD, it seems to begin a new cycle of invalidation – it’s all because of the BPD.

Your feelings don’t matter.

Your instincts can’t possibly be accurate.

Those emotions? Too strong.

Your personality? Too much.

Your pain? Not real.

Your experience? Twisted and corrupted by the Borderline Mind.

And so we manage the emotion. We learn to doubt ourselves… our heads. We carefully construct our sentence, our fear of being called overly-emotional, or exaggerated, or outright liars; always keeping us on high-alert… keeping us from speaking out, from being heard.

This year, I made a promise to myself to try and live a more authentic and honest life. It has led me down some interesting paths – I have had anger and resentment cast towards me over the silliest things, and I have hurt some people with my lack of social etiquette in breaching certain topics. I have failed at times to be as real as I want to be and as real as I still aim to be. I hold secrets within my heart, and I sometimes share too much. I’m still learning how to be real and true… in a healthy way.

But this. This is a start. Because I am tired of being told that my experiences aren’t real, just because they are told from my perspective. My truth, is not any less valid than YOUR truth. And if, my truth at times does become distorted – it’s most often not from any disorder that I might struggle with… most often it’s from lies that I’ve begun to believe, because for so long I was convinced... I have BPD… I can’t trust myself.

But the truth is… I can. And I will.

I am not my diagnosis.

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