Month: September 2014

THE PAIN OF BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

I haven’t written my blog for over a week – I’m very aware of that. I am also aware that I haven’t responded to any of your blogs either and I hope you will forgive me my selfishness. This isn’t because I don’t care about you. Please don’t think that, because that is far from the truth. I’ve just been feeling so far down in my pit that I haven’t been able to see over the edge into the real world.

I first posted this YouTube video over two years ago. I know many of you will have seen this before and many of you, if you have BPD may have watched this at some time. I know it makes disturbing watching but can you begin to imagine what if feels like to live with this every day? Well, this is me. Welcome to my world.

(On the plus side is the fact that I have, at last  managed to change my care agency and now have the kindest, most considerate carer I could wish for, called *T*). Even when I am feeling at my lowest, she is like a breath of fresh air and always ‘lifts’ me, and however I am feeling, she always gives me a big hug. I love her to bits already which I know I shouldn’t, and I know I have become attached to her and am terrified of losing her. She has worked with me for one whole week now but of course, has to have time off like everyone else. At the moment, I don’t yet know who will replace her while she is on leave but I am already so afraid of losing her. I tell myself “I must not get attached, I must not get attached, I must not get attached”, but all in vain as it is too late. I am. I hear the questions that are so predictable: “Will she come back? Will she still like me? Am I going to lose her? I am already so afraid.

My family situation has not changed. I tried to contact my daughter to offer to go and visit her on Tuesday and she left a message on my ansafone this morning just at the time she knew I would be at church, saying she was busy (in a cool, detached voice). It hurt. I really hurt It’s like she is taking a dagger and plunging it through my heart. Rejection. Rejection. Rejection. Yet again; still. Why do I expect any different? Shouldn’t I be used to getting hurt by now? Why do I always get my hopes up, only to have them dashed time and time again. I felt so bad this afternoon, I resorted to self-harming (nothing serious; just a few scratches) but nevertheless my feelings ran so deep and I was full of self-disgust and anger, that was the result. I didn’t plan it; I didn’t think about it first. It was just an automatic reaction, my coping mechanism.

Now….Enough!! I have spoken too much already. I have let too much of myself out. I feel ashamed; I want to hide; I hurt; I hurt so much: I want that everlasting sleep to come.

Not a word more.

CHANGES…

So much is going on in my life at the moment….so many changes, that I haven’t had time to write my blog for nearly a week which is unlike me. My world has been totally upside-down these last few days. I could sort of see it coming from a distance yet felt powerless to stop it all going on. Sometimes change is necessary, either because it’s out of our hands and something in our lives isn’t right or a change of direction, a detour down an unknown avenue etc has to happen for a reason..

Firstly, at some point, I almost lost my faith, not quite completely but near enough. It didn’t feel good – I felt like a boat drifting in a turbulent sea with no anchor to fasten me to reality. I’ve posted about my faith before. It matters to me although for a while, back there, I felt I had abandoned it or somehow it had abandoned  me. I knew there was still a small spark left but felt completely lost. I’ve spent weeks adrift from my old church and was visiting others in the area where I searching for that place of worship that fulfilled both my spiritual needs and my social ones. My search proved fruitless and I was drifting further and further away from God.

(c) Thomas (Tom) Henry Roskell; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Running concurrently alongside this was the fact that my Care Agency decided to dump me with only one week’s notice. This wasn’t because I had been rude or abusive in any way, nor because I was a nuisance but because I had a voice and spoke up for myself, assertively but politely and the Manager didn’t like hearing the truth about her failing agency (due to them not taking care of their staff thereby enabling them to do a good job….they just were not given the time and everything had to be done at break-neck speed and therefore not thoroughly). I won’t go into details about the lack of care and respect to myself and my home that I experienced….suffice it to say, it left a hell of a lot to be desired.

Meanwhile, as far as my family life was concerned….no change there! I haven’t seen my children or grandchildren for best part of a year now. Although I am trying my best to come to terms with the fact that this is going to be what my son and daughter want, it doesn’t stop it hurting like hell.

Other changes were afoot also but I won’t go into them here for fear of boring the pants off my readers.

Something needed to change but did I have the courage to deal with it all? It seemed not at the time but apparently (so i’ve been told), I am a strong person despite the fact that I feel like a mouse in a world of lions.

I decided to go back to my old church and although it is not perfect (but then is anything perfect?), I have to say walking back through those doors did feel like ‘coming home’ and I know I have made the right decision, with God’s guidance.

As for my Care Agency, I think it might be for the good after all as I have found a different agency, all be it at short notice, who seem far better and who are starting with me on Monday morning. I’ve met my new carer and we really get on well.

So, I guess it goes to show, change (all be it difficult sometimes) can be for the better. Perhaps…..just perhaps, this is the beginning of a positive upturn to my life and I now for certain that I need God by my side. 🙂

ANGRY – I’M DEAD IN THE WATER / I’M GOING SLIGHTLY MAD (VIDEOS)

Often lately, I have been thinking that for how much my children care or rather do not care about me, I may just as well be dead in the water, as the song says. Would I missed? No, I think not. At least, not by them. I know I have some good friends and I appreciate that so much but it doesn’t take the pain away. Am I angry? Yes, I am. I am angry at my children for depriving me of my grandchildren.

I’m angry with my care agency for not doing their job properly, not my carers (they are all great). It’s the bloody management who don’t bloody well look after their staff so their staff are all leaving in droves and I can’t say I blame them!

I’m angry with my church for not even noticing that I haven’t been there for the last six weeks, and now; now that I’ve let on (I thought, confidentially) to someone that I was leaving as I’ve found a much more supportive church; now, the phone rings at 7.15pm. I can see that it’s my church but I don’t pick up. The Minister has left a message saying she just wanted to talk to me about something and she wondered how I was…NOW? 

I am just so angry….I’m angry with life in general. I’m angry at the world! I’m not feeling sorry for myself…I’m just feeling utterly and thoroughly pissed off by everything in my life! I’m so angry that I’m in the state of mind that I don’t really care whether I’m here (as in alive and breathing), or not. In fact the idea of being ‘dead in the water’ quite appeals at this current moment.

I think I’m going slightly mad! I feel like an unexploded time-bomb, detonated and primed to off at any minute….any minute now. What do you do with yourself when yo feel like this? Answers on a postcard….

AS NICE AS PIE…

I’m as nice as pie to those around me, caring, lovingly so, genuinely. But me? Me? Right now, I couldn’t give a toss. I feel like shit and am full of self hatred and anger and don’t know why. Perhaps jut a phase of the Borderline Personality Disorder which is of no consolation whatsoever.

This isn’t a clever piece of writing….neither beautifully worded or artistic….just a scream from deep within, silenced before it hits the surface and not dissimilar to the silent screams of my childhood. Flooded with flashbacks and sudden vicious body memories…ugh….argh….get me out of here! I don’t want to be in my body. It’s ugly, it’s damaged, it’s scarred for all to see…I hate it….I want to cut, cut out the bad. I hurt. I am hurting inside and out….the pain becoming intolerable. Panic setting in now as if enough isn’t enough.

the_scream_munch_artcover_by_yourlittlepsycho-d2z2lyb

(Edvard Munch – The Scream)

The clock is ticking, tick-tock, tic-tock…ticking the hours of my life away. I urge it to tick faster to stop it all…stop the pain. I long for slumber but this evades me too. I’m drowsy now but fighting off the sleep I so desperately need; head nodding slowly only to be suddenly shaken back into the reality I don’t want to see, hear or live. My head is muddled. I need help. I don’t know where to turn…. I search, I rummage, I hunt, but cannot even muster up the energy to ask for help

“Go to bed, for f*ck’s sake, go to bed. Stop expressing how you feel and boring the pants off the world“, my mind speaks to my head. I make no sense. This is literately nonsense, no sense….madness….confusion….total and utter confusion.

Chloe cries, my little one. My precious child within screams out in pain….and I can do nothing to comfort or console her….she suffers as we all do.  

I need to get out of my head….I need to get out of my life…..no longer wanted, needed or desired. So why should I remain here to suffer for the sake of those supposed to be close to me yet full of venom and hatred towards me? 

What am I dong here? Empty, devoid of love, worthless, pointless, aimlessly wandering to and fro and yet trapped within this head of mine….desperately fighting to escape from what is supposed to suffice as a brain..

“GET ME OUT OF HERE! PLEASE, GOD, GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

 

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

attitude of gratitude 2

My life is not perfect; far from it. I won’t go on to list all the things that are not how I’d like them to be but hey, nobody said life would be perfect! I will say my biggest upset is the total lack of contact with my children or my little grandchildren who I miss terribly. There is a fourth grandchild on the way but I doubt I’ll be allowed to have anything to do with that little mite when he/she enters the world. All my grandchildren are growing up not knowing they have a Nanny Ellie. I do not exist on this planet for them despite them all being in close proximity to me. 

On to other events. I can just see the glimmer of light at the end of this deep, dark tunnel I have been lodging in for so long. I dig my way through mud, shovel by shovel, clearing the beginnings of the path that will lead me out of this place. I long to reach the warm sunshine I can see lighting up the far end of this prison. I crawl and I claw my way, inch by inch nearer and nearer to my goal.  At last, pieces of my life are beginning to come together; important matters are finally falling into place. I don’t hesitate to list these as they are gradually bringing light and a warm glow into my life (minus my grandchildren, of course).

  • At last my new laptop has arrived, all shiny and new. No more trying to hump that great huge dinosaur of a computer about (I called it Triceratops for that reason). This one is as light as a feather and a dream to use, although it didn’t come cheap (but it did come with a credit card bill!). I’ve called it ‘Amy’ – don’t ask me why; no rhyme or reason – it just came to mind and has a friendly sound about it. 
  • I think, at long last, that I have found my spiritual home…thank you, God. It’s a really small, fairly run-down ramshackle hut of a building, but proudly painted with clean blue and white paint. The people there are so friendly and are already treating me like one of their family. I feel totally comfortable there. The Senior Minister is called Roger and he has a really wicked sense of humour. The services are simple but genuine, the songs are mostly modern and beautiful, the faith is strong, the sense of community is steadfast but mostly, I get treated like a human being, not like an obstacle in a wheelchair (which incidentally had new batteries fitted this week so it goes like a dream now). I’ve called my chair ‘Charlie’, the girl’s variation, naturally….women are better drivers! (No offence, fellas).
  • I am at last doing something about changing my care agency. I’ve been on to Adult Social Care and reiterated the fact that my current agency were no longer able to meet my needs. After much interviewing, I have found a care company who really do seem to care so I’ve just got to get the two lined up together with each other now. Not an easy task, I can assure you.
  • In addition, college starts back on the 10th September and I’m eager and raring to go! 
  • I’ve had my mobile phone, basic though it is, repaired so now I can be in touch with the word once again.
  • I had a birthday on Wednesday and three of my college friends surprised me and turned up with balloons, badges, flowers and gifts like I’ve never had before. I had a fantastic day with them. My birthdays are usually spent on my own, singing ”Happy birthday to me…” etc.

So, that is six reasons to be grateful that God is good and believe it or not, it hasn’t been easy to write bout the good stuff when I’m used to wallowing in the mire. I can become accustomed and far too ‘comfortable’ writing about all the negatives. But just once in a while, and I have to make the most of these rare moments, it’s good to bask in the sunshine. 🙂