Ouch, My nose!!!

So in attempt to make a long story short, after so recent events I found out that I have a mental disorder called Borderline Personality Disorder or BPD. It can be debilitating at times and is tough on those around me, especially in times of crisis. With such inner pain, turmoil, powerlessness and defensive reactions, coupled with limited coping and communication skills, it is hard for others to understand or even tolerate, thus my current situation. Anyways, part of the management of BPD is some medication, only to deal with the anxiety and depression, which can come and go with whatever is going on in life, then the other part is Dialectical Behavior Therapy or DBT. Currently I'm on my 5th session of DBT and this week's homework was to think of times when we've cut off our nose to spite our face. Evidently a pretty common thing, due to our poor coping skills and inability to deal with anger in a healthy way. This made me look back at my life and think about how I have done this in the past. So here it goes.

My latest big example of this is probably what ended me in the hospital and almost dead. Though there were many feelings and incorrect thoughts behind it, in the end it was spiteful towards someone I was angry with. Sitting in my truck and swallowing close to 100+ pills of Lithium, 60+ pills of Trileptal and 25+ pills of Seroquel after taking Phenegran to insure they would stay down, not smart, not sane, just fucking stupid. Taking 6+ pills at a time, over and over again until I felt my self getting dizzy, texting my wife to try to get her to say something that would make me stop and knowing that there was nothing she could say, I was aware than I could die. Hell, I hurt so much I wanted to die. I couldn't conceive going on alone, going through therapy that is and will kick up feelings about traumatic events that I never wanted to remember again. And me having no one to support me through this, my best friend and support left because she couldn't deal with me anymore. The doctors can't be with me all the time, the family I have can't support me like I need, I just feel very alone. I go home, I'm alone, I wake up, I'm alone, I go to the grocery store, I'm alone as I walk around seeing people with their families. This is a very scary place to be when you have BPD. This fear and emptiness of feeling alone, along with the anger of my wife leaving when I felt I needed her, made me do this very spiteful and very selfish act of attempting suicide. I don't know really why I so much say attempting, other than that I wasn't successful due to many medical professionals hard work. But I knew what I was doing, I knew what I was taking teamed with the understanding of my body after my Gastric Bypass, that there was little that could be done to undo what I was doing. I very much should have died, I had well over the amount of a lethal dose of Lithium in my system, I was even over the amount for a fatal dose, I guess it just wasn't my time to die. My body wasn't willing to give up a chance to be happy with Missy. And I'm so lucky that Missy took the steps to save my life when I selfishly showed up on her doorstep out of anger at her. What I did was not right in any fashion, not fair to her, not fair to the ones that love me, it was stupid and selfish and could have left me in bad shape, if not dead. My doctor tells me it wasn't a stupid thing I did, it was just a thing I did. I think it's because having dealt with so many BPD patients, he knows how hard and judgmental we are on ourselves. He knows that we'll sit around and dwell on the stupid choices we make. He knows how we think and deal.

So I've figured out, I've done this alot in my life. Why do I hurt myself to show others that I'm upset at them? Is it because I need them and don't want to make them mad by actually doing something to them? Am I actually angry at myself and trying to punish myself as well as them? Why do I try to be so manipulative by cutting off my nose to spite my face to hurt those I love or care about? Can I ever forgive myself for all that has happened? I guess time will tell.

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Falling apart and trying to pick myself back up

Sometimes I wonder why things happen like they do. Is it my doing? Is there a greater force there trying to teach me something? Is my life just like a fragile house made out of toothpicks that can crumble at any minute? I don't know, but sometimes it's just too much for me.

Well, it all goes back, hell, I don't know if it goes back 35 years ago, 18 years ago around my first attempt, 6 years ago when I first met Missy, or 1 year ago when I lost my drug in life. I guess it's all just perspective, which is hard to see from this angle most of the time. All I know is that there seems to be a common thread in all this, and that thread is me. The other thing I now know is that I'm gonna have to fix this by myself, the one thing that I'm more terrified about than anything in the world. I am truly my own worst enemy. I've hurt myself and continue to hurt myself more than anyone can. I have such mixed emotions about things and I'm torn about how I feel about where I am and why I'm here alone. At times I'm empathetic and at others times angry that she's not here with me. The mood swings that follow my disease, the anger, the anxiety and the depression leave me so weak some days. I fight it all I can, I take whatever meds my doctor gives me, I ask for me when things get bad and I try to apply whatever things they have taught me from DBT. Sometimes it just isn't enough, what I'm going through is a major life crisis. I try to explain this to her, but I think she doesn't understand, and if she does, she's just too hard on me because I'm doing the best I can right now. Right now I'm like a guy with a small garden shovel trying to dig a hole in my yard for a pool. I just don't have the right tools and experience yet, it takes time. There are many things behind why I have what I have, what we call for the men of the family, the Coffman Curse. It is very much inherited, it's physiological (else meds wouldn't help), there are psychological factors, early life factors (abandonment/neglect, abuse of all kinds) and the biggest one right now, life experiences, which would be the loss of love, money problems and the many others things that have followed this. Some days I don't want to wake to see another day after how tough that day was, others I'm fine. It's like a roller coaster that I want to get off of, but it never stops so I can. I so lost in a world that I don't want to be in. Then I'm so afraid of letting Missy down by not beating this or hurting her again at that time it's just too much for me.

The therapy scares me the most, I've kind of avoided some of it. Alone here with no real support system, eventually I'll talk about the painful things that I've never been able to deal with. All the abuse, all the things I never wanted to remember, all the things I choked down because we weren't allowed to talk about them. All the things that my brain blocked out to protect my sanity. And when I talk about them to my therapist, who will be with me to comfort me and make sure I'm safe when I have to go home with those raw emotional wounds ripped open and bleeding. Just me. Just me and my painful emotions, just me and my devices of death and self torture. Just me... When will I forgive myself and stop this self hatred for things I've done and what I've let the things that were done to me do to my life and the ones I love.

I hope I can make it through all this, I try to remain positive, but I know I'm growing tired. I'm so tired and how will I keep pushing on. Will the doctor give me another pill to choke down to help with that. It's funny, he wanted to take me off of all my meds, but now he's putting me on more. And everyone is so worried about me, but no one is doing anything. Just the old wait and see. Wait and see if he loses it, wait and see if he finally kills himself, wait and see if he flips out and hurts someone. I'm not sure why anyone thinks the last, I've never hurt a living soul but myself, but I know that I can sense it in a few people. It's hurtful when others are scared of you. It hurts in the same place as when I say I love you and get nothing in return.

Right now, I'm so tired. I want to jump out of my skin and my heart is beating so hard that it hurts. I can't keep living like this. This has to get better, it has to. Doesn't it? This is taking a toll on my body. I grow more and more tired and weary. I'm losing more weight, I'm growing more tired, eventually my body will have had enough and give up. Does that mean I'll have a breakdown? I don't know, time will tell.


I've done some reading about childhood trauma, since that is what much of my problem is and how to heal from childhood trauma. Due to being traumatized as a child and the home I grew up in, I lacked resources to cope and thus things got worse. With the sexual abuse on top of the emotionally abuse that went through with my family, I couldn't cope, my brain and body did whatever it had to, to deal with the abuse. These adults who did these things to me, showed me that I couldn't trust the world. I now know this to be untrue, just some people can't be trusted, but trusting no one leads to a very unhappy life. But none the less, it was ingrained in me at such a young age and this all affected my development as a child on into adulthood. It caused me to not have a sense of healthy limits, thus I have problems with boundaries. This excerpt from an article on sexual abuse says it best.

excerpt from Healing From Childhood Sexual Trauma by Ben Oofana
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Abusive parents can be so inconsistent in the care of their children and there is often a very ambiguous quality to their behavior. Children of abusive parents may have very little sense of safety and security. These children are often left in a chronic state of anxiety and hyper vigilance. Many of their internal resources are consumed by the need to protect from further assault and survive from one day to the next. These defensives become so deeply ingrained in the personality. The defenses then comprise so much of who they are. They may never have the opportunity to address their own needs or feelings or to develop the basic life skills that are needed to function in this world.
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So I wonder, can I break the cycle? Can I change who I am? My personality has been greatly affected by the abuse and by the BPD. This is not me, I desperately want to find me, I need me. Without finding me, I can never be happy. So how do you find yourself, if you've never known yourself. How to you let go if everything you've known and let go of the fears that hold you back? This seems like it could be a rough ride, alone none the less. Well, I really have no choice. I can't go on unhappy, I know where that leads, I see how my father is. But will I lose Missy in the process? Will she respect that I'm trying to take care of me and wait for me? Will she welcome me back at some point and help or support me as I continue to find me? So many questions. Will I ever be ok with the unknown? I should be, life is all about the unknown. No one knows what each day may hold, so why do I allow it to freak me out so. I just need to let go and accept I have little or no control, except for how I react t things and how I treat others. Wow, this is just so eye opening. I need to continue being mindful and continue to grow each day. Let's see how it goes.

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