I've decided to go to a psychologist. Why? No real reason really in as nothing is happening that is any worse than normal in fact it's probably better than usual. But ok to be honest I prayed for guidance and whether I should be seeing someone and on the way back from the Gold Coast recently I met a girl on the plane who just started talking about how she is studying in this area and how she also has her own psych who she sees and funnily enough she also gave me a lift home from the airport. I figured this was kind of direction enough to give it a try.
I've never talked about my personal situation, my home life, my relationship status. But I plan to let you in on my world a little at a time as I feel comfortable and/or if I want to. Mainly to talk about it's relevence to the BPD and how it effects or impacts my life.
My partner who I have been with for almost 2 years has what is called OCPD. Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. This is not to be confused with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) These conditions are VERY different! similiar in some ways but not the same ball park! Then again I actually have a little bit of OCD they say, which helps me not to cut! ( I'm too 'in control' to want to cut thankfully lol) So between us we almost have a whole alphabet!!!!!!!!
Anyway with my BPD and his OCPD we are both reacting to each other. OCPD'rs find it difficult to connect emotionally and spend most of their time working and fullfilling tasks to get them perfect and they are often neat freaks and very controlling (did you say control? i'm allergic to controlling behaviour! argh) of those around them and will be exceptionally bossy and critical. Oh great! what a great mix! I don't think I even need to tell you guys what goes on in these four walls. Yes WORLD WAR 3!!!
Now in saying all this, being a positive person underneath all the crap and rubbish that BPD dishes out, or is it more I have learnt to turn aim to turn situations into positives where I can or as much as I possibly can I can honestly say that I believe that being in such a horrid, hard and perilous situation for the last 2 years of this relationship and sticking it through (whether I should have or not is another question) my issues have really been brought to the fore. I have cried bitter tears of rejection first brought on probably by my Father as a child. So maybe the pain I have suffered has enabled me to allow these hurts to surface in order to pray and ask God for his beautiful healing balm and touch and softly wipe all my sorrows away. This doesn't mean that I am now floating on air and feel like a completly new person. It just means to me that what used to devestate me doesn't feel quite as bad as before. But then there are many layers of the onion. I don't think all my pain can go in one foul swoop. It's more like a layer is taken off to leave the more sensitive skin of the onion underneath. It almost feels like the further I go the more exposed and fragile I feel as I go deeper into my past and begin to really get to the nitty gritty of what probably put me in this place in the beginning. As I'm not a professional therapist I don't know the origins of BPD, whether it is a genetic condition or it is learned behaviour. But I do believe I am a therapist as I learn 'myself' over time. I figure the more I get to know my insides and what makes me tick. What sets me off and how that relates to my childhood where I originally suffered feelings of powerlessness. For me it's not so much for the sake of digging up old hurtful memories just for the sake of it. As I say it's not so much the memories that I am digging for if any digging is going on, it's more the emotion that was behind it at the time. I find if I can feel that emotion, the one I couldn't articulate at the time when I first suffered it as a child and not just feel it but now as an adult articulate it to myself and/or to God at the same time I feel a real release as I give it over for him to take away. Or even by feeling that grief I felt at the time. The pain and the hurt and by describing it sometimes out loud and with tears, In other words feeling the grief and letting it pass I can actually trust that it does. You see I believe that all grief will take care of itself in our lives given the chance. But if we don't ever allow ourselves to feel it then we can't trust for it to pass like a wave. There is a difference in living in our past and living in grief and hanging around our childhood to use as and excuse for how we are and going there with a specific purpose to grow beyond those memories and to begin to heal and let that little child go. Sometimes I've even comforted that child as though she was another me and given her what she needed from me at the time. The understanding, the validation, the soothing words, the love. In doing that she has been happy to go and play just like any child who comes to an adult for those things and then after feeling the comfort is happy to go and play and forget it happened. I believe that when we didn't have that as kids we were left feeling neglected possibly and didn't have the ability to self soothe, so we began choosing other options like children do like banging thier heads to hurt themselves, screaming and tantrumming, expressing bullying or angry behaviour. Or many other things. Children don't have the ability to know thier feelings articulate how they feel always because they don't have those skills. Or they know that hurt me, I will go for comfort. Thier language is limited for starters and if a parent or carer can't validate thier feelings for them and also soothe them when they are at the important stage of growth and before they can learn these skills I believe they/ we can remain stuck.
Please understand this is my own analasys and I really don't know how the professionals see this. I can only speak from my university experience. I went to the university of Eve's life and I am now working on my Masters Degree. It's taken me all my life to complete my education and I probably will study for the next part until the day I die. These theories I am talking of I have only studied on myself and havn't released my findings before, so they really will be open to scrutiny and I can only go on my own limited findings and how they have worked in my case study. I would recommend you only use my thesis as a case study and not as a proven fact. Maybe just something more to add to your vast bank of knowledge that has yet to be proven.
I think with all our councelling and self help we can only use what works for us and not feel bad if something works for someone else and it doesn't quite fit for our lives.
I want to stress that for years there was a very large trend toward digging up childhoods which I think just made us going around in circles and find excuses to blame parents etc. But I am not talking about that. I'm suggesting that whatever resources or skills we use to work on 'our stuff' be used for the purpose of growth and actually moving forward toward a common goal and that is bettering our lives and the lives of those around us. In conclusion I judge a tree by it's fruit. If it is producing fruit and good fruit then I think that's a tree worth investing time and effort on and if not then it's not worth it. What I mean is by me using this way of growing that I have explained, if it producing good fruit in my life then I figure I am investing in the right tree. In digging at my past my relationship with my parents are actually improving because I am not seeking to blame but to get beyond my pain and then be able to forgive and love them for where they are at and who they are. and in raising the pain of my past I am noticing that my inner issues are becoming far less painful then to me that is all worthwhile. It is all good!
I'd really love to hear some feedback of what you might think or what also helps you and we can swap ideas. No one way is the right way, we all need help and as much as we can possibly use.
thanks again for listening
Eve