Today I cried

[...]I'm not crying
It's just been raining, on my face
And if you think you see some tear tracks down my cheeks
Please. Please, don't tell my mates
I'm not crying
No, I'm not crying
And if I am crying
It's not because of you [...]

"I'm not crying" by Flight Of The Conchords

Today felt like a significant day. After more than three years with Jay (and probably well over 200 sessions), I cried with him for the first time. I have struggled so hard to keep myself from losing it. To keep myself from falling apart. Yet today the little girl inside me curled up in the waiting room, with her Pooh Bear clutched close to her chest, barricading herself in the corner with two chairs, refusing to get up and enter the therapy room.

And I cried.

And cried.

And Jay bore with me.

He sat down on the remaining chair and respectfully allowed me my space by not looking directly at me and staying well away from my line of vision. We talked and we were quiet, and as the tears subsided I could feel myself slowly being reformed. I had dreaded this moment for months, years even, for fear of falling apart and not being put back together.

It is hard to explain the disintegration I so dread. A feeling unlike any other. As if someone picked up an eraser and started to slowly wipe me out of existence. They start at my feet, disconnecting me from the world around me. I can feel myself floating and I know that I have to stop them from erasing me entirely, for if I am erased completely I will never be able to come back. I will not be able to reform and people will never be able to connect to me again. From the time they have erased my feet, the anxiety mounts and starts to rapidly rise to an unmanageable level. I have to keep them from erasing me fully, thus panic starts setting in. I have to stop them, I need to stop them. I frantically search for my razorblades, my fingers trembling as I try to unwrap a fresh blade. I press it into my skin and drag the blade across. And only then, when I feel the sharp, stabbing pain and see the red crimson bubble up from my newly made incision, can I feel myself being put back together. I can feel my feet on the ground, I notice my surroundings, and the panic slowly subsides with every new cut.

For this reason I only ever cry when I am by myself (so I can self-harm to ground myself) or when my partner is home (so he can ground me). I do not allow other people to see me cry because I'm scared I won't be able to put myself back together in time. My partner knows how to contain me, knows when to let me throw things around the room, when to let me hit him, when to let me bang my head against the wall. And he also knows exactly when to hug me, when to wrap his arms around me so I can't move, how long to hold me for before he lets go, in short, how to put me back together.

Neither of these two options can be used when I'm with Jay. He obviously won't let me hurt myself and professional boundaries prevent him from holding me and hugging me. This is what I feared most. That if I would start to fall apart during a session, I would disappear, for Jay wouldn't be able to glue the pieces back together in time for me to leave in one piece.

And yet today, this is exactly what seems to have happened.

While I was waiting in his waiting room (and at times like these I count myself lucky Jay has a private practice at his house, so there is no-one else but me sitting there) I could feel myself starting to fall apart. I could feel the tears in my eyes, could feel my pulse rise and my breathing quicken. I tried hard to push back the tears, but today my body would not listen. I tried to hold my breath and tense every muscle in my body to keep the tears in, but today my tried and tested method failed me.

As the tears started falling, I could feel myself grow smaller. In wanting to protect the little me, I slid off my chair, onto the floor. Dragged the heater across from me, and barricaded myself behind two chairs and one coffee table, safely shielded from view, where my quiet sobs would neither be ridiculed, nor punished. And when Jay walked in to get me for my session, he just sat down and was gentle with the little girl sobbing on the floor and "held" her as much as he could, from one chair away.

Today, I cried.

Thank you for reading.

Yours truly,

GI

Who am I?

If you would look at my high school record, it would say I have been stood down twice for a whole week. The first time for having formed a “destructive friendship” with a girl who, like me, was a self-harmer. It will not mention that I was introduced to this girl by my guidance counselor with the words: “I have another girl here that cuts, maybe you two could be friends and help each other”. It will not mention our counselor facilitated our introduction and it will also not mention he knew both of us were not “in-recovery”, whatever that means.

I could have seen this train-wreck coming from miles ahead, but my “counselor” (who was merely a social studies teacher, doing a little bit of psychological experimenting on the side) was genuinely disappointed when he found out we were indulging in our self-destructiveness, rather than being the textbook 12 step recovering addicts he had hoped us to be.

The second time I was stood down was for having a crafts’ knife on me. Everyone was allowed to have those at school, except for me, since I had a history of self-harm. The thing is, no-one told me this, or I would have hidden it better. So after having been back at school for just one week, they sent me home again. I thought detention would have been more appropriate, but welcomed the holiday nonetheless.

On the last page of my school record it will say I dropped out, and left school voluntarily. The truth is I was given the choice between being expelled for setting a bad example at school (and thereby making university entrance nearly impossible) or signing myself out. I chose the latter.

I was the typical borderliner-in-the-making.

If you would look at my medical records from the various public mental health services I was sent to, it would make interesting reading. It seems every shrink had his favorite flavor of the month when it came to diagnosing. It started with “Generalized Anxiety Disorder”. Then came the all-encompassing “Major Depressive Disorder”. To see if I was psychotic as well, I was put on a course of anti-psychotics. If they made me “better” then clearly I was psychotic, but to no avail, I was still the same obnoxious, defiant, manipulative, almost-old-enough-to-warrant-the-dreaded-borderline-label GI. And then when I did reach the age, a big fat “BPD” (Borderline Personality Disorder) was stamped across my file, relieving every mental health worker from having to try to help me. After all, BPD is incurable.

It seems that once you have the borderline label, you have become this whole new species. The receptionist at the mental health service no longer looks at you with a smile, but instead looks right through you, telling you without words she thinks you’re a waste of resources. Psychologists are pulled from your case, because talking won’t help the incurable. No more weekly sessions, or therapies, just a once-every-three-months visit to a psychiatrist for meds that will keep you doped up enough to keep you from seriously harming yourself. If you complain you still feel like crap, your daily dose is upped or a new drug is added to your tropical cocktail of psychotropics. If you complain the meds are not working and you want to stop because they make you feel like a zombie, you’re defying authority, and illegible notes will be added to your file about how your BPD traits are getting worse.

Nobody told me I had BPD attached to my forehead, until I was about 20. It had been in my file since my teen years, but there was never a “hi, you have a borderline personality” until I went to see my current therapist, Jay. When I asked him whether he thought I was a borderliner or not, he gave the classic “Why is it important for you to know that?” “What significance does knowing have for you?” I have found out through years of being a patient, that this is therapist speak for “yes”.

Borderline Personality Disorder. It’s got its own little subheading in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder), every shrink’s bible. Apparently there used to be only two types of personality disorders: Neurotic Personality Disorder and Psychotic Personality Disorder. But this left a whole cluster of crazy people without a label, even though they were clearly not as functional as those that call themselves normal. So all exhibited symptoms of this group of people came to be known as a Borderline Personality Disorder, not quite neurotic, not quite psychotic, but definitely insane. There are nine so-called symptoms, and if you tick at least five, consider yourself a winner.

Borderline Checklist

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. [Not including suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5] It’s up to your shrink to decide what “frantic” is. No-one likes being abandoned. That’s how we’re programmed in my opinion.

2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. Sometimes we hate our partners, most of the time we love them. Where does a relationship become intense and unstable, and when are we just making our way through the world, trying to find our mate.

3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self. Yeah, that was me. Once. Like about 99% of adolescents.

4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., promiscuous sex, eating disorders, binge eating, substance abuse, reckless driving). [Again, not including suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5] Show me a person who hasn’t indulged in any of those.

5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats, or self-mutilating behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself. Ok, I guess this one applies to me. That’s one out of nine.

6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days). I definitely struggle with this. Once a month. Every month.

7. Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness. Don’t we all feel like this during certain periods of our life?

8. Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights). I guess I’m a little intense, although I wouldn’t say I have an anger problem, and I’ve definitely never been in a fistfight.

9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms. I’m not even going to try to understand what that means.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder

I find the BPD label highly useless. Most of these symptoms are exhibited by most people in some degree. It’s up to your doctor to decide whether you’re crazy enough to be awarded the honorary title of borderliner.

I have found life as a borderliner difficult when it comes to dealing with health professionals simply because of the stigma attached to it. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I reckon life is more intense, with higher highs and lower lows than most people experience life. My loving husband always jokes he’d be bored to death if he’d married a “normal” woman.

My name is Gracefully Insane and from time to time I’ll share my disordered thoughts here.