What started off as excitement at finding a T that understands what's going on in my head, this thread would appear to have gotten me into a very anxious and panicked state. I feel like a cornered rat, the shame I feel right now is something I would say I cannot remember ever feeling. I feel utterly worthless and disgusted at myself for having wrote what I did in the last paragraph. I have just been out to try and shake this feeling and ended up sitting and crying for about 2hrs. I have been thinking about how I felt as a child and the things that happened, the horrible things that were said and done to me, the experiences, the emotions and the fear. I feel like I need to get away from myself, I cannot look at myself, I do not like myself. I am reliving memories, very deep memories I thought had been buried, memories involving me being told I was nothing and was never going to be anything. I feel like I was just there watching things happen around me, I did not matter, I was just there. I can picture myself sitting in the bathroom, I am remembering what my bedroom looked like, the kitchen, very real to me right now. I feel as though I have opened up a door that I had shut. It feels very surreal and shameful, I dont think I can truly describe how I feel right now, I have not thought about my ex for around 4hrs, it's like she just doesnt matter right now?
I'm unsure if I can put it all behind me, I really just do not know, I know I can get to a better place because I have already done it once, I'm guessing that's hope enough.
My heart so goes out to you, and I just want you to know I'm in a very similar place emotionally as you. The realization that I have to go through my past with my T to work through and heal the wounds that made me vulnerable to my ex has me terrified, ashamed and has made me begin to isolate and shut down. I honestly haven't been "okay" since Thursday, when my T asked me what I would say to her if she were here right now - and I broke down crying.
You want to heal. I want to heal. And we're both going to need to be courageous for ourselves to do that, agreed? If there's anything my ex gave to me it's the realization that no one is going to heal me, but me. I've spent a lifetime healing others to distract myself from my own wounds and demons, and it wasn't until my ex utterly broke me - completely broke me - that I finally looked at myself and said this is my only life, I don't want to continue living it pretending I'm okay. I want to admit I'm not, heal it and find true peace. Perhaps even more importantly, I want to believe that I deserve true peace. Easier said than done though, right?
I'm scared because, among other things, there's a core piece that I know I'm going to have to discuss with my T that I don't like talking about. In the spirit of the courage we're both going to need, I'll share it with you (and I know how sensitive this will be given what you've shared with me) -
My deepest shame doesn't come from what others did to me, it comes from what I did to myself. The depression began in middle school, and it isolated me because I felt guilty when I expressed it to those who cared about me because I knew they felt guilty, and helpless, for the pain I was suffering internally. I didn't want to make people who cared about me feel that way. I also strongly feel others emotions, and feeling their sorrow for me, combined with my own internal struggles, just made things worse. So I locked most of it inside, and turned to writing as my outlet.
That's how I tried to cope with it all. But when I was 20, and in college, things got really bad. And one night I lost control, and slit my wrists. I was extremely lucky, and a very close friend sensed what was going on that night and called for help. The only emotion I feel about that incident is abject shame. It's debilitating.
I remember the faces of the paramedics that came that night. I remember the solemn sadness in the voice of the police officer who talked to me while the paramedics worked. I remember the horrific look of guilt on my roommates face (he was asleep, and was woken by the paramedics knocking at our door.) I remember the confused look on the random little girl's face as she stared at the bandages on my wrists at the airport a few days later, when my roommate and I picked up my mother who flew in to take me home.
I remember, I will always remember, the devastated look in my mothers eyes when she first came off her flight and hugged me.
Looking back it's so sad - I was the one who had tried to take my own life, but all I felt was guilt and shame. All those who cared about me, who blamed themselves for not "helping" me, for not "knowing" what was going on...I felt all the sorrow and guilt they felt for me, and it absolutely leveled me. So I shut down, isolated and pretended I was okay - that it was a momentary lapse in reason.
My close friend who kept me on the phone until the paramedics got there - I will never stop feeling guilty for what I burdened them with that night.
I rarely ever talked about it all again, until I met my ex-BPD. This is precisely where she bonded with me. She always said, "the first thing I noticed about you was the sadness in your eyes." In the beginning she made me feel safe, understood and loved. I've always said she had a way of making me feel not alone, in a way no one else ever had. She shared with me all her struggles and all her trauma, particularly her bulimia and her own depression. It felt so nice to be understood and loved - despite all my internal flaws.
But once the devaluation began, what was once safe became her weapon of choosing to club me. She became a victim of my depression, over and over. Whenever she'd have her drunken bouts of rage - she'd always use my depression, and that suicide attempt from my past, against me. Simultaneously, she'd use her bulimia to make me feel guilty. She'd yell at me for buying pizza and leaving slices at her apartment (trigger food for her.) Or she'd tell me I'd caused her to binge and purge. All of this of just triggered all that shame and guilt I'd never worked through and was still mired deep within me. It was like reliving it all again, and I believed her and felt like a horrible, worthless person. It even went so far as to make me start thinking this world would be a better place without me - though I have far too much shame to have ever said that. I wonder sometimes if that wasn't what her ultimate goal was - to drive me to suicide. She claimed to have driven someone to suicide before me. I'd like not to believe that - but after everything she put me through, I don't consider any possibility out of bounds.
It is the most brutal treatment I've ever been through - and the whole time I desperately wanted to just get back to that safe place, that loving person, I'd met in the beginning. I just kept thinking if she knew how much I loved her, and I just kept focusing on her pain and her emotions, she wouldn't treat me this way. It was so brutal.
My deepest fear is that the pain and depression within me will hurt those who care about me. So I've always hidden it away, and felt safer helping others through their emotions - rather than opening up to them about mine. She just confirmed that fear.
See LT - I know what I need to talk and work through with my T. It's just terrifying to me. I've cried the whole time writing this, and this is an anonymous message board. The thought of telling this to a T, in person, is petrifying. It's basically letting go of the only way I've ever known how to cope with my wounds.
But this is my only life. This is your only life. Don't we both deserve peace? Don't we both deserve happiness? I don't know you personally, and I don't know what you went through as a child - what you allude to sounds horrific, and I'm so very sorry that you went through any of it.
I just want you to know, while you're in your corner of the world facing your wounds, I'm over here in my corner of the world facing mine. There's only one way to get to the other side for us, and that's to go through what we're both terrified of facing.
Hopefully we'll both look back at our ex-BPDs not as scars or trauma, but as the catalysts that finally forced us to face our deepest fears and wounds...and finally forced us to heal ourselves.
My heart goes out to you, and I wish you nothing but courage.
