Floodgates are wide open

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I have opened Pandora's box.  Since insisting to my counsellor that I was having a nervous breakdown following the demise of my BPD relationship, and that I had had a 'lightbulb moment' where past cycles of behaviour throughout my whole life had suddenly made me realise that I had some serious stuff to deal with, my only thought was about getting a diagnosis and starting there.  On Monday of this week I saw the psychiatrist who had reviewed my original notes from meeting the psych nurse a few weeks ago and probed a little further.  Our conversation ended with the diagnosis (in fact diagnoses) I'd craved.  It was liberating.  And a little disturbing.  At first I felt validated because I was a recognised phenomena, so I now 'made sense'.  Then I had the guilt and shame about past actions in relationships that will have undoubtedly impacted my partners.  Following this I was concerned about how others would receive my news.

I have gone a stage further.  This morning I awoke once again with a racing mind full of thoughts and emotions.  But what is coming to me now is repressed memories.  It looks like I'm jumping the gun mentally and my mind is already beginning the unravelling process before I commence my CBT for the PTSD, which I now believe is likely CPTSD, and then the psychotherapy for my PD traits and inter personal relationships going forward.  I am not equipped to know what is the best way to handle this.  I have begun to have very vivid and disturbing flashbacks of some of the abuse that I suffered over the years and have pushed down deeply.  Things that occurred with ex partners and a total stranger a long long time ago.  Stuff I've never dealt with.  It was very hard to bring myself back to the present and I'm having physical sensations many hours later.  

Am a big follower of personal growth programmes and believe in the law of attraction.  I find it natural to manifest and was determined to know myself better.  Just wasn't expecting to be hit by so many trains all at once!  Guess my lesson is to be careful what I wish for.  I'm going to try to be kind to myself and practice all the techniques I know to help myself over the coming weeks.  I know I have a lot of work ahead of me and I'm ready and willing, as daunting as it is.  I see now it's going to be a rocky road and require a lot of strength so the best thing I feel I can do right now is focus on restoring that for myself.  Perhaps I might start with eating 3 meals and getting a decent amount of sleep... .!

Any similar experiences during your self awareness journey or thoughts on how to handle this type of flooding experience would be most welcome.

Love and light x

[Harley Quinn]

I have opened Pandora's box.  Since insisting to my counsellor that I was having a nervous breakdown following the demise of my BPD relationship, and that I had had a 'lightbulb moment' where past cycles of behaviour throughout my whole life had suddenly made me realise that I had some serious stuff to deal with, my only thought was about getting a diagnosis and starting there.  On Monday of this week I saw the psychiatrist who had reviewed my original notes from meeting the psych nurse a few weeks ago and probed a little further.  Our conversation ended with the diagnosis (in fact diagnoses) I'd craved.  It was liberating.  And a little disturbing.  At first I felt validated because I was a recognised phenomena, so I now 'made sense'.  Then I had the guilt and shame about past actions in relationships that will have undoubtedly impacted my partners.  Following this I was concerned about how others would receive my news.

I have gone a stage further.  This morning I awoke once again with a racing mind full of thoughts and emotions.  But what is coming to me now is repressed memories.  It looks like I'm jumping the gun mentally and my mind is already beginning the unravelling process before I commence my CBT for the PTSD, which I now believe is likely CPTSD, and then the psychotherapy for my PD traits and inter personal relationships going forward.  I am not equipped to know what is the best way to handle this.  I have begun to have very vivid and disturbing flashbacks of some of the abuse that I suffered over the years and have pushed down deeply.  Things that occurred with ex partners and a total stranger a long long time ago.  Stuff I've never dealt with.  It was very hard to bring myself back to the present and I'm having physical sensations many hours later.  

Am a big follower of personal growth programmes and believe in the law of attraction.  I find it natural to manifest and was determined to know myself better.  Just wasn't expecting to be hit by so many trains all at once!  Guess my lesson is to be careful what I wish for.  I'm going to try to be kind to myself and practice all the techniques I know to help myself over the coming weeks.  I know I have a lot of work ahead of me and I'm ready and willing, as daunting as it is.  I see now it's going to be a rocky road and require a lot of strength so the best thing I feel I can do right now is focus on restoring that for myself.  Perhaps I might start with eating 3 meals and getting a decent amount of sleep... .!

Any similar experiences during your self awareness journey or thoughts on how to handle this type of flooding experience would be most welcome.

Love and light x

[roberto516]

It's a lot of emotions to have to accept all at once. You know I was talking to a co-worker the other day who is also a feeler of emotions. I turned to her and said "You know we have the greatest curse in this world? We feel our feelings." But in reality how many people really feel their feelings? How many "normal" people confront their demons? Take ownership over their actions? I don't know many.

I have to admit I suffered very subtle emotional abuse. She didn't do it consciously. It was her way to try to exercise control over her own out of control emotions and life. Just like the verbal abuse I heaped on her after the relationship ended. So my flashbacks aren't as severe as you might experience. I used to just scream "get out of my head!" out loud when I was having them. But it wasn't helping. Two days ago I was on the verge of a panic attack at work as the thoughts and details came flooding back.

I googled how to deal with it, and I found someone who said to breathe in deeply and tell yourself "Right now I am breathing in" and then breathe out longer than the breathe in (you have to basically drain the lungs of air) and say "Right now I am breathing out." I have to say, after a couple repetitions, in that moment I felt much calmer and staved off whatever would have happened if I let the thoughts and details continue to build.

Perhaps this can help you. I think the important thing is to then, when feeling calmer, begin to analyze the feeling itself which spurred on the memories and the numbness that followed. Or else we will just be pushing away something that our brain desperately wants to process and accept. Hang in there!

[Harley Quinn]

Hi roberto,

Thanks for this.  I will definitely give this a go, no doubt tomorrow morning!  You're absolutely right, my brain is fighting back against me now to process awful trauma that I've been holding back for far too long.  It was always just too overwhelming and thanks to my traits I have a sort of 'off switch' whereby if I'm emotionally overwhelmed, the whole lot seems to just shut down.  Somewhere in my crazy head I thought if I wasn't feeling anything about these things they were dealt with and I was over it... .These traumatic events instead have determined the course of the rest of my life.  The first sexual assault was at 16.  In some ways that explains my sexually uninhibited attitude, as I was clearly fighting to be 'in control' of something that had been so out of my control.  All the memories today filled me with compassion and empathy for pwBPD everywhere.  I can understand how their minds work to some degree and how things are overcompensated for in their actions.  I myself have been a classic example of this in my life by refusing to handle the pain I experienced in too many relationships and instead running from it until now.

Sorry to hear about your near panic attack.  It's an awful out of control feeling, isn't it?  I'm so glad to hear the breathing worked for you.  Since I started my latest SSRI trial, mine have slowed in frequency and severity, but not gone completely.  Dread to think what state I'd be in without it!  Roll on CBT! 

I also said 'get out of my head' a few times when my ex was effectively haunting me.  Funny thing is, none of today's flashbacks involved him.  Looks like I've gone deeper... .Too deep for my liking!  The recent ones were quite enough to deal with!

 

I have to admit I suffered very subtle emotional abuse. She didn't do it consciously. It was her way to try to exercise control over her own out of control emotions and life. Just like the verbal abuse I heaped on her after the relationship ended.

You've come far my friend.  It takes a strong character to be prepared to empathise with someone who has hurt you and to not justify your own actions in a way that puts the blame on them.  This is very telling of where you are at in your progress.  It's very admirable and I feel quite honoured to witness your journey.

Love and light x 

[heartandwhole]

Hi Harley Quinn,

I commend you for sharing these recent events and new challenges. It takes a lot of courage to deal with these issues of past trauma (and current flashbacks/memories). I'm sorry that you have to relive some of your painful past. That is so difficult.    It makes total sense that you would feel flooded with emotions and have a hard time managing them.

Perhaps I might start with eating 3 meals and getting a decent amount of sleep... .!

I think that's a great idea. I'm a big believer in basic self-care in times of extreme stress. I advocate that for everyone, and yet, I've struggled with following my own advice more times than I'd care to count.

Any similar experiences during your self awareness journey or thoughts on how to handle this type of flooding experience would be most welcome.

I know you're are scheduled to start CBT soon, which will be great, I'm sure. Do you have resources near you that offer DBT as well? I know it's been shown to be very effective for these kinds of issues.

I also resonate a lot with the work of Dr. Peter Levine, as I am convinced that it's very important to include the body when recovering and healing from trauma. He has some interesting concepts that you may find helpful. One is called "titrating," and just as the word implies, it means experiencing feelings in smaller doses, so to speak, so as not to be completely overwhelmed by them and their energy.

Here's a short video that explains what I described above: Trauma, Somatic Experiencing and Peter A. Levine PhD

Don't know if that resonates with you, but I thought I'd share. 

This is great work you are doing. I admire your strength and ability to self-reflect. Keep sharing.

We're here for you. 

heartandwhole

[Gemsforeyes]

Dear Harley-

Without going into much detail here, I recently found myself screaming and crying uncontrollably into my own face in the bathroom mirror at my MOTHER of all people!  And I mean SCREAMING,  and crying and landed in a pile on the floor.  I never expected this of myself.  Obviously she wasn't there... .I was so mad at her for thinking I forgot that I was constantly molested by our neighbor when I was 6 years old.  SO MAD!  That need to be silent led to my silence about every other horrible thing that ever happened.  And my hysteria led into crying about all that followed.  I could barely breathe I was crying so hard.  I felt better when a certain thought occurred to me.

So, yes dear Harley... .the gates have opened.  After that happened, I wrote a large sign, in colors I love and taped it on the bathroom mirror. 

The sign says:  "just for today, Gemsforeyes, do something that will make you feel really really good about yourself"

So amidst all my work, obligations, sadness, self-healing, etc., I still have to stay true to my colorful sign.

With warmth and love,
Gemsforeyes

[Harley Quinn]

Hi heartandwhole,

Thanks so much for your considerate response.  I do believe that the community mental health team in my area offer some DBT and I will certainly ask about this when my CBT referral comes through.  I'm hopeful that this will be soon.  Also, I have specialist psychotherapy planned to follow the trauma therapy, so I expect it will help with some of this too.  I'm welcome to commence the specialist psychotherapy as soon as I'm ready, and felt that the trauma symptoms I'm experiencing needed to be tackled first so that I'll be in the right place for it.  

I found the video really interesting.  It does resonate with me.  I've practised some guided chakra healing and other forms of energy healing on myself in the past and this is also something I may now look to again to help ground myself and boost the areas that are depleted in my system.  Thanks for reminding me of this!  I will definitely look further into Dr. Levine's work as well.    

Love and light x

[Harley Quinn]

Dear Harley-

Without going into much detail here, I recently found myself screaming and crying uncontrollably into my own face in the bathroom mirror at my MOTHER of all people!  And I mean SCREAMING,  and crying and landed in a pile on the floor.  I never expected this of myself.  Obviously she wasn't there... .I was so mad at her for thinking I forgot that I was constantly molested by our neighbor when I was 6 years old.  SO MAD!  That need to be silent led to my silence about every other horrible thing that ever happened.  And my hysteria led into crying about all that followed.  I could barely breathe I was crying so hard.  I felt better when a certain thought occurred to me.

So, yes dear Harley... .the gates have opened.  After that happened, I wrote a large sign, in colors I love and taped it on the bathroom mirror. 

The sign says:  "just for today, Gemsforeyes, do something that will make you feel really really good about yourself"

So amidst all my work, obligations, sadness, self-healing, etc., I still have to stay true to my colorful sign.

With warmth and love,
Gemsforeyes

Hi Gemsforeyes,

I am so sorry to hear you had such an awful experience as a child.  No wonder you had a meltdown!  I think it was a long time coming.  Don't be surprised if I'm posting about a similar episode at some stage... .  I guess we have lots of 'stuff' to get out of our systems my friend.  I love your colourful sign idea.  Think I'm going to do something similar.  It's definitely on the menu to give myself a boost!  I hope you find some wonderful ways to be good to yourself and feel absolutely awesome.  You clearly deserve to.  Thank you for sharing this with us.

Love and light x

[steelwork]

Harley Quinn, big admiring ups from me for facing your difficulties honestly and bravely. I've been meaning to respond to this thread for a bit, and what follows will probably be long and rambly, but maybe it will be interesting in some way.

I remember that floodgates-open time a few years ago. Looking back, I see it as a crisis not unlike a serious physical illness--a widening crisis that smacked me down and kept coming for me. Without going into tedious detail: I suddenly found myself living in the guest room at my brother's house, with no health insurance and in howling emotional pain and also with an actually physical health scare going on. Then all this other stuff was going on with my mother--essentially, she unwittingly participated in an event of professional sabotage against me (I know this sounds crazy and overwrought, but I can't go into the details), and when I pointed out that she was being used by a --well, essentially, a competitor--to essentially steal from me, she stonewalled and pretended she didn't understand (despite my explaining over and over) and then made friends with this other person. I kind of broke a lifetime fourth wall (or something) between us and said I was disappointed that she couldn't be more loyal to me, and she said again that she didn't understand. I remember saying to her, "How about this? I am your daughter, and this person did something that hurt me, so maybe you could just feel sad for me." and her response was, "How can I? I don't understand what happened." This was while my personal life was in shambles, about which she had nothing to say.

Sorry to be vague. What I'm trying to say is that things blew up on several fronts at once, and not surprisingly, it became really clear that there was an invisible thread connecting all these areas of awfulness. Not to slough off the issue, but I realized that I was dealing with (and had been dealing with) a lot of personality-disordered people, thought I didn't put that name on it.

So I went into crisis mode, and I was very very fortunate to get connected to a program--a collaboration between a medical school, a hospital network, and the city I was living in--that provided free (for poor people) concierge mental health service. I suddenly had a team consisting of a psychotherapist, a psychiatrist, and for a while, a family systems group.

So I started all that in February of 2015. I was going to several appointments a week, and almost every time I sat in a chair I started crying. I could not believe the vast reserves of grief I had been carrying around with me. It was as though every old emotional wound was reopened all at once, and at times I felt like I was completely drowning in sadness, and all of time curled in on itself, and there was no longer any cover or respite from any of it. I think it was the kind of episode that might once have sent someone to a sanitarium, but I wasn't seriously thinking of killing myself of hurting anyone or addicted to anything, which in these times are the only reasons people get in-patient treatment, which I probably could have used.

At one point, I was reassigned to a new psychiatrist who floated the idea that I had BPD. This came from the notes of the intake interview, apparently. I had discovered this website by then, and the DSM descriptions of different cluster-B PDs, and I was using that information to try to understand my relationships with my ex and my mother. So BPD was on my radar, and I seized on that idea. As it happened, I'd been on a waitlist for psychological testing. I got the full menu, hours of testing--ink blots, word games, drawing tests, IQ, the whole schmear--and assessment meetings, and part of that process was me asking questions that I wanted answered. I'm looking at the report they sent me.

Here were the questions I came up with:

- Why do I put others' needs before my own and stay in relationships that are harmful to me?
- How can I move on from a bad situation, and stop perseverating on the past?
- Why do I have difficulty focussing and making decisions?

- Do I have Borderline Personality Disorder?

I got a lot of good feedback on the first three questions, which I can go into if anyone is curious, though it might be pretty specific to my circumstances, but here is one kernel of wisdom that made an impression on me:

"The fear of abandonment goes two ways: in the same way that it hurts to be abandoned, it can be painful to make a firm decision to leave someone else."

Anyhow, I was told that I didn't meet the guidelines for BPD. What they saw was major depression and C-PTSD. What they said was: "Fear of abandonment, difficulty managing strong emotions, and the interpersonal problems that arise are patterns that often describe people with BPD, but they are also patterns that describe people who struggle to have strong intimate relationships. So although you might have some of the same symptoms/patterns as folks with BPD, the test results were not indicative of this diagnosis." Indeed, I don't have a lot of black/white thinking, don't tend to idealize people or devalue them, things like that, but the truth is that I relate to a lot of the overwhelming strong feelings that pwBPD experience, and particularly the issues around abandonment.

Anyhow, I ended up moving again, and for 6 months I was commuting 6 hrs each way by bus so I could keep seeing the therapist. Finally, I made arrangements to see someone where I live now. At times, even two and a half years after the crises that opened the floodgates, I feel like I'm drowning in grief from the past. I have wondered whether it might not make sense to take a break from therapy because of that. But then sometimes, increasingly often, I will have a calm, emotionally connected, relatively pain-free session in which I can sense the possibility that past wounds will heal.

This website has been a big part of the process, by the way. I have not always felt understood here, but then I don't feel understood a lot anyhow, which is part of the problem with me. In a stealthy way, bpdfamily has been a kind of group therapy setting that has helped me admit other viewpoints and be more flexible in my thoughts about my own situation. Other members model recovery and self-exploration, but they also model the ways people can be so so so hard on themselves, can wound themselves further in trying to accommodate the painful facts of their breakups. And then I can see that people come here and progress backwards and forwards through the stages of grief. And I can know: movement is possible. Reversals aren't permanent.

Anyhow, thanks for letting me blather on.

--steelwork

[Harley Quinn]

Hi steelwork,

Thank you so much for your reply.  I'm inspired by your bravery and commitment to healing yourself.  You've not had it easy and to travel 6 hours each way!  That's amazing!  I admire your dedication and strength.  Everything you have said resonates with me and in particular one thing you've shared has really made a lot of things fit together for me:

"The fear of abandonment goes two ways: in the same way that it hurts to be abandoned, it can be painful to make a firm decision to leave someone else."

This makes so much sense and will stay with me.  I understand why I stayed far too long in toxic relationships now.  It basically comes from the same place.  Don't know why I never figured that out.

I will read your response over and over.  You're right, we can heal.  I know I have a long way to go but will never forget the lengths you were willing to go to in order to continue getting the help.  Thanks for that.  How are you doing right now?

Love and light x