Love Healing
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What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Romantic partner
Posts: 8
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« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2017, 02:37:32 AM » |
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Here is a letter I wrote to clear things up and get support. I have not sent it yet. What do you all think?
Dear Friends and Family,
I hope this letter finds you well. I wanted to write to you on behalf of Narong and I about a difficult situation we have been facing. I want to explain to you a little about our circumstances, what we can expect in terms of upcoming changes in the next year, and hope we can learn and grow together with our friends and family, who are so important to us.
As many of you know, Narong and I became engaged to be married, after a year of establishing an extremely close friendship, and beginning a business together. Slowly, very difficult relationship issues began to occur between us. At first they seemed possible to redirect or change, yet as time went on, they began to build, and increase in frequency, variety, and intensity. There became a lot of paranoia, fear, confusion, anger, jealousy, unbalanced thinking of all kinds, as well as destruction in our lives together. As much as the problems seemed unbearable, it was very clear that Narong was a good person with some serious struggles he did not want to experience in his mind and heart.
With a background in healing and mental health, I felt it was important to not give up on him and help him, but did not know how! We worked hard together to figure out what was happening with him, eliminating everything possible we could think of, yet were still stuck in an impossible situation. Although it appeared as if he had several different kinds of mental illness I was familiar with, I could also see he did not have any of these in full form, and had other parts of him that made the possibility of these other illnesses impossible for an explanation. However, there was one mental disorder that I was aware of, but was not experienced in throughout my years of work, and did not know much about. This is called borderline personality disorder (BPD). I had originally put the idea out of my mind due the fact I remembered the key points as suicidal behavior and cutting, which do not apply to Narong. However, as soon as I researched it, I realized it was a direct match for every behavior as it expressed by a man, whereas suicide and cutting refers to the way BPD is expressed by a woman. In the past, BPD was believed to be more of a woman’s problem, however recently they have found this is not true, just different in its expression with men. Men suffer as much as women, yet usually end up in deaths by accidents, or in jails for impulsive, addictive, or aggressive actions, versus the women who usually end up in the ER or hospitals. Not only did BPD in the male expression describe our experiences exactly, but it also provided me with a different perspective on why these things were happening, the secret depths to which they were happening, and what to do about them. As it turns out, with the right relationship influences, loving support, and dedication to several types of therapy, a person can completely recover, possibly within a year. Narong has been suffering from this condition throughout his life, sometimes silently, but obviously it has become a huge obstacle for us as we attempt to secure a life of success, love, and family. We do have hope to fix everything now, and want to live a life of peace, happiness, and increased success in everything.
For more understanding, I would like to just describe BPD in its origins and the inner experience of it for Narong. There are genetic factors and environmental factors which have come together at a very young age that created his initial condition, then became more complicated as life went on. The genetic factors primarily involve a deep sensitivity and ability to know people. This actually is a rare quality that I share with Narong, which I cherish and appreciate so much in him and our connection together. However, as all of us are influenced by our environmental conditions, although no one is to blame for what happened, Narong was unable to get the full attention and social training he needed during his critical years of human development. As a result of this, he ended up having a life that he was unprepared for, and has had a continual experience of feeling separated from his loved ones and life experiences, making him unstable in himself and his close relationships. This makes his immediate, internal, heart needs feel much more important than his long term, external, life needs, causing his actions to not seem rational, reasonable or logical for most people. In addition, with these initial conditions in life, slowly he began to accumulate many traumatizing experiences, leading to multiple forms of reoccurring and lasting stress in his body, emotions, and mind. He gets triggered by common and regular occurrences that happen in daily life, which bring up bad memories, body feelings, emotions and thoughts that distracts him from the present reality that surrounds him. If anyone is familiar with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), this condition is very disabling for a person as they suffer from high, intense internal states based on past experiences. However, he not only has PTSD, but has many different post traumatic stressors (complex PTSD), which begins a chain of multiple PTSD experiences occurring within a short time period, in turn throwing him into acute, or very extreme, traumatic states (ATSD), where he disconnects with reality and the people around him, and becomes lost in a dark, scary reality where he does not know how to control his thoughts and behaviors. This obviously causes incredible damage to his intimate relationships, to his life, and to the lives of his loved ones.
Narong is a very good-hearted person, suffering from a horrible condition, causing him to do things he does not want to do. He feels horrible after all is done and said, yet cannot quite grasp the memories, feelings, or damage done like those around him. Yet in the long run, he feels more guilt and grief than anyone, with a heart so sensitive and open, that it has to shut down sometimes from so much overwhelm. Although I do not feel it is necessary to get into all the expressions of BPD as they have taken place in our relationship, I will say, at times, these expressions are nothing anyone can reasonably accept or tolerate. For the behaviors, we do not ever want anyone to accept or be okay with them, as even Narong wants to separate from these stories. But despite all outer expressions of this inner condition, I do ask for everyone to radically (completely) accept Narong as a victim to a condition that is not his fault. And as we go through our year of therapy in mindfulness (awareness without judgement) training, I hope that our friends and loved ones can also be aware of all that is happening without judgment. These ideas of radical acceptance and awareness without judgment are the main keys for both himself and his loved ones in his recovery process. It is time for Narong to finally, radically accept the stories of his life as a result of his condition with mindfulness, and to see himself in the middle of a beautiful story about love, life, and healing that can give hope and inspiration to others.
I know both Narong and I share relief in the knowledge of what is going on, and are thankful for many guidelines provided to us about handling interactions, and forms of training to improve our circumstances. It is the biggest step for someone who has this condition to admit their vulnerability, confront it head on, and commit to the regular practices it requires for recovery. He has made this commitment to me, for us, his family, self, and future, yet the process is long and involved, requiring constant attention, reinforcement, and practice in his relationships and business. As we work through long standing issues that he has possibly never looked at or confronted, eliminate coping mechanisms, establish more responsibility and expectations, there will inevitably be setbacks from difficult internal states to handle, despite our “real progress” and overall increased stability. So we face a year of expected challenges, and hope we can make the best of road of health and healing. As we have heard from other people from their recovery process, often the recovery process is even harder than the life before. It requires at total breakdown of the mind and behaviors from the past, a deep examination into the self about things that need to improve, and learning process that will take some time to achieve.
Although we have confidence and hope on our journey through the next year, at times, both Narong and I will need to take breaks, or will want to abandon our effort in total frustration and hurt. We do need to ask our loved ones for support and encouragement so that we can have more strength and determination to see through anything that may try and stop us from overcoming this BPD. One thing I must ask of all of you is to NOT define his condition as a mental illness, but rather an unfortunate “condition” has occurred in his life, and a condition that is not his fault, and from which he can completely free himself from within time. In time, with the right environment that protects us, validates the “normalcy” of our experiences (considering their baseline), and fosters our growth with unconditional love, our life together will be able to prosper. So we also hope people can continue to enjoy the good times with us as well, inspiring us with the experiences of healthy relationships, and reminding us of the beautiful sides of the human nature! I think some of the most powerful moments of happiness and hope that have occurred for me since Narong has began his path to recovery, is when I see him with people very special to us, experiencing new levels of love, truth, and acceptance shared, knowing that we are not alone in our experiences.
Our therapies will mostly be one on one, but it is highly recommended to have 3-way therapies, group therapies, and as well as the general support from our close family and friends. Unfortunately, due to the lack of mental health services in Thailand, we have nowhere to turn locally for anything other than the one on one therapy. Considering I am both his intimate partner, and taking the role of therapist, at times during crisis, or for very difficult issues, I may need help for additional support, reinforcement on standard ways of thinking or behaving, and even offering a fresh perspective and interactive human resource. The more minds and hearts we have surrounding us with conscious awareness and acceptance, the quicker and easier our recovery process will be. Please do reach out to us as needed, and stay with us when times are tough! We do also have online support groups for both Narong and I, however our immediate environment and close relationships will make all the difference. I think everyone agrees that Narong is a very special person we value in our lives, and I just ask everyone to do whatever they can to contribute to our emotional and psychological foundations, helping us to make it through a successful recovery!
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, concerns, or if you are a person who can assist on more of an intimate level with our therapies. Also feel free to contact Narong for general acknowledgement, support, and encouragement. We hope we can all grow together in love, truth, wisdom, community and life! Thank you all for listening with your minds and hearts!
Many Thanks and Blessings, Erika and Narong
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