My Sundown

Every month of 2017 has found a way to kick me in the ass and bring me to my knees, and month eleven was no walk in the park. November has been filled with lots of reading, research, fright, pain, self destruction, self discovery, and resolve. It's funny, because when I started down this path of "getting help" in July, I just sort of assumed things would start to improve. But I guess they say it's always darkest before the dawn...and apparently July wasn't the bottom of the hole.

Emotions have been all over the place. I've been doing a lot of self-discovery through IOP and individual therapy as well as through my reflection time and writing. In that, though, there's this constant inner battle: do I go towards what I really am and what I really want to be, or do I continue down the path of what I've always been and what I've always shown others? Those things aren't the same, believe it or not. I use perfectionism, outgoing traits, and insane levels of energy to show that I'm happy, healthy, giving, amazing... basically I try my hardest to do and be whatever I think will please others and, hopefully, mean people will like me. I don't stand up for myself because that means conflict or making someone angry, and that may mean that someone would think less of me or abandon me. But is what I've been doing what is best for me?

When I shared my post "Diagnosis Murder," I had several people react to one minor thing I said. The entire post was about my mental illnesses and how I just want to be able to admit what I'm going through without judgement or fear...but very few comments, reactions, messages, or avoidances that came as a response to that had anything to do with my mental health: it had to do with the fact that I identified as bi. It's funny, because out of everyone, I had one friend who said, "You've never said it out right, but I've always known. You've never tried to hide the fact that you like the ladies as well as the guys." Yet another friend that I've had for only a few years less said, "I seriously had no idea." What does that tell me? I hide myself.

But now that I am becoming aware and having this "awakening," I can see the impact it's having on my relationships. There are changes in how people are approaching me, there's been pullback, there's been some who have admitted "I don't know if I can do this anymore...I don't know if I can support this new you." And then as I crumble from this, I find myself reaching out but then pushing even more away. Self destruction at its best?

So what have I been reading and researching? A little bit of mental health, a little bit of personal legal, FMLA, more mental health. The most recent reading started with anything
 introduction to Interpersonal Effectiveness from a DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) workbook that the ever amazing Devon & Chloe gave me after a pretty significant meltdown at IOP the Monday before Thanksgiving. When I told them that I'd read it on Wednesday and wanted the next chapter, Devon said, "I'm really glad you read through that and did some thinking. What I really want is for you to plan to go through the DBT process after you leave the program here. I really think you'll get a lot from it and that DBT will really help you."

Devon knows what she's doing, and she's one of the people that I owe still being alive to, so over the long weekend I did some reading about DBT. It is a research-based, very systematic type of therapy that is derived from CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). It focuses on several things: mindfulness, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and distress tolerance. If you do the full process and do it correctly, you attend a skills group weekly (group therapy where the skills are taught and you work through them), individual therapy once weekly, contact and coaching with your therapist throughout the week via telephone, email, or text, and your therapist is also part of a team that works together. The minimum it takes to go through the process is 6 months, but most people take a year or two to really get to a point where they are able to manage and apply without therapist intervention. DBT has been shown to significantly help with suicidal ideation, self-harm, and reduce hospitalizations and dropouts from treatment. What made me start reading more, though, was that it was originally developed and still used as main source of treatment for people with Borderline Personality Disorder.

So then, of course, I had to know more about BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder). The more I read, the more I felt not only enlightened and intrigued, but the more I felt like I was reading about myself. I've always struggled to find a place where I felt like I "belong." I tend to try to be constantly busy, engaged, or around people, sometimes to the point where I overextend myself and burn the candle at both ends...but this leaves me where I'm rarely just alone with myself or where I might think that I am alone or lacking in purpose. I often ask people for advice or their opinion because I don't know what mine is or should be; I use others to validate myself and my thoughts. I don't trust myself and often feel uncomfortable. My mood can change rapidly, with little or no logical reason, but often influenced by others, small things, or music. My self-image and how I see my actions are usually very different than the way I see others and the way others see me. I struggle to feel in control of my own life, I become overly stressed about even the smallest of things, and I am often paranoid that I've done something wrong or that something bad is going to happen. Until adulthood, I've never had seriously lasting friendships or relationships and most of my friendships and relationships that I can remember from childhood and teenage years involved me being glued to the person (or people), having a need to constantly communicate, sometimes reaching near obsession levels and doing everything possible to maintain the other person's happiness so that they would keep me around...then inevitably something would happen and either I would suddenly start avoiding the person and being difficult or I would have this sense that I had done something and I'd start going to extremes to reach "forgiveness" with the person. When I get depressed it goes down hill fast. In high school I got into cutting, wrote songs and poems about feeling lost/empty/alone, wrote goodbye letters and tried to give away things often, and overdosed on medications several times in hopes it would kill me. Through the course of this year I've fallen deep back into lots of those patterns with self harm, suicidal ideation and planning. I've been jumping around all sorts of crazy ideas like having more kids, going to grad school, going to conducting workshops, trying to get my friends to commit to monthly "ladies nights," etc...all of it is because I feel like I don't have purpose, direction, identity, worth.

So tonight I'm going to ask Devon about BPD.

Here's the real deal: I want to be so much more than what I am and what I've been this year, especially this month. I've come to the conclusion that there's a lot here that I've uncovered and there's still lots more to go. I don't know what lies ahead or who is actually going to do this with me, and that literally terrifies me so much that last night I suddenly was so overwhelmed with the panic that my 3 best friends may leave me that I had the urge to just floor the gas pedal and run into the trees.

"I see it around me, I see it in everything...i could be so much more than this...
I said my goodbyes...this is my sundown...I've got to be more than this...
With one hand high...you'll show them your progress...you'll take your time...but no one cares...no one cares..."