Most would say I'm in recovery from Borderline Personality Disorder. I went through 3 rounds of DBT skills group (a year and a half's worth), went to DBT therapy twice a week for two years, and now I attend a weekly DBT process group and therapy once a week.
But sometimes I still feel pretty Borderline.
Like when I'm upset and I have the urge to do catastrophic damage to all of my personal relationships. Or when I'm distressed and I want to act impulsively by cutting myself, bruising up my arms and legs, or perhaps picking up a syringe full of whatever i can get my hands on. But all these options are off the table now, as they would do catastrophic damage to my relationship, and I know that they only provide temporary relief from distress, and much more pain further down the road.
And now that I'm off work for a while and staying home, the intense fear of being alone and co-occurring sense of boredom and emptiness consumes me. When M comes home I'm elated, and automatically feel shunned when she wants to retreat for a 20 minute bath. I feel like I'm being abandoned over and over again, and every time it hurts. So I have to get better at self-soothing.
What is self-soothing? Sometimes it's as simple as a cup of tea and some Netflix, sometimes it means swaddling myself in our down comforter and hiding from the world for a little bit. Then I have to deal with that pesky fear of abandonment. Sometimes I can validate and encourage myself, gripping the pink elephant my therapist gave me to remind me that she's not going anywhere, but sometimes I have to call her for reassurance that I'm not being left, and that these feelings will pass.
The most difficult part is learning to regulate my emotions. I swing, in a manic frenzy, from anxiety to happiness to depression to anger at the drop of a hat. So I've had to learn to ride those waves, and bring myself back to the center, to my wise mind, where I can still feel, but deal with those emotions properly. Without hurting myself. I'm still working on the unstable sense of self piece. I often feel like I don't have a sense of myself, or my eating disorder takes over and I become a self that I loathe, that I don't want to be stuck in. On those days it's a struggle to eat, and a struggle to want to stay alive.
So some days, yes, I'm in recovery, and other days, it's more complicated than that.
But most of the time things are good. I recognize that there will be ups and downs in my life, but ultimately I've built a life worth living that I enjoy. I still hate doing the dishes, but M manages to flawlessly pick up where I left off when it comes to holding down the household. I love M's company, and recognize that this time off of work has given me the gift of spending so much more time with her. I smile more than I sulk now, and I get the gift of having someone I completely adore in my life to make things so much better for me. I call my therapist less, and very rarely in crisis. I have a stable home and a steady source of income. I feel like a productive member of society. This is where the recovery is, and this is what gets me up in the morning.
-E
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