Still awake . (Stef)
I guess this is a marathon. It seems that Trazodone I took, was a waste.
Thinking some more about having been diagnosed 'borderline', and one more of the ways it adversely affected me.
The root of my depression was always around the messages I wrongly absorbed about myself as a child - which basically amounted to, I was a walking piece of shit, less than an acceptable form of a human being. You can't medicate that away, though for a while Prozac helped with my postpartum depression - it gave me the energy boost to get up and be a mom.
But the thing I sorely needed, that I later gained outside of therapy, was the knowledge that I'm no less and no more acceptable as a human being, than/as most other people walking around. I'm not a killer, not a sociopath, not a perv....I don't like to hurt people, none of my 'alters' likes to hurt people. I do believe that some people are so messed up that they truly are less than acceptable, and should be permanently locked up for the good of society. I'm not one of those people. Therefore, I'm not a piece of shit.
(Wow. On the news right now, a local family's home was searched and their state-legal pot confiscated. So much for that idea about becoming legal! Screw that!)
Anyway.
When I was diagnosed 'borderline', the diagnosis itself made me feel shame....and the way my counselors treated me, made me feel even more shame. Hell, there was even a diagnosis for *why* I was a piece of shit! It made me feel really hopeless about ever working on myself enough that I would be an acceptable member of society.
(Meanwhile, the only thing about me that fit the criteria for the diagnosis, was young female who had attempted suicide. I didn't self-harm, not anorexic, not promiscuous, my relationships were long-term and stable, I didn't see people as all-bad or all-good...hell, back then, I didn't even consider sociopaths and perverts irredeemable. But that didn't seem to matter. It didn't even change my diagnosis, when my counselor didn't assign me to the 'borderline group', because, as she said, "this group is to teach people social skills that you already have." I wasn't a rageaholic, when I felt shame I didn't fly into a rage....none of it. And my suicide attempts, with the exception of the first one, were not cries for help, nor attempts at manipulation. It just made no sense.)
Anyway, after receiving this diagnosis, I really did have not a snowball's chance in hell of a counselor changing my wrong but deeply entrenched belief that I was basically flawed and other people would sooner or later discover it. On the contrary, I seemed to get explanations that proved my estimate of myself correct!
I can't help but think that even if the diagnosis had fit, the outcome would still have been the same.
It was the worst, when I encountered the technique of 'irreverence' around the times I became suicidal - before I knew it was a learned technique. Whenever I found myself unable to think about anything that didn't end in my suicide, and I told a counselor, I felt like my very life was being dismissed as worthless. Because of my background, I concluded that the counselor had seen through my facade of normalcy, and really didn't consider my life important because I was after all hopelessly flawed, and the counselor had seen it.
It was after the Internet came along and I got a computer, and learned what many of the 'normal' people I knew were posting online...deeply personal things that they felt free to post due to the anonymity that the Internet can give....that I came to realize that, on the inside, I'm actually one of the most normal, socially harmless people I know....'alters' and all.
It would have been *so* much more helpful if the 'helping professionals' in my life had abandoned their protocol a bit and actually listened to what I was saying. I was telling them the truth as best I knew it....looking back on it now, I feel it was plainly obvious what I needed. I needed to feel worthy of some positive regard.
In being treated as a 'borderline', the only way I could gain any positive regard in therapy, was to toe the line of the therapist....and if I felt suicidal, to absolutely keep it to myself.
Which, made the positive regard seem to belong to the therapist.
I wish I had known then what I know now....but this was back in the day when they didn't even want to tell you if you were diagnosed with BPD. Because they said it would be 'upsetting'. (No shit, ya think ?) I didn't find out, until I demanded my legal right to see my records.
Now my daughter is studying to be either a counselor or a social worker. I hope at some point I can convey this experience to her.
I also wish I could pass it along to girls and women going into therapy, as well. Especially teenagers. I don't even think teens should be eligible for that diagnosis. One part of it is supposed to be that it's unlikely to change....and the teen years are nothing if not full of change. Also teens by their very nature tend to feel insecure, somewhat desperate....and inclined to manipulate simply because that's often the only way they can get their needs met. They're not legal adults, they don't (usually) earn their own living and reside out on their own....hell, if I had to live with my mother, I'd manipulate all I had to in order to get out of there, and you better believe that until I got out, I'd be desperate! And I'm fifty!
Also, I don't feel like this diagnosis takes into account the harmful beliefs common to survivors of child abuse....even though many studies seem to say that most borderlines have been abused. What gives ?
Well, maybe having written this, I can put it out of my mind.
I'm supposed to be writing an article about having received this diagnosis, and I haven't forgotten that I said I'd do it....I just haven't been able to make myself write it. It's still too painful, my mind goes blank when I start to write.
Maybe one of these days I'll be able to write it.
(One T even told me when I disclosed to her about being multiple that, "Most multiples are really just borderline." I didn't see her for very long. I quit her after I learned that she took phone calls during sessions, because "My patients need to learn to share me." It was Alex who was out most of the time back then, and he told her, "Not at thirty bucks a pop, I'm going to share you! Forget that noise!")
My 'alters' usually suffered even worse depressions than I did, because they had the added shame of feeling that they shouldn't even exist in someone else's body. None of this was ever addressed. The thing that resolved this was, again, the Internet....simply learning that there were others like themselves, and that many of these others were good persons, that not all multis were a collective mentally ill basket case.
It seems to me that counselors of depressed patients who are depressed around that kind of shame, would actually *use* the Internet to demonstrate to their patients that they are not unacceptable, and they are not alone.
Maybe my daughter will do something like this, when she earns her degree. That's an encouraging thought.
Thinking some more about having been diagnosed 'borderline', and one more of the ways it adversely affected me.
The root of my depression was always around the messages I wrongly absorbed about myself as a child - which basically amounted to, I was a walking piece of shit, less than an acceptable form of a human being. You can't medicate that away, though for a while Prozac helped with my postpartum depression - it gave me the energy boost to get up and be a mom.
But the thing I sorely needed, that I later gained outside of therapy, was the knowledge that I'm no less and no more acceptable as a human being, than/as most other people walking around. I'm not a killer, not a sociopath, not a perv....I don't like to hurt people, none of my 'alters' likes to hurt people. I do believe that some people are so messed up that they truly are less than acceptable, and should be permanently locked up for the good of society. I'm not one of those people. Therefore, I'm not a piece of shit.
(Wow. On the news right now, a local family's home was searched and their state-legal pot confiscated. So much for that idea about becoming legal! Screw that!)
Anyway.
When I was diagnosed 'borderline', the diagnosis itself made me feel shame....and the way my counselors treated me, made me feel even more shame. Hell, there was even a diagnosis for *why* I was a piece of shit! It made me feel really hopeless about ever working on myself enough that I would be an acceptable member of society.
(Meanwhile, the only thing about me that fit the criteria for the diagnosis, was young female who had attempted suicide. I didn't self-harm, not anorexic, not promiscuous, my relationships were long-term and stable, I didn't see people as all-bad or all-good...hell, back then, I didn't even consider sociopaths and perverts irredeemable. But that didn't seem to matter. It didn't even change my diagnosis, when my counselor didn't assign me to the 'borderline group', because, as she said, "this group is to teach people social skills that you already have." I wasn't a rageaholic, when I felt shame I didn't fly into a rage....none of it. And my suicide attempts, with the exception of the first one, were not cries for help, nor attempts at manipulation. It just made no sense.)
Anyway, after receiving this diagnosis, I really did have not a snowball's chance in hell of a counselor changing my wrong but deeply entrenched belief that I was basically flawed and other people would sooner or later discover it. On the contrary, I seemed to get explanations that proved my estimate of myself correct!
I can't help but think that even if the diagnosis had fit, the outcome would still have been the same.
It was the worst, when I encountered the technique of 'irreverence' around the times I became suicidal - before I knew it was a learned technique. Whenever I found myself unable to think about anything that didn't end in my suicide, and I told a counselor, I felt like my very life was being dismissed as worthless. Because of my background, I concluded that the counselor had seen through my facade of normalcy, and really didn't consider my life important because I was after all hopelessly flawed, and the counselor had seen it.
It was after the Internet came along and I got a computer, and learned what many of the 'normal' people I knew were posting online...deeply personal things that they felt free to post due to the anonymity that the Internet can give....that I came to realize that, on the inside, I'm actually one of the most normal, socially harmless people I know....'alters' and all.
It would have been *so* much more helpful if the 'helping professionals' in my life had abandoned their protocol a bit and actually listened to what I was saying. I was telling them the truth as best I knew it....looking back on it now, I feel it was plainly obvious what I needed. I needed to feel worthy of some positive regard.
In being treated as a 'borderline', the only way I could gain any positive regard in therapy, was to toe the line of the therapist....and if I felt suicidal, to absolutely keep it to myself.
Which, made the positive regard seem to belong to the therapist.
I wish I had known then what I know now....but this was back in the day when they didn't even want to tell you if you were diagnosed with BPD. Because they said it would be 'upsetting'. (No shit, ya think ?) I didn't find out, until I demanded my legal right to see my records.
Now my daughter is studying to be either a counselor or a social worker. I hope at some point I can convey this experience to her.
I also wish I could pass it along to girls and women going into therapy, as well. Especially teenagers. I don't even think teens should be eligible for that diagnosis. One part of it is supposed to be that it's unlikely to change....and the teen years are nothing if not full of change. Also teens by their very nature tend to feel insecure, somewhat desperate....and inclined to manipulate simply because that's often the only way they can get their needs met. They're not legal adults, they don't (usually) earn their own living and reside out on their own....hell, if I had to live with my mother, I'd manipulate all I had to in order to get out of there, and you better believe that until I got out, I'd be desperate! And I'm fifty!
Also, I don't feel like this diagnosis takes into account the harmful beliefs common to survivors of child abuse....even though many studies seem to say that most borderlines have been abused. What gives ?
Well, maybe having written this, I can put it out of my mind.
I'm supposed to be writing an article about having received this diagnosis, and I haven't forgotten that I said I'd do it....I just haven't been able to make myself write it. It's still too painful, my mind goes blank when I start to write.
Maybe one of these days I'll be able to write it.
(One T even told me when I disclosed to her about being multiple that, "Most multiples are really just borderline." I didn't see her for very long. I quit her after I learned that she took phone calls during sessions, because "My patients need to learn to share me." It was Alex who was out most of the time back then, and he told her, "Not at thirty bucks a pop, I'm going to share you! Forget that noise!")
My 'alters' usually suffered even worse depressions than I did, because they had the added shame of feeling that they shouldn't even exist in someone else's body. None of this was ever addressed. The thing that resolved this was, again, the Internet....simply learning that there were others like themselves, and that many of these others were good persons, that not all multis were a collective mentally ill basket case.
It seems to me that counselors of depressed patients who are depressed around that kind of shame, would actually *use* the Internet to demonstrate to their patients that they are not unacceptable, and they are not alone.
Maybe my daughter will do something like this, when she earns her degree. That's an encouraging thought.