On my form(s?) of self-harm

Aug 10, 2013 17:58

Given my obnoxiously strong survival instinct, time and time again I have proven to myself that suicide is not only not an answer, but also not an option. Also, given my obnoxious inability to tolerate pain, I have found that any physical self-harming activity is also not an option. Sadly, given the above, that still allows for a great deal of social self-destruction, and this is a path I take time and time again, willingly or unwillingly, consciously or subconsciously, and spanning the full spectrum of how much control I have over my actions.

My laundry-list of diagnoses complicate this social self-destruction even more. Through my Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) (though I still question the validity of that diagnosis), I push people away because I make everything about myself. And let's face it, who likes being around someone who makes it all about themselves? Any conversation, social situation, or even lecture I'm in, I make it personal. This could range from ignoring others' input to actively forcing a change of subject to be about my issues. The more I pay attention to it, the more I see it. Hell, one could say I'm even doing it right now by indulging in my exhibitionism, publishing details of my otherwise personal life to the entire fucking world just because I can. (Thank you, Internet! I've been blogging since April 2003!) I usually justify it as me just using a blank page to type in my thoughts, then seeing if anyone catches on to give me some feedback. Truth is, I crave the feedback just as much, if not more than, the ability to think out loud. Facebook has complicated this exponentially with their "like" feature, as I pathologically check back to see if what I wrote got positive feedback based on the number of "likes" I get and who "likes" it. It's bad. I know. And yet I do it. And I can't help but wonder how many other people do the same thing. And it is so good that I don't get involved too much on sites such as reddit to see how many upvotes I can whore for myself.

Then there's the other recent diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), to which the first criterion in the DSM-IV-TR rings so true with me that it's scary: frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. I will do anything to avoid abandonment. Literally anything. Well, except for change the behaviour that will likely cause abandonment, despite the knowledge that I desperately need to change my behaviour in order to avoid abandonment. Because while I cognitively know in the most blindingly obvious way possible that continuing said behaviour will result in abandonment, I can't seem to make the behavioural switch to stop it. Why? I have no fucking clue. I just can't seem to make the switch between cognitive and behavioural. A recent attempt at cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) failed miserably to help me make that switch, in part because the therapist was a complete joke, but largely because I just. couldn't. do it. Hence where dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT) comes in, assuming I can ever find it through the only clinic in Israel that specializes in it.

Major Depressive Disorder is my go-to diagnosis. This is the only diagnosis that has remained constant since I was first diagnosed with it at age 13. Well, okay, my recent hospitalization deleted this diagnosis, instead saying it's "depressive decompensation on the basis of BPD and NPD", but to me that simply means that the depression is, was, and will be there. And depression's effect on sociability is well-documented. More to the point, my depression causes much avoiding of social situations, whether directly (avoiding situations because I feel unworthy of being sociable with certain individuals or groups) or indirectly (spending days on end in bed because I can't bring myself to get out of bed). My legendarily low self-esteem, whether a part of the depression or a separate disorder unto itself, severely complicates all of this.

I'm not going to go into my other two throw-away diagnoses, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). As the years have gone by, my various psychiatrists (with one notable recent failure) have all moved away from these diagnoses. Sure, these two diagnoses offer their own quirks that screw with my ability to be social, but I really question their validity and how much they actually take part in my social life.

But what really matters to me, beyond these various tags that I've been tagged with, is that I still, continuing the trend from my early childhood all the way throughout high school and then some more, tend to suck at being social. I'm abrasive, I'm honest to a fault, I swear a whole fucking lot, I'm needy, and I really don't care much for other human beings nearly as much as I care for myself. I've all but stopped short of actively destroying my entire social status by revealing every last skeleton in my closet to the entire searchable internet. I'm a bit of an asshole, really. Not that I try to be one, but it just happens that way a hell of a lot more than I care to admit. And I hurt those around me, intentionally or not. Then I go through the same frantic efforts to avoid losing those I care about after slashing at them with my abrasive, overly-honest, assholishness, only to slash at them again with my abrasive, overly-honest, assholishness.

I want to break this cycle of pitiless cruelty. But saying that I'm going to stop and knowing that I must stop doesn't let me stop it. So I cycle again. And every single success where I break the circle slightly only comes around to bite everyone in the ass again. And so I go into that frantic mode to try and stop the circle again, but it only tightens again, making it worse.

mental health, narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, depression, crazy

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