What the ever living hell was I thinking, getting out of therapy?
I mean, before I moved out here I should have had Sarah find me a new shrink and just jumped from one doc to the next. Because me without therapy is turning out to be far more difficult then I could have possibly anticipated.
Don't get me wrong, I'm heartily impressed by the fact I haven't gone off the deep end since my therapy was terminated, but I've been on the edge more times then I care to recount.
Here's the thing: Therapy isn't just about getting you better, it's about keeping you better. It's all about keeping your skills sharp. So even if I was only going once a month, it has a safe feeling about it.
I've made good use of my close friends and my mom though. Calling all the time, ranting, raving, demanding to know if I'm behaving at all like a rational human being or not.
Words are insufficient...
I pass my days in solitude so very often, I go hours without uttering a word. And all that time where I'm on my own, where I am left to my own devices...It's the breeding ground for panic and despair. It's where anxiety grows and blossoms.
My mind is allowed to run wild, and come up with everything and anything it wants to.
Days have been spent pouring over my every minute failing, every mistake and wrong choice. Picking apart my entire life, personality, and psyche only to reach the same damn conclusion (which I'm told it utterly incorrect) of how horrible a human being I am.
Now, this isn't logical. I'm 100% aware of that. (I have this bizarre mix of using logic when it supports my absurd and wild self accusations, and coming up with things that are totally out of the realm of rationality when logic fails that...quirk.)
But then again neither is blaming someone for leaving when they have no intention of doing so...well, until I throw my crazy at them so hard they don't have much of a choice. In their shoes, if my boyfriend/girlfriend/friend/whomever-it-is-I'm-referring-to started pelting me with hail sized crazy, I'd probably need some distance too.
Look, I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that I'm so ready for someone to be there to smack me when I get out of line again. Hell, my mom's 2,000 miles away so she can only do so much to kick my ass into line. Sometimes what I need is a good old fashioned smack upside the back of the head to remind me to pull my head out of crazy-land and return to harbor in good ol' real-world.
I'm sure some people are highly offended about how I talk about Borderline Personality Disorder, and some people may take this as permission to joke and tease and play around with it.
Let me be crystal clear here: This is my life. This is my every moment of existence. Humor is how I survive when my own mind is trying to kill me. I have every right to address MY life, MY understanding, MY case of BPD with disdainful amusement and detached affection because I learned that if I don't embrace my own insanity, I'm doomed. I don't mind when my boyfriend addresses it the same way because, now, it's his life too. We share this morbid humor together because otherwise this would destroy us. We're foxhole buddies, so to speak.
But unless you have permission from someone, unless it is your own life, unless you have suffered through the deepest, darkest pits of hell along side that person, don't you ever dare make light of it. It is far from funny. Common decency demands that you make no jokes about homicide, war, genocide or any other form of destruction, so extend that decency to us. We are ravaged in the unseen corners of our minds by demons and monsters, violence and terror beyond imagination. Would you mock a prisoner of war, make light of torture, tease a survivor? If you would, then you don't deserve to call yourself human and I pity your pathetic existence. If this seems harsh, understand that I have been mocked, told I am weak, teased, and had 'light hearted, affectionate jokes' made by people who've never held me while I wept, stood by my side while I contemplated suicide, and stubbornly refused to leave my side while I suffered.
So, please, respect the realm of mental health issues, and please understand that this is how I make it through each day. And refrain of 'making light' of someone's brokenness, unless you've been given permission, or unless you're that steadfast companion.
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