I talked about #marketing, mental health, #BPD, and emotional resonance.
Sometimes, failure feels like the safest option. Our present might suck and our pain might be unpleasant, but it’s familiar. We know how much our reality hurts. But a better future? That’s strange, new, and uncertain.
I got diagnosed with #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder or #BPD recently. It’s… a very strange diagnosis to receive especially after years of misdiagnosis when the #ADHD was first missed and then didn’t fully explain my mood fluctuations.
Doctors thought I had bipolar, unusual depression, or extremely treatment resistant anxiety.
This diagnosis has been… a blessing in providing answers. But also a difficult realization to process. I have a lot of internalized stigma on it. It’s hard to admit.
Essentially, my genetics and upbringing gave me a brain that can’t process emotions in a healthy way. Or, in the words of Marsha Linehan:
“People with BPD are like people with third degree burns over 90% of their bodies. Lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement.”
I feel all emotions very intensely. I can go from bouncing from walls with joy to sobbing on the floor in the span of 10 minutes (if not quicker). I am dramatic all of the time.
I have a mental illness and it affects my business.
My company is shaped by me and my moods. The way I network is shaped by the problems I struggle with. And the way I show up as a content creator and a marketer is affected by the mental illnesses that my brain suffers from.
If you don't mind taking 12 minutes out of your day, I would truly appreciate it if you could listen to my story.
Because of it I’m not good with conceptualizing a coherent sense of reality beyond the present moment.
So right now I’m deeply upset because someone I really care about and like working with is on vacation until Monday.
Even though we have messaged every single day for a month now - my brain is telling me that because we aren’t speaking RIGHT NOW it doesn’t count, they aren’t real, they don’t care about me. Ugh
The reason I’m telling all of you this is partially to educate on my disorder, but also because publicly admitting to my harmful coping mechanisms and thought patterns keeps me aware and accountable.
And the only way for me to get better is to keep forcing myself to recognize all the irrational conclusions and cycles that my brain traps me in.
My brain is deciding right now that it’s life or death that I test this person and that I must message them RIGHT NOW and make that message something they can’t possibly ignore.
And that sense of danger wants me to ignore how irrational, distorted, and frankly selfish the impulse is.
I feel myself itching to do it.
And my treatment involves me noticing the cycle and NOT acting on it
Thank you so much for sharing this and being this open. Reading your thread is really insightful, but also painful.
In the past I have been in a relationship (engaged even) with someone with #BPD. While I am open to elaborate - this is your thread and I am not going to hijack it.
I think you being aware of the irrational impulse and actively fighting it, is so powerful. Complete and utter respect - it has to be anything but easy.
Please always try to remember that you matter. Every single day.
Something I haven’t talked about publicly because I’m scared someone in my family will see it:
In trying to heal my #BPD and #cPTSD I’ve had to dig deep into my childhood and look for the roots of my #trauma.
And this time… I found them. Or rather - “it”. There is just one root for all of my many many many mental health troubles and life issues for as long as I remember.
It’s my mother.
My mother, who I still maintain contact with. She was my abuser.
How do you process that the person who you thought was your “good” parent actually controlled, manipulated, and punished you into a completely distorted worldview where you saw everything as evil, broken, and abhorrent other than her?
How can you go on knowing your mother actively starved, physically tortured, mentally devastated, and broken you for every year of your existence?
How can you live when your own mother repeated you don’t deserve to exist? #BPD#cPTSD#trauma
Something very interesting I accidentally came across while investigating what neurotransmitters are involved in an orgasm (turns out to be basically all of them, but oxytocin and vasopressin are specific to sex, love and friendship):
What the actual fuck is wrong with mental #Healthcare in this damn country? Now that my work schedule has gone back to normal, and I am drowning under the weight of it and my own projects, my #MentalHealth has been in the toilet. I broke down and called the crisis line, and they actually had the gaul to hang up on me after I said that I wasn't suicidal.
I have #BPD I was in crisis, in a bad place, unable to regulate my emotions, and the one god damn thing my therapist tells me to do when I am in that place is call the crisis line and they completely gave up as soon as they found out I wasn't an active danger to myself... Fucking fine, I guess I will just stew in my own anger and self-hatred until I see my therapist in... Oh right, A WEEK...
Am I overreacting? I'll admit that I may be a bit on the hypersensitive side, but it really seems like the CRISIS LINE (Not suicide hotline, different service) should maybe, idk, HELP IN A CRISIS...
Whelp.. I finally made too many hashtags to fit on my profile. I tried to pick the ones most applicable to me, or ones I feel most passionate about for my page, and I'll attach an exhaustive, absurdly long list of hashtags below. It was surprisingly difficult to decide which ones made the cut. Drumroll please:
Daughter is being discharged from longish term hospital care back to her own flat today.
We're going to help her with the move, get some shopping in and just be there.
I'm not convinced that all the promised support is in place particularly beyond the first couple of weeks - but I accept that she does need to put some effort in herself to start to resume normal life.
Daughter remains in the care of a hospital due to her worsening #mentalhealth issues. This hospital is in another part of the country and aren't great at communicating.
I'm quite unwell. Stress & tension coupled with #exhaustion from yesterday have led to visual #migraine and some #ibs symptoms.
Every time I dozed off I was interrupted by staff or family.
We're hoping she'll be transferred back to her local hospital tomorrow.
I originally started #Sertraline for #anxiety but then daughter's #EUPD got much worse and the GP advised increasing the dose to deal with my new symptoms of #depression.
I now want to come off the stuff as it makes me feel unwell and the depression is pretty much under control, but I think it's worked for anxiety.
Having a sensible (that's face to face) discussion with a GP is almost impossible at our surgery - they love their telephone consultations.
I'm far too fascinated with far too many topics. I've compiled an exhaustive list of hashtags for some of those interests; I'll try to do better about keeping it current and updated.