marsha linehan who created dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) has come out of the BPD closet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html
thankyou to her, an incredibly brave thing to do.
Thursday 14 July 2011
Wednesday 13 July 2011
words....
i spoke early and since then words have stood for everything i was trying to get and as a barrier to everything i needed. articulate is one of the main words used to describe me. however, intelligence and being articulate can impede as much as they can aid. sometimes i am overwhelmed by the lack of words that describe what i feel. i can tell you how the book says i should feel but there aren't enough words in the English language to adequately converse to you what is going on inside me at this moment inside and visceral noises just tend to frighten.
the thing is, words can make you appear intelligent but they also decieve both you and everyone else on each level. they can aid an appearance of clarity and togetherness but sometimes you really need someone to be able to see between the protesting syllables to see a self that is crumbling quicker than the lies can fall out of your pursed lips.
sometimes, maybe, i just need someone to hug me and to sit with me in a silence that says all that needs to be said.
the thing is, words can make you appear intelligent but they also decieve both you and everyone else on each level. they can aid an appearance of clarity and togetherness but sometimes you really need someone to be able to see between the protesting syllables to see a self that is crumbling quicker than the lies can fall out of your pursed lips.
sometimes, maybe, i just need someone to hug me and to sit with me in a silence that says all that needs to be said.
anger...
anger...
it's so very difficult to deal with, well for someone of us it is.
why?
as much as i hate to be the stereotype, i cannot cope with feeling two things about someone at once. i cannot manage loving (or liking) someone and being angry at them. i cannot manage the paradox of feelings, i cannot handle the ambivilence. i split, they are good or bad. there is no grey area, only dichotomy, black or white.
maybe some day i will manage the middle...i hope so, living in a world of extremes is terrifying, there is no consistency. there is no image of a whole person, everyone is two people. no one can be trusted and you most importantly, cannot trust yourself.
it's so very difficult to deal with, well for someone of us it is.
why?
as much as i hate to be the stereotype, i cannot cope with feeling two things about someone at once. i cannot manage loving (or liking) someone and being angry at them. i cannot manage the paradox of feelings, i cannot handle the ambivilence. i split, they are good or bad. there is no grey area, only dichotomy, black or white.
maybe some day i will manage the middle...i hope so, living in a world of extremes is terrifying, there is no consistency. there is no image of a whole person, everyone is two people. no one can be trusted and you most importantly, cannot trust yourself.
Thursday 7 July 2011
multi-impulsive bulimia....
i have borderline personality disorder and severe bulimia. this puts me into the area of 'multi-impulsive bulimia'. i have become more impulsive as i have got older, i am naturally quite timid and shy, i am also extremely introverted, i have a large inner world. i am no adrenaline junkie, i am someone who relishes routine, i am not the poster child for 'wild'. i don't react well to change...on paper i should not be impulsive to the degree i am, but i am and that i something i really struggle with. when in crisis i act in a way that i find mortifying.
wikipedia says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulsivity
"a personality trait characterized by the inclination of an individual to initiate behavior without adequate forethought as to the consequences of their actions, acting on the spur of the moment"
the problem with impulsivity is that, whilst it is a part of everyone, for some of us the consequences of our impulsivity can cause major problems in our day to day life. impulsivity is fine if the risks you are taking are relatively minor but for most people with BPD the risks they take are not only life threatening but are also damaging to every area of their life. an impulse purchase of a chocolate bar is ok, buying the most expenive trainers because you have decided to run marathons in aid of tourettes is less so. ending up in A&E to be stitched on an all to regular basis because your way of dealing with your feelings is to perform minor surgery in the comfort of your own home is also not particularly ok. buying another computer because you can't wait the week it wil take for it to be mended. spending £1300 of savings on food in the space of 6 months because you need to binge and purge and you need to binge and purge now.
the interpersonal consequences are often huge, my friendships are shortlived and intense....you are on the pedistal, you will fall my friend. i love you and i hate you when you let me down, and you will, it's only a matter of time and i can't take it. i can't take the uncertainty, i can't cope wit the risk i will lose it all, i can't manage the feeling that it could be taken away from me any minute now. so i pull away, i push you away. i can't stand that i feel i need you so i need you to not be there any more. i need you to go and i need you to not be around anymore. i need to reject you before you have a chance to reject me.
it's a need, a deep need that needs to be dealt with then and there, it has to be dealt with that moment, lord forbid you wait a second. it's visceral and so very primal.
wikipedia says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulsivity
"a personality trait characterized by the inclination of an individual to initiate behavior without adequate forethought as to the consequences of their actions, acting on the spur of the moment"
the problem with impulsivity is that, whilst it is a part of everyone, for some of us the consequences of our impulsivity can cause major problems in our day to day life. impulsivity is fine if the risks you are taking are relatively minor but for most people with BPD the risks they take are not only life threatening but are also damaging to every area of their life. an impulse purchase of a chocolate bar is ok, buying the most expenive trainers because you have decided to run marathons in aid of tourettes is less so. ending up in A&E to be stitched on an all to regular basis because your way of dealing with your feelings is to perform minor surgery in the comfort of your own home is also not particularly ok. buying another computer because you can't wait the week it wil take for it to be mended. spending £1300 of savings on food in the space of 6 months because you need to binge and purge and you need to binge and purge now.
the interpersonal consequences are often huge, my friendships are shortlived and intense....you are on the pedistal, you will fall my friend. i love you and i hate you when you let me down, and you will, it's only a matter of time and i can't take it. i can't take the uncertainty, i can't cope wit the risk i will lose it all, i can't manage the feeling that it could be taken away from me any minute now. so i pull away, i push you away. i can't stand that i feel i need you so i need you to not be there any more. i need you to go and i need you to not be around anymore. i need to reject you before you have a chance to reject me.
it's a need, a deep need that needs to be dealt with then and there, it has to be dealt with that moment, lord forbid you wait a second. it's visceral and so very primal.
Thursday 26 May 2011
fear...
i'm a prolific worrier, i suspect i was in the womb. i don't actually remember a time before i worried, i know that content was not a description that anyone would have made of myself as a child.
i am the oldest child of three, i ahve always believed i was responsible for the welfare of my siblings as well as my parents. i have a deep seated belief that the only person i can depend upon is myself, i'm not sure where that belief came from, i just know that it's been there for a very long time. i was born into a family who had just experienced a very sudden and very traumatic bereavement. my mum was one month pregnant with me when she lost her beloved father, she was 23 and he was 54. he died in the night of a massive heart attack, my grandmother woke up to find him dead. i don't believe my mum has ever truly been able to come to terms with what happened, i know even know there is a huge amount of sadness around his death even though it will be 24 years ago on june 7/8, whilst time has taken away the initial shock i'm not sure how much it has lessened the pain that my mum carries. he was the parent she was closest too, he was her ally and he was the person whom she relied upon. the day he died, my mum and he had spent talking about my birth, he had spoken about all the things he would do with me as i grew, he wanted me to be a girl. my birth was a bitter sweet time, i was my parent's first child, my mum's parent's first grandchild, i was a girl as he had wanted and i was the first of 5 grandchildren that he would never get to meet.
i was very aware of his death right from the start, my mum would talk about him often. i knew from early on a lot about him and i was painfully aware that my mum was still grieving heavily. i was from a very young age aware of the fragility of life, the fact that no one gets a guarantee that either they or the ones they love will be alive one minute to the next, nor could you guarantee your parent's would be alive when you woke up the next morning. i didn't know until later my mum had a terrible fear that she wouldn't live to see her children grow up, i wonder how much of that i had picked up on. her desperate fear, her overwhelming sadness. my mum is still someone i would protect to the ends of the earth. i love my dad and her more than anyone else on this earth. i am very close to them and they mean the world to me, to a large extent they are still my world and i am probably more dependant upon them than the majority of people my age. i am socially akward and very introverted, for a long time they were the only people who i could let into my inner world, they are also for a long time the only people that saw me as as valuable a human being as my brother and sister.
i am terrified of losing my family...i'm not sure if i can live with that terror much longer.
i am the oldest child of three, i ahve always believed i was responsible for the welfare of my siblings as well as my parents. i have a deep seated belief that the only person i can depend upon is myself, i'm not sure where that belief came from, i just know that it's been there for a very long time. i was born into a family who had just experienced a very sudden and very traumatic bereavement. my mum was one month pregnant with me when she lost her beloved father, she was 23 and he was 54. he died in the night of a massive heart attack, my grandmother woke up to find him dead. i don't believe my mum has ever truly been able to come to terms with what happened, i know even know there is a huge amount of sadness around his death even though it will be 24 years ago on june 7/8, whilst time has taken away the initial shock i'm not sure how much it has lessened the pain that my mum carries. he was the parent she was closest too, he was her ally and he was the person whom she relied upon. the day he died, my mum and he had spent talking about my birth, he had spoken about all the things he would do with me as i grew, he wanted me to be a girl. my birth was a bitter sweet time, i was my parent's first child, my mum's parent's first grandchild, i was a girl as he had wanted and i was the first of 5 grandchildren that he would never get to meet.
i was very aware of his death right from the start, my mum would talk about him often. i knew from early on a lot about him and i was painfully aware that my mum was still grieving heavily. i was from a very young age aware of the fragility of life, the fact that no one gets a guarantee that either they or the ones they love will be alive one minute to the next, nor could you guarantee your parent's would be alive when you woke up the next morning. i didn't know until later my mum had a terrible fear that she wouldn't live to see her children grow up, i wonder how much of that i had picked up on. her desperate fear, her overwhelming sadness. my mum is still someone i would protect to the ends of the earth. i love my dad and her more than anyone else on this earth. i am very close to them and they mean the world to me, to a large extent they are still my world and i am probably more dependant upon them than the majority of people my age. i am socially akward and very introverted, for a long time they were the only people who i could let into my inner world, they are also for a long time the only people that saw me as as valuable a human being as my brother and sister.
i am terrified of losing my family...i'm not sure if i can live with that terror much longer.
Wednesday 18 May 2011
fight...
i've had enough, fighting this daily. it's in my dreams and my waking hours. it's a living hell. it's hard to describe what living like this is like, living in a head space that never offers any sort of protection. it's living in a psychological war zone, except from home is where the war zone is. there is no end to it, i wish that there was.
the idea that i will have to continue this for the rest of my life is, at the moment, more than i can stand.
i am terrified of tomorrow, yesterday haunts me and today never ends.
the idea that i will have to continue this for the rest of my life is, at the moment, more than i can stand.
i am terrified of tomorrow, yesterday haunts me and today never ends.
Saturday 9 April 2011
family skeletons and procreation...
both sides of my family have mental illness in them, my dad's side of the family have 3 generations of bipolar (manic depression), both sides have eating disorders and my mum's side have problems with anxiety. the idea of genetic vulnerability for mental illness has been highly contested amongst the experts, the idea of nature vs nurture in terms of behaviour, whether negative behaviours and patterns of thought are primarily inherited or whether they are learnt has been a topic of conversation for a long time. the results are still suprisingly vague and inconclusive.
however, if you have a family history of mental illness where does that leave you when you chose to procreate?
this is a question that i have thought about probably more than most. my family is an interesting case in point in that certain aspects of the nature vs nurture debate. i did not know about my father's family history until i was 11 and my granny had an almost fatal complication caused by her medication. my granny was one of the first people to be put on lithium in the 1960's and it undoubtably saved her from a life of institutions. it worked very well and she went from having compleatly out of control bipolar 1 to having pretty much controlled bipolar for majority of the rest of her life. she had very few manic episodes whilst on lithium and from what i can gather they were normally due to not taking the lithium properly, non-compliance in terms of medication is very common for a variety of reasons with patients with bipolar. however, when she was in her early 80's, her lithium levels were no longer being properly monitored by her GP and due to natural loss of body mass in old age, the lithium levels in her body rose and she was poisoned by the medication that she relied upon to keep her stable. the problem with lithium is that the theraputic dose tends to be very close to the toxicity level and regular monitoring is essential to ensure that the lithium levels in the body do not reach toxic levels which would be potentially lethal. therefore suddenly my granny had to be taken off the medication and suddenly, we had a serious problem. my parent's had to explain to us (my siblings and myself) what had happened before we were born and hence, what was now happening to granny. my aunt has since been diagnosed with bipolar as well. it is also likely that my paternal greatgrandmother also had bipolar.
i was 15 when my mental health problems came to a head, a lovely mixture of an eating disorder, OCD and borderline personality disorder...what a mess.
this leads me to my wondering about whether or not it is fair for me to bring a child into the world knowing the potential genetic inheritance my child could have. my parent's discussed their having children before we were born but for them they only had one generation of bipolar to factor in. they didn't really make the connection with my great grandmother, my aunt hadn't been diagnosed and they didn't know about my nannie who letter admitted she had anorexia. however, i have all that history, my own history and the fact that potentially i could still be diagnosed with bipolar. the average age of onset for symptoms is 23, the age i am now and the average age of diagnosis is 40. the difference between BPD and bipolar is very subtle, it's not uncommon for one to be misdiagnosed and the other diagnosis be the correct one. this frightens me hugely, i desperatly don't want to turn into my grandmother, the images of her in a manic state towards the end of her life will stay with me for the duration of mine. my own history has been bad enough. ive spent a large amount of my later teens until now in and out of hospital.
i would love children, it's actually the only thing i have ever been sure of in my entire life. this is compleatly individual and everyone is different. for me, i struggle to believe that my life can have meaning if i cannot have children. this is only me, i know many people who don't feel this way and i don't believe that having children is the only thing that can bring meaning to someones life, nor do i believe that without children someone's life is worth less. however there are people who the last thing they should do is have children and the thing that frightens me is that maybe genetically that is the column i fall into?
however, if you have a family history of mental illness where does that leave you when you chose to procreate?
this is a question that i have thought about probably more than most. my family is an interesting case in point in that certain aspects of the nature vs nurture debate. i did not know about my father's family history until i was 11 and my granny had an almost fatal complication caused by her medication. my granny was one of the first people to be put on lithium in the 1960's and it undoubtably saved her from a life of institutions. it worked very well and she went from having compleatly out of control bipolar 1 to having pretty much controlled bipolar for majority of the rest of her life. she had very few manic episodes whilst on lithium and from what i can gather they were normally due to not taking the lithium properly, non-compliance in terms of medication is very common for a variety of reasons with patients with bipolar. however, when she was in her early 80's, her lithium levels were no longer being properly monitored by her GP and due to natural loss of body mass in old age, the lithium levels in her body rose and she was poisoned by the medication that she relied upon to keep her stable. the problem with lithium is that the theraputic dose tends to be very close to the toxicity level and regular monitoring is essential to ensure that the lithium levels in the body do not reach toxic levels which would be potentially lethal. therefore suddenly my granny had to be taken off the medication and suddenly, we had a serious problem. my parent's had to explain to us (my siblings and myself) what had happened before we were born and hence, what was now happening to granny. my aunt has since been diagnosed with bipolar as well. it is also likely that my paternal greatgrandmother also had bipolar.
i was 15 when my mental health problems came to a head, a lovely mixture of an eating disorder, OCD and borderline personality disorder...what a mess.
this leads me to my wondering about whether or not it is fair for me to bring a child into the world knowing the potential genetic inheritance my child could have. my parent's discussed their having children before we were born but for them they only had one generation of bipolar to factor in. they didn't really make the connection with my great grandmother, my aunt hadn't been diagnosed and they didn't know about my nannie who letter admitted she had anorexia. however, i have all that history, my own history and the fact that potentially i could still be diagnosed with bipolar. the average age of onset for symptoms is 23, the age i am now and the average age of diagnosis is 40. the difference between BPD and bipolar is very subtle, it's not uncommon for one to be misdiagnosed and the other diagnosis be the correct one. this frightens me hugely, i desperatly don't want to turn into my grandmother, the images of her in a manic state towards the end of her life will stay with me for the duration of mine. my own history has been bad enough. ive spent a large amount of my later teens until now in and out of hospital.
i would love children, it's actually the only thing i have ever been sure of in my entire life. this is compleatly individual and everyone is different. for me, i struggle to believe that my life can have meaning if i cannot have children. this is only me, i know many people who don't feel this way and i don't believe that having children is the only thing that can bring meaning to someones life, nor do i believe that without children someone's life is worth less. however there are people who the last thing they should do is have children and the thing that frightens me is that maybe genetically that is the column i fall into?
Friday 1 April 2011
inconsistency amongst the 'experts'....
last week, my CPN (Community Psychiatric Nurse) was away so i had to see one of her colleagues. in the last year i have finally been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) after years of discussion between that and bipolar disorder. needless to say over the years the reactions i have had have not been great, there seems to be a complete variety of responses to someone who has BPD, most of them unhelpful and demeaning to the person with the disorder. the responses have varied from being viewed as a hopeless nasty patient who cannot be helped and shouldn't be touched with a barge pole to a difficult attention seeker who needs to ust grow up get on with their life.....this time i was told i had a developemental problem and he felt i needed a holiday away from myself.
this is a nice idea on principle, a little more difficult in principle....can you ever truly get a holiday away from yourself? he also said he felt i was way too serious for my age and i needed to have more 'fun' in my life....that is true, i am serious in many ways and yes i don't have a lot of 'fun' but then neither do a lot of 23 year olds who have spent the last 8 years with their head down the toilet and trying very hard by default to end their lives.....
in his words, i didn't have an illness because i didn't have schizophrenia or bipolar type 1, those, he pointed out, are 'organic' in origin. this got me thinking. in a system that has so much power over people's lives, it worries me that there is still so much based on such small information (or personal preudices). the truth is we don't know the causes of mental illness, we also don't know what falls into true mental illness and what doesn't. before 1973, homosexuality was still regarded as a mental illness by the dsm. yet nearly 40 years later there is still a significant proportion of the psychiatric community who believe homosexuality to be an indicator of mental illness even if they don't believe it to be an illness in itself which is horrifying.
living in the hell that can be mental illness, it's truly bewildering and confusing.....it's compounded by having a system that provides no consistency. how are you supposed to make sense of internal chaos when the outside is just as chaotic?
this is a nice idea on principle, a little more difficult in principle....can you ever truly get a holiday away from yourself? he also said he felt i was way too serious for my age and i needed to have more 'fun' in my life....that is true, i am serious in many ways and yes i don't have a lot of 'fun' but then neither do a lot of 23 year olds who have spent the last 8 years with their head down the toilet and trying very hard by default to end their lives.....
in his words, i didn't have an illness because i didn't have schizophrenia or bipolar type 1, those, he pointed out, are 'organic' in origin. this got me thinking. in a system that has so much power over people's lives, it worries me that there is still so much based on such small information (or personal preudices). the truth is we don't know the causes of mental illness, we also don't know what falls into true mental illness and what doesn't. before 1973, homosexuality was still regarded as a mental illness by the dsm. yet nearly 40 years later there is still a significant proportion of the psychiatric community who believe homosexuality to be an indicator of mental illness even if they don't believe it to be an illness in itself which is horrifying.
living in the hell that can be mental illness, it's truly bewildering and confusing.....it's compounded by having a system that provides no consistency. how are you supposed to make sense of internal chaos when the outside is just as chaotic?
Tuesday 15 March 2011
moderation...
there is, so i am told, a concept that is commonly known as 'moderation'. i have to be honest that i am not personally familiar with this concept, i am told that this is something that some people practice, i believe it will by now be obvious that i am not one of them. dichotomy is something i am familiar of, i can do 110% or 0%....this has problems but it also has gains which is really where the problem comes. society loves 110%, whilst you are in 'all' mode, you will be rewarded and for people like myself, that is very very appealing. unfortunantly consistency is also a key concept and that is something i can't really balance....balance is also a key word, again not something i am so familiar with.
as a child and as a teenager, being able to completely submerse myself in work gave me an out from a life i felt increasingly unhappy with, it divorced me from a self that i despised and numbed me from feelings that were incresingly unmanagable. food, rituals and obsessions gave me the out that i desperately needed in order to survive. being able to have that level of obsession can be extremely productive externally, however it becomes incresingly corrosive internally. i found this out too late and by 15 i experienced my first nervous breakdown. i took the idea of starting early with revision to a whole new level, a level all of my own. when the teachers said it was important to give 100% they did not expect it to be taken quite as literally as i was capable of doing. i had a deep felt sense that i was less clever than other people therefore to make up for this i needed to work considerably harder, which i did....i worked and worked and worked. i got results the teachers were thrilled with, i was ambivilent about (no result would ever be good enough), i then crashed and burned.
i have spent the last 8 years trying to make sense of something that makes no sense and some thing that makes complete sense, a different kind of dichotomy but dichotomy nonetheless. i have never recovered, i didn't learn and i have continued to employ these mechanisms to greater and greater extent...always an external obsession, never the actual cause of the distress, a distraction at best.
can you learn moderation...or is it only something you can achieve when you are no longer trying to escape something you don't know any other way of escaping?
as a child and as a teenager, being able to completely submerse myself in work gave me an out from a life i felt increasingly unhappy with, it divorced me from a self that i despised and numbed me from feelings that were incresingly unmanagable. food, rituals and obsessions gave me the out that i desperately needed in order to survive. being able to have that level of obsession can be extremely productive externally, however it becomes incresingly corrosive internally. i found this out too late and by 15 i experienced my first nervous breakdown. i took the idea of starting early with revision to a whole new level, a level all of my own. when the teachers said it was important to give 100% they did not expect it to be taken quite as literally as i was capable of doing. i had a deep felt sense that i was less clever than other people therefore to make up for this i needed to work considerably harder, which i did....i worked and worked and worked. i got results the teachers were thrilled with, i was ambivilent about (no result would ever be good enough), i then crashed and burned.
i have spent the last 8 years trying to make sense of something that makes no sense and some thing that makes complete sense, a different kind of dichotomy but dichotomy nonetheless. i have never recovered, i didn't learn and i have continued to employ these mechanisms to greater and greater extent...always an external obsession, never the actual cause of the distress, a distraction at best.
can you learn moderation...or is it only something you can achieve when you are no longer trying to escape something you don't know any other way of escaping?
Thursday 3 March 2011
hermit....
increasingly i feel that the hermit lifestyle is calling to me....now i just need to find somewhere in the middle of no where. it's somewhat of a challege to be a hermit in a flat in the centre of a very small town, why is it i now have the 'cheers' soundtrack starting in my head?! frightening, possibly even more frightening than having to face people at the moment...
people frighten me, i like them at a distance, well maybe only if they are attractive and amusing (i'm thinking sue perkins although i wouldn't say no to stephen fry or sir robert winston....)
ok, i should explain the stephen fry and sir robert winston comment. i believe a marriage to them would be as close to perfect dammit. both are hugely engaging in a very intense and hugely intelligent way, i would always have great bedroom conversation and in the case of stephen fry, both of us would encourage the other to cheat....in my head probably the only way i could survive in a marriage to a man...plus i can tell you in the case of robert winston, when i saw him at the cheltenham science festival thank god the tent was in the way else i would have jumped him. in that case it was a lucky escape for the both of us (and saved me from notoriety and potential arrest, neither of which are particularly condusive to being a hermit) especially given that i had just had a long and very public argument with a leading dr from the maudsley hospital in london on his frankly cultish faith in CBT in relation to the treatment of OCD....CBT being what prozac was to the psychiatric community in the early 90's...psychiatry lives on blind faith (and plenty of money to heat their swimming pools) and given the suspicious circumstances that they produce their statistics on CBT (only the people who fully cmplete the 'course' of CBT are included in the statistics, only the people who are deemed as highly likely to be a sucess story are allowed to finish the course of CBT treatment)...suspicious i think....maybe i'm just a cynical and nasty little borderline.....i'll let my other parts of self be the judge of that i think.
anyway, so back to the hermit idea. i rather fancy a tree house, i don't really know why i have such a fixation with a treehouse but i think it's probably a more bohemian slant of the idea of a castle with a moat and drawbridge. that and i can have a postal address of a treehouse which has to be every child's dream and lets face it, my inner child is in charge most of the time.
ah dreams, surely the only plus side of being an adult is that you can actually achieve the dreams you had as a child, some dream of fame and fortune, me i dream of living half way up a tree and permanently confusing royal mail....
people frighten me, i like them at a distance, well maybe only if they are attractive and amusing (i'm thinking sue perkins although i wouldn't say no to stephen fry or sir robert winston....)
ok, i should explain the stephen fry and sir robert winston comment. i believe a marriage to them would be as close to perfect dammit. both are hugely engaging in a very intense and hugely intelligent way, i would always have great bedroom conversation and in the case of stephen fry, both of us would encourage the other to cheat....in my head probably the only way i could survive in a marriage to a man...plus i can tell you in the case of robert winston, when i saw him at the cheltenham science festival thank god the tent was in the way else i would have jumped him. in that case it was a lucky escape for the both of us (and saved me from notoriety and potential arrest, neither of which are particularly condusive to being a hermit) especially given that i had just had a long and very public argument with a leading dr from the maudsley hospital in london on his frankly cultish faith in CBT in relation to the treatment of OCD....CBT being what prozac was to the psychiatric community in the early 90's...psychiatry lives on blind faith (and plenty of money to heat their swimming pools) and given the suspicious circumstances that they produce their statistics on CBT (only the people who fully cmplete the 'course' of CBT are included in the statistics, only the people who are deemed as highly likely to be a sucess story are allowed to finish the course of CBT treatment)...suspicious i think....maybe i'm just a cynical and nasty little borderline.....i'll let my other parts of self be the judge of that i think.
anyway, so back to the hermit idea. i rather fancy a tree house, i don't really know why i have such a fixation with a treehouse but i think it's probably a more bohemian slant of the idea of a castle with a moat and drawbridge. that and i can have a postal address of a treehouse which has to be every child's dream and lets face it, my inner child is in charge most of the time.
ah dreams, surely the only plus side of being an adult is that you can actually achieve the dreams you had as a child, some dream of fame and fortune, me i dream of living half way up a tree and permanently confusing royal mail....
false hope or realism?
i (nowadays reluctantly) go to an ED support group of carers and sufferers.
last night it got me thinking. when dealing with an ED is it better to give a message full of hope but often false and unreal, or is it better to give a more accurate depiction of what someone at the beginning of their ED (or their carers) are likely to face?
or do carers and sufferers actually need different slants, different approaches?
for me, i find it far more comforting to have someone talk about what i am actually experiencing no matter how bleak it is, i do think hope is important. the unit i just came out of always said they would hold the hope for us whilst we weren't able too which i appreciated so much. however they also felt that it was really important to acknowledge and validate what it was you were experiencing at the moment (it's a DBT way of dealing with someone).
however the group i go to often undermines sufferers experiences when they aren't positive. they will often cut them off at the end and say 'however on a more positive note....' whilst i compleatly understand why they do that i don't believe it is always helpful and i think the hope they try and impart is often based on so little truth.
is it better to be falsely hopeful? or is being prepared of what you are likely to encounter at the same time as showing that you can survive it a better way forward?
last night it got me thinking. when dealing with an ED is it better to give a message full of hope but often false and unreal, or is it better to give a more accurate depiction of what someone at the beginning of their ED (or their carers) are likely to face?
or do carers and sufferers actually need different slants, different approaches?
for me, i find it far more comforting to have someone talk about what i am actually experiencing no matter how bleak it is, i do think hope is important. the unit i just came out of always said they would hold the hope for us whilst we weren't able too which i appreciated so much. however they also felt that it was really important to acknowledge and validate what it was you were experiencing at the moment (it's a DBT way of dealing with someone).
however the group i go to often undermines sufferers experiences when they aren't positive. they will often cut them off at the end and say 'however on a more positive note....' whilst i compleatly understand why they do that i don't believe it is always helpful and i think the hope they try and impart is often based on so little truth.
is it better to be falsely hopeful? or is being prepared of what you are likely to encounter at the same time as showing that you can survive it a better way forward?
Saturday 29 January 2011
outfit appropriate...
in a little over a weeks time i will be 23 which, whilst hardley a shock, is certainly more than a little unwanted. if i'm honest i feel somewhere along the line i've been cheated. whilst i understand a certain element of apprehension at the looming of another year gone past is not a feeling that is unusual to human beings, i'm aware my credibility as an adult is waning increasingly at the moment. it seems enid blyton didn't cover this aspect of life in her books which has left me sorely unprepared.
some of the things whilst distressing aren't really the kind of things that can be solved. as a child i always believed i would be taller and whilst i am not very short i am hardley statuesque. at 5ft 3 and 3 quarters, that extra quarter of an inch i hold onto like you would a lock of your lovers hair, white knuckled and with a disconcerting air of desperation. meanwhile my taller, younger siblings tower above and use me as their arm rest in photos, my grimace in stark contrast to their grins.
other things are harder to stomach. anther year past and another year that i never believed i would see. birthdays are events of great ambivilance when you have spent your teenage years in psychiatrists offices and later on in units designed to contain and behaviourally normalise whilst you, inside wither and lose sense of hope and proportion. a funhouse of mirrors each reflected back someone you lost sight of many years ago and that even if the mirrors did not grossly deform you, you wouldn't be able to pick out yourself.
at almost 23 i no longer know who i am, i wonder whether this year will truly be my last, whether i will see another birthday. it sounds morbid, we don't like to read or think about that, i appologise if i have disturbed or disquietened you. if i've unsettled you, caused that barrier of seperation to come down, a world of me and them. i could wear my masque, i could wear my outfit appropriate.
some of the things whilst distressing aren't really the kind of things that can be solved. as a child i always believed i would be taller and whilst i am not very short i am hardley statuesque. at 5ft 3 and 3 quarters, that extra quarter of an inch i hold onto like you would a lock of your lovers hair, white knuckled and with a disconcerting air of desperation. meanwhile my taller, younger siblings tower above and use me as their arm rest in photos, my grimace in stark contrast to their grins.
other things are harder to stomach. anther year past and another year that i never believed i would see. birthdays are events of great ambivilance when you have spent your teenage years in psychiatrists offices and later on in units designed to contain and behaviourally normalise whilst you, inside wither and lose sense of hope and proportion. a funhouse of mirrors each reflected back someone you lost sight of many years ago and that even if the mirrors did not grossly deform you, you wouldn't be able to pick out yourself.
at almost 23 i no longer know who i am, i wonder whether this year will truly be my last, whether i will see another birthday. it sounds morbid, we don't like to read or think about that, i appologise if i have disturbed or disquietened you. if i've unsettled you, caused that barrier of seperation to come down, a world of me and them. i could wear my masque, i could wear my outfit appropriate.
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