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November 3 - November 9, 2024
He gives me back the blood letter, perhaps to remind me that it holds a part of myself that I am always inflicting on others, a part of myself I am always throwing away.
Borderline Personality Disorder: A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood
There’s a therapy I recommend you do, specifically designed for BPD. It’s called dialectical behavior therapy.”
“You are a woman of great passion. You’ll learn to channel your energy, to control it, rather than the other way around.
Accepting a psychiatric diagnosis is like a religious conversion. It’s an adjustment in cosmology, with all its accompanying high priests, sacred texts, and stories of origin.
I realize the seed was there all along, watered by pain, secrets, and inattention, and by my own desperate need for relief.
Dialectical behavior therapy isn’t like other types of therapy. You don’t sit around sharing your feelings. You don’t dredge up memories of the past and analyze your issues. It’s an approach that focuses on developing skills to help you regain control over your emotions and behaviors.
Dr. Linehan devised this approach to therapy after discovering that trying to help people with BPD could be like pouring salt in a wound. We can’t tolerate criticism and judgment. For us, therapy’s constant emphasis on “fixing ourselves” and the pressure to change is like pushing someone whose back is already against the wall—a wall full of spikes. When the focus is solely on change, we tend to flee therapy or stay very angry and defensive. On the other hand, too much unconditional acceptance by the therapist can keep us stuck. In either case, we often get worse. So Dr. Linehan took an
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I knew I needed distance between myself and my feelings so I could observe, but just being with my feelings was like being possessed. I didn’t need mindfulness; I needed an exorcism.
“Mindfulness isn’t supposed to be torture. It’s a tool. When you’re aware of something, you have the ability to work with it. That’s why learning about states of mind is important. You can say to yourself, when you get into a lather, ‘Oh, look, I’m in emotion mind.’ You can learn to control your attention and skillfully choose what action to take.” She thinks for a minute, then turns to me. “I suspect that while you were trying to practice being mindful, you were actually judging and reacting to your emotions.”
DBT describes people as having essentially three states of mind: emotion mind, reason mind, and wise mind.
I try to do the breathing exercise where you watch your thoughts and emotions and simply label them: “thought…,” “emotion…” I don’t find wise mind, but once again I discover how intensely painful it is to just be with myself. As I try to sit, an image from an old Life magazine takes hold. It’s a Tibetan monk, sitting in his robes, on fire. I remember reading that the monk set himself ablaze to protest China’s occupation of Tibet. I know that my feeling of being burned alive is much less noble, and completely invisible, but that’s how I feel, sitting with myself: on fire.
people with BPD are like emotional burn victims: We’ve lost all of our protective skin
remember that even when I was just five or six years old, I didn’t want to close my eyes at night because the dark inside my head would expand like the space of a starless night and I’d be left alone in it.
Though I rarely believe in myself, I’ve always believed in saviors. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t given up and am always reshaping myself into an ideal image for my chosen savior.
the obstinacy and ingrained habits of middle age made it all but impossible for them to merge their lives.
And in the back of my mind, perhaps I’m jealous—jealous that she’s still such a “bad girl” and that she’s getting away with it, being all saucy and bringing lovers home. In comparison, I’m like a stripped storefront mannequin, living a denuded replica of human life.
On a logical level, I know that everyone feels pain. Everyone suffers. Is my pain really that much greater, or am I just weaker?
I’m still panicky and hopeless, but the realization that tonight I’ll be tucked into crisp white sheets and looked after with the sweep of a flashlight, over and over, keeps me feeling calm. I am no longer alone.
we’re taught about the CBT triangle of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, whereas in DBT we were always referring to the intersecting circles of emotion mind, reason mind, and wise mind. But if you strip away the terminology and some of the details, both come down to the same thing: To regain control, we need to develop awareness—and not just about childhood issues. Whether it’s called “mindfulness” or “self-assessment” or “grounding,” this is the first and most critical step toward understanding the forces that are tearing us apart.
I think about my parents and how they don’t care about me, and then I remind myself that their idea of care differs from mine.
If I want to survive, I have to stop turning my energy against myself—stop
I need my mother to recognize what I’m experiencing, even if it scares the shit out of her.
In the transition groups, people talked about “recovery jobs,” and that’s what this is. I tell myself, I’m going to take this job because I have to learn how to be a part of life again. I have to train in managing my feelings and reactions, and not let my distorted thinking and emotions control me.
Fuck you. Fuck you for making me jump back in and telling me I could land on my feet. Fuck you for all your fucking help.
It’s a strange and impenetrable situation: My family’s response to my recurring crises is to minimize (It’s just depression… Just go to a meeting… You don’t really have a mental illness…). Yet at the same time, when faced with the blood or the hospitals, they become so troubled that they distance themselves even more. Recently my grandparents sent me a heart-shaped locket with their pictures in it. I haven’t talked to them in months, but my mother must have told them something. The locket is their way of expressing that they know I’m in trouble and they love me, but in my mind, it simply
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How much of what I feel as neglect has been fueled by the force of my constant need? How much can any person hold another who is perpetually falling?
“Maybe you should start learning how to live with it.” “But I need to be safe. Right now!” He keeps his eyes on the paperwork, and when he looks up at me, I sense anger, or maybe dislike, almost like a vapor coming from his eyes. Though it’s just a small hint, I feel rage bubbling up. I want him to see my scars. I want him to see me bleeding and smashing my head against the wall. I want him to know what it’s like being me.
Cognitive therapists analyzed the perceptions of people with BPD through questionnaires and concluded that we tend to share three basic assumptions: The world is dangerous and malevolent; we are powerless and vulnerable; and we are inherently unacceptable
spend too much time in coffee shops nursing lattes, feverishly writing in journals, and hating people. I hate that they have things I don’t: love, purpose, discretionary cash, functional lives. My sense of being dislocated, trapped on the other side of a glass wall, doesn’t diminish.
“I guess… But why can’t I just react like everyone else?” “Why do you want to react like everyone else?” “I want to have normal reactions because the way I feel things is wrong.” “What’s wrong about it?”
emotions are complex physiological processes. When we look at an emotion, we tend to view it as a single event or experience, but in reality, many things are going on.
invalidating environments put a premium on controlling or hiding negative emotions. Painful experiences are trivialized, and blame is put on the vulnerable person for not meeting the expectations of others and living by their standards.
On my mini fridge, I put a magnet with a Zen quote: “Barn’s burnt down… Now I can see the moon.”
For long moments, I can see the eternal optimism of the flowers and taste the air
In DBT, distress tolerance skills are the first line of defense against making things worse.
After a lifetime of being an escape artist, I finally understand that the only way out is through.
The parts that are most inaccessible and fearful are known as exiles. These frozen and traumatized parts of ourselves hide and feel the need to be protected at all costs.
“I grew up in a very invalidating environment,” I declare. “People didn’t take my problems seriously. I was blamed for everything I did. When I got upset, no one taught me how to take care of myself.
“I’d like to suggest that you two have very different coping styles for getting through life. And that is why each of you feels like the other doesn’t understand.”
At a certain point, you just have to walk away and let other people have their perspectives, their way of dealing. You can try radical acceptance, obviously. But sometimes it’s just easier to throw up your hands and turn away. Let yourself be baffled and stop trying to make things work.”
Buddha and his life. In short, he was an Indian prince who was so deeply impacted by the pain he saw in the world that he resolved to find a way to be free of it. Abandoning his position and all material possessions, he studied with the great spiritual masters of his time but found that their path of asceticism and physical self-denial was as counterproductive as the opulent and indulgent life he’d left behind. So he sat down and meditated, determined to reach enlightenment or die.
When the Buddha taught, he cautioned his students to never take his word on faith, but to experience everything directly.
The Buddhist term for this triad of support and guidance is the Three Jewels. The first jewel is the Buddha (and by extension, your teacher), who embodies perfect wisdom and provides an example of what can be accomplished. The second jewel is the Dharma—Buddha’s teachings and the rich tradition of teachings that have sprung from them. The third jewel is Sangha, the community of practitioners and those who are actively following this path.
They say that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
when you know how impermanent life is, you will understand its preciousness: how at any moment, it can disappear; your own life can disappear. Each breath, if you think about it, may be your last. How can you guarantee you’ll inhale again?
‘Who or what is grasping? And where do all of these things arise from and dissolve into?’”
“You are like everybody else. You suffer from afflictive emotions—from anger, desire, and ignorance. You believe in permanence when there is none; grasp at a solid self although there isn’t one. You have yet to understand the infallibility of karma. But most of all, you do not recognize your true nature, the innate intelligence within: Buddha-nature.”
“They say that the greater the purification, the greater the obstacle.”
if you harm yourself, if you hate yourself, it’s the same as doing it to another. Self and other are the same; the karma is the same.”
