Jill, I understand that it is scary to have even a hint of a diagnoses like that. But first and foremost, you are a person, even if you have some scary diagnoses. Everyone is different, everyone reacts to things differently, and first and foremost, you are a lovable individual. I don't know anything about these kind of mental health things, or the scientific ins-and-outs of attachment, and I find, I don't really want to know, for myself. I'd rather stay ignorant I can read dribs and drabs of stuff, but if I get too involved in therapy lingo and stuff like that I will be trying to heal myself, instead of letting my T do the work. KWIM? Maybe this is off base, maybe I'm off my rocker, but I don't think a diagnoses really says much about who you are. However, I understand it can feel good, like you have some control if you can put a name on what you are suffering with, so use if it helps to ground you and be able to face the reality of your past? IDK... it will be ok, Jill.

BB

BB

i feel so completely blank-ed up that i don't think i can do this therapy stuff, and all the problems from the past just seem like too much work to try to fix once a week, or even twice a week. i am VERY BLACK AND WHITE thinking, and i just think i have to pack it all up because otherwise i am going to be a blanking wreck for the next several years of my family's life and maybe i can just HOLD ON like i have for these first 49 years and these problems will begin to vanquish if i quit paying so much blanking attention to them. all this therapist talk is making me crazy and feel like i am living in a whole world apart from the real world, and i can't do both at the same time (i have seen that other thread) so i want to just pretend it all doesn't exist and quit.

i am dying here, circling the drain, and even twice a week therapy won't get me where i need to be, i think my new therapist has too much workload to see me more than once a week and i can't take it. i have no handrail, and i am completely obsessed looking for comfort here, and i find it, but NOTHING can fill that vast CHASM of emptiness in my heart, i just live on my anxiety meds and have kids that need me and i am too self-absorbed with all this therapy to live!!! just like my blanking MOTHER.

quote:

i just think i have to pack it all up because otherwise i am going to be a blanking wreck for the next several years of my family's life and maybe i can just HOLD ON like i have for these first 49 years and these problems will begin to vanquish if i quit paying so much blanking attention to them. all this therapist talk is making me crazy and feel like i am living in a whole world apart from the real world, and i can't do both at the same time

Man, I think I can realte to that one. But I don't think there's any going back, whether we want to or not. All this stuff is out there now, and I don't think packing it up will have the same results that it used to...just my opinion. I too wish I could pack it all up and go back to normal life Jill- but I hope you (and I) will stick it out during the rough times and take the good times until we get where we want to be...

hug, prayers, Jill- oh and don't be discouraged about lack of responses if you are...I used to worry and feel awfully sad about that too, until I was on the board for awhile and I realized that is just the way it works out sometimes and had nothing to do with me. Be kind to you, it sounds like you had two very intense sessions with a new T and are processing a lot right now. also you seem lonely, and I know I use the board a LOT when I am feeling very lonely, and sometimes, it helps, and sometimes, I just have to let myself be in that very lonely place, so hard to do. I can be in a roomful of people, have crowd that fills the room over (my husband likes to give bashes at our place) and feel lonlier thatn I would just sitting in the woods truly alone, sometimes. Smile laugh, drink, joke...pretend to be interested in the small talk...just to cover it up so nobody knows that I don't feel like I'm part of it at all. I am starting to realize, the lonliness is the thing I must learn to cope with the most. And instead I keep using these coping mechanisms, Jill, and they help for awhile, but only, for awhile. I'm so glad you can pray, that is tremendous. Be kind to yourself, say your prayers, rest, Jill. It will be brighter someday.

BB

Oh, and keep posting as much as you need to!

Jill,

I'm sorry this is all so hard. I agree with BB though, I don't think it will all fit back in the way it used to. I have wanted to close Pandora's box many times during this process, but it just won't work! It's like those boxes at the store that you unpack and then you need to return the item and nothing ever fits back in the box the way it did before you unpacked it!

As far as diagnoses, my T is not a huge fan of them. She uses them because of insurance etc, but really it is more important to deal with the symptoms in the here and now rather than judging you by some diagnosis. I would expect that anyone in situations that many of us (most all of us!) come from would create attachment and dependence issues!

Hopefully you can work with T a bit longer and she can formulate a plan for you before going too much farther. I know that it took five months of going once to three times per week before my T finally settled on my final diagnosis. Sometimes what the initial impression is turns out to not be the full story.

Hang in there. It's a hard hard road, but you will make progress. One step at a time.

thank you both. i think the adult woke up this morning and the little five year old posted last night, and i have to know they are the same person, despite whatever i want to deny or believe.

i had thought of just disappearing, ashamed the five year old had a public tantrum. but, the anonymity makes it safe to come back, i think.

do y'all's inner child ever post?? do we need a separate thread that maybe they could all play together?? discuss favorite colors and such?? invite each other to spend the night and stay up all night talking about our therapists?? ewww!! that would really be fun!!

what you said, BB, about living through the loneliness i think holds alot of truth. sometimes the FEAR of feeling lonely, unloved, not understood (like a child) is REALLY WORSE than just staying in that state, and breathing through it and accepting it and not panicing and KNOWING it will abate, i don't have to try to manically ESCAPE the feeling. big girl knows this, five year old gets terrified.

thanks, and, although i know i don't have to say so, i am sorry when five year old posts a tantrum. and if i am borderline, well, i am. and i think i am. 'we all' do. and there are about 3 to 5 of us. we need to get along better and not deny each other or be so afraid of each other.

STRM, do people 'admit' their dx on here? anyone dealing with the cards i have out there? even private messages could help if anyone has the same deck i have???

jill,

I am guessing there are mixed opinions in the therapeutic community about giving a client a diagnosis. Some think it is helpful and some do not. It seems to me that depending on the 'label' given the client may feel un-fix-able and that information could derail a very real hope of getting help and healing. I hope that does not happen to you. I am no T but do know that a Dx is based on a client exhibiting a certain number of the symptoms related to that Dx and that Dx can change over a period of time.

quote:

i am too self-absorbed with all this therapy to live!!! just like my blanking MOTHER.

Ah contraire, mon ami. You are not just like your mother. Your mother denied she needed help. Your mother did not humble herself and seek the help of others to heal her wounds. Whatever your mother was self-absorbed in was not about getting well for the sake of her children, marriage or future. That does not sound like jill. It is so hard to see the damage caused by inattentive parents, abuse and dysfunction. I hear you wanting to normalize finding weakness in yourself. That is good. It will help you move out of some of the black and white thinking. e.g. If I have a problem then I am bad or no one else has this problem so they must be good. We are a mixture of both..all of us...including parents and therapists. It's a crap deal to feel like you've been dealt a hand you did not deserve. And you would be right; you did not deserve it. What we are doing in therapy is looking at the reality of what we got and then learning how to answer the question "What am I going to do with it?" No matter what a person got, they will spend their entire life healing from it. We are human beings stuck in skin and living in a fallen world around other people stuck in skin who are allowed to make evil choices. I hate that reality but it is the truth. What you are trying to do is very admirable Don't give up, jill.

deeplyrooted

careful deeplyrooted, anyone nice to me these days i want to run to and crawl in their lap and call them mommy and have her tell me it will all be ok....there, i just did.

thanks for your words. your memory, and your empathy.

thanks. yes, black and white thinking...i am the only nut up here and y'all won't want to 'play' with me if you know how little i know. if i let you know i am five at heart.

thanks, acceptance, even here, in the cyber world is still acceptance. and maybe i can venture out and things will be safer than i ever realized they could be.

but still, in here, it feels safe, and i can disappear if i need to, and poke back and try again, and no one here is going to laugh AT me, maybe WITH me, but not AT me like my parents did.

it helps to let the little one out and see what is so hurt in her. borderline? i dunno, i guess it doesn't really matter what i label it...from an adult perspective it helps to know what we are dealing with, but it scares the kid. hmmmm. i am starting to realize, though, that truth is better and more solid than fantasy. it is tough to build on fantasy, the bottom can come out so easily. and in your heart, even though the truth hurts sometimes, at least there is stability in it...somewhat...

ok, so she says she definitely wants to run some tests on this assumption (this is only our 4th or 5th visit), but she sees 'features' and 'traits' not necessarily FULL BLOWN DISORDER...but she can assure me it is NOT something i ate. significant emotional abuse, neglect, and psychological abuse/neglect...thinks i am downplaying the sexual stuff as i am afraid to take that label, and that some form of 'refusing to be the victim' is healthy. seems to think i don't even know all my cards yet...and i thought they were all on the table...


but my black and white thinking...nice or mean, happy or sad, good or bad, all that catagorizing is from this immatured part of my psyche that is stuck at five. and the all or nothing thinking is a big part of this BPD label.

oh, great joy.

thanks mom...(you bi::

agh.

back to the drawing board in growing up.

anyone got this label?? pm me?? how long is the road out???

jill,

I am sorry you had to grow up in the environment in which you did and are having to deal with the carnage left from it. I can understand your desire to be given a name for all the pain that you are feeling. I don't know if having a diagnosis will be able to asuage it though. Healing from long-term childhood abuse does not come overnight. I can hear the voice of my therapist telling me, and I will pass on to you, "It takes as long as it takes." Acceptance of that fact has helped me relax a little bit. I still want desperately for the pain to end but the only way for that to happen is for me to deal with each of the symptoms as I become aware of them and then work through that pain. It is not an easy journey and it is good to know we do not do it alone; we can find support from many places, including this site.

I used to think I would be 'well' if I could just be like someone around me that I admired. Or, I would be well if I no longer felt insecure and I had no external conflicts in my life. My thoughts were full of "if only" regrets...yadayadayada. Somehow, these are dissipating and I am finding myself trying to appreciate the strengths and blessings God has given me and to accept them as enough. Some people were dealt a hand in childhood that was a winner. They were nurtured and loved and all their physical needs were met. These people were given tools to handle stress and conflict in relationships because they watched modeled in the home. Their parents let them express their true emotions and thus they learned how to manage them. All of that helped better prepare them but that does not mean they grew up without struggle or that they will not suffer pain and heartache. The best and the brightest from loving homes cried themselves at times to sleep at night. The felt lonely and scared. No one is sheltered from the pain of living in this world. For them and for those who grew up in dysfunctional homes living effectively comes down to how life is handled when it is not going the way we want it to.

I don't know about you but when I look at all this it reminds me of my helplessness and that I can't fix it! I used to think I could fix it if I just....well, you know. Now, I let go of trying to re-gain control and more and more often I am able to see that God is near to the broken-hearted and find comfort it that truth.

take good care jill!

deeplyrooted

beautiful stuff, deeplyrooted. yes, the what if thinking, that is childlike, and thinking that things will ONE DAY all be perfect. letting go of all that makes such logical sense, and i know that logic is only a part of the battle. the emotions come much slower. i guess, integral for me, is whenever the emotions in the house were even slightly off, bad things happened. and i don't even know quite what all happened. i hid alot, so i just remember slamming doors and that kind of things was the general result. so i need to rewrite those old tapes.

your t telling you 'it takes as long as it takes' does comfort me, so thank you. not exactly what we want, i want MAGIC!! but i'll take truth. and they say the truth will set you free. i am starting to believe that, too.

i see for you, your spirituality is a big support. that is new for me, bad religious modeling as a child, but God has woken me up and taken me in, and i finally feel a Father's love. it is wonderful, and if that is why all this came to a head, than all i can do is say, from the bottom of my soul, thank You Lord Jesus.

the control issue is a big part of it to, i am glad you mentioned it, as i recall in the depths of my therapy somewhere hearing that controling our environment was the only way we survived, by using the coping stuff...mentally disappearing, all those defenses...they just aren't working anymore. a big part for me is just trying to stay PRESENT. the mindfulness stuff is good, but it is so foriegn to me...looking at your thoughts and feelings without judgment?? without condemnation?? wow, that is all so foriegn. i was constantly scrutinizing thoughts to try to be good so i wouldn't get in trouble. T3 told me one day my emotions will be able to REST. wow, can't imagine that day, but that will feel so good.

thanks for your thoughtful and helpful reply, deeplyrooted. have a great day, and i'll think your words through. yes, we can't control it all, and it WILL take as long as IT takes. i am so happy to possibly have a t that can go the distance. xxoo, jill