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Some people believe that being crazy makes you creative (perhaps brilliant) and being creative makes you crazy. Similarly, along this line of logic is that taking medication makes you uncreative and perhaps, un-brilliant.
Well, pish-tosh I say.
My sister and (soon-to-be-ex) brother-in-law told their oldest daughter, my 9-year-old niece, they are getting a divorce. My sister and the girls will move into a duplex; their dad will stay in the house. It's an amicable situation (at least, as amicable as it can be)--no custody battles, no front-lawn fights, no holidays ending in thrown dishes.
And my niece, who has always had problems with anxiety, is apparently taking it about as well as...whatever the opposite of "well" is.
I've had serious anxiety issues since I was about 12, give or take. Growing up, I guess I internalized the way people look at you when they think you're crazy; The questions they ask, and the far more terrible ones they don't.
Why can't I deal with this mental health thing without causing so much trouble, anyway?!
Sometimes I feel like I just don't get it; Like I can't, or won't, or something somewhere inside is keeping me from understanding enough about myself, mental health, how to heal things.
Anxiety: All in all, another brick in the wall?
Managing BPD symptoms is a full-time job for people with BPD. It is aided greatly with the support of family, whether they are related by blood or chosen to walk alongside us.
Dissociative Identity Disorder is caused not just by trauma, but a number of factors that come together at just the right times, in just the right places, over and over again. I’ve discussed in some depth the factors that I believe contributed to my development of DID. But those factors might be different for you. Furthermore, each contributing factor carries its own weight. In other words, the causes of Dissociative Identity Disorder are unique to each person in both definition and size.
Lawyers use Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) to explain a battered woman's behavior to a jury who does not understand why she "didn't just leave". After all, we all have the freedom to choose our own adventure in life, don't we? Why does an abused woman stay with a violent partner?
BWS is a subtype of Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome. This means, in part, that if you are abused, you may or may not show or feel all of the signs of PTSD, but you probably show other mentalities and behaviors in addition to many symptoms of PTSD. Most of the studies I've been reading compile data from women who are physically abused, but they also list verbal abuse as a precursor to physical violence - it's almost impossible to imagine that physical violence does NOT follow verbal abuse.
If you listen to my audio posts, you know I was rather unhappy with Bob last Thursday afternoon. It seems he'd spent the majority of the past 48 hours being completely unruly (to put it mildly), including shoving classmates, throwing pencils at his teacher, and being a general pain.
And the school music program, which Bob was required to attend as part of his music grade, was in just a few short hours.
Yaaaaaay.
There is a problem with “To Do” lists, that is listing tasks that are worthwhile and productive but not necessarily what needs to be done. When judging what needs to be done, there are likely to be external forces, such as deadlines set by a supervisor. Internal forces, which affect the tasks that you have set the deadline for personal reasons or deadlines. You are the judge of what are important deadlines and the time needed to accomplish a task. Checking off many items on the list doesn't help in getting the real job done but you may feel better about those actions.
First, do no harm. Which MD or not, you are tinkering with my brain.
Listen, and don't talk to me like I'm an idiot
Try using psychobabble and I let down the tires on your car
I doubt I'm alone in being disturbed by some of the language used to treat anxiety and mental health difficulties.
Schema therapy shows tremendous potential for treating borderline personality disorder (BPD). In this video, More Than Borderline's Becky Oberg explains domains, which are related to basic childhood needs, and the schemas that can form if those needs are not met.
When living with severe depression, it is so difficult to see any positivity about ourselves or the world we live in. I have been in very similar shoes as you. However, nothing will change until we initiate a change, even if it means taking our cognitative distortions and untwisting them. Healing/recovery takes a lot of time and practice - it is a lifelong journey. Unfortunately, there's no magic wand out there to make everything better about ourselves and the world (if only...).
One thing that keeps me going is taking life ONE DAY AT A TIME. I wear a bracelet with those exact words to remind me when I start down a dark road. One day at a time... because that is all I can expect of myself, and it's all that others can expect of me. I know it sounds cliche, but you genuinely are not alone or alone in how you feel.
Also, check out the resources and assistance at https://www.healthyplace.com/other-info/suicide/suicide-suicidal-thoughts-and-behaviors-toc
We continued talking and I learned a lot more. His husband had cheated on him and he was heartbroken. They live in the same condo in separate bedrooms and were basically married on paper only. Since I was already developing feelings for him, I allowed our relationship to continue. We’ve since spent a lot of time together on dates, he met my family at Christmas, etc.
In January, we chatted and I said, “Ok, what’s the plan?” and he freaked out. While he says he loves me, and does not love his husband, he’s stuck and doesn’t know how to move forward. His therapist says he needs to go to the doctor for new meds and hasn’t. And now it’s been three months of basic texting good morning and good night, and we don’t see each other and don’t talk on the phone.
Do I just move on at this point? Every time I try to talk about us and our relationship, he just shuts down or doesn’t respond.
Help! Thanks.