On Preventing the Worst

My loved one said she wanted to die because her past is to hurtful and that her present is affected by it. She explain how much she's been and is suffering for 3 hours. The day after she was splitting on me and telling me to leave her alone to go away. It's been 3 months I am worried and cannot get in touch with her without her saying to leave her alone. She's a person with quiet bpd. It's confusing she definitely told me cause she needs help from me. I tried to tell her she's splitting and she told me you're right nothing is good from you. How can I help and prevent the worst?

I hope you understand that this is a very delicate situation and that’s why I’m not jumping to tell you to turn them into a hospital or even convince them to seek therapy because none of that will help them recover unless they want it for themselves. Especially at a time when they are currently pushing you away. The truth is if the person with BPD isn’t willing to let you in, you need to respect their boundaries and give them their distance.

At this point, best bet is to give them one last chance to let you in or not. Be very clear about your intention when you reach out to them this last time. You can do this with the interpersonal effectiveness skill DEAR MAN. 

This skill will help you…

Know what to say:

D - describe the situation. 

E - express your feelings and opinions.

A - assert yourself by clearly asking for what you want and need. 

R - reinforce the positive outcome you envision.

and

How to say it:

M - be mindful of the interaction. The “why” behind it all.

A - appear confident.

N - negotiate. Be willing to give to get. Offer and ask for solutions to the problem.

How you might use this in your situation:

Describe - “I notice that you’ve been dealing with some very difficult feelings and distancing yourself from me lately.”

Express - “I care about you a lot and I’m afraid of losing you. I worry about the worst happening and want to do anything I possibly can to make sure you are ok. I know that whatever you decide is totally up to you; I just need you to know how much I care.”

Assert -  “If you would let me be here for you in any way that you’re comfortable, you wouldn’t have to be alone in what you’re going through.” 

Reinforce - “I will be here for you in good times and in bad. I just need stable communication from you.”

Mindful - Don’t lose focus of the objective if the conversation takes an unexpected turn.

Appear confident - Don’t put yourself down, beg, or apologize just for the sake of appeasing them.

Negotiate - A potential negotiation I imagine for your scenario is: your loved one not willing to openly communicate at this time. If this happens, concede and offer that they communicate with you when they feel ready, but ask them to establish whether or not they want you in their life now. 

As a borderline, if a loved one articulated how they felt using these techniques, I might actually believe they care about me despite my disorder telling me otherwise. This caring language paired with assertion and confidence would signal to me that a decision on my part needs to be made. Am I willing to make a change? Go out of my comfort zone by letting this person in? It would ultimately be up to me. 

After all is said and done, the answer may still be “No, I don’t want you in my life”. This is the risk you’ll have to take in letting them know how much you care while still maintaining healthy boundaries. You will never be able to control what they decide to do, but at best you can communicate that you are a safe person should they decide to keep you in their life. 

This is a scary and difficult position to be in. I’m wishing you the best of luck. You can always message me if you want to vent and need a borderline’s perspective.

Train of Thought

There’s a freight train in my mind, reverberating thoughts so encapsulating it’s hard to remember experiencing anything else. Flagrant disdain to an apathy I wish would stick around long enough for the train to shut up. 

Will I be able to get things done today? Am I a piece of shit or aren’t I? I wish my version of depression were served cold. If I really didn’t care, I wouldn’t be asking these questions. 

“If I can’t do my work then I must be lazy. And a lazy person does not deserve this job or any job for that matter. What will be my calculated response be when they let me go? Of course I’d feign surprise and with a stupid smile, masking all my self-hatred and anger, politely walk away, like I always do.”.

The ambivalence agitates, making the pull toward my vices so apparently there. Driving around to smoke another cigarette. Picking at my skin to keep awake. A glass or five to fall asleep. I belong to the things I crave. The itch I can never reach. —Why did I smoke? If I keep relapsing due to periodic mood swings then I‘ll never quit.  Oh! It’s because I am a piece of shit-visions of slashing my own arms, crashing my dirty car, choking my own neck.  Where does the impulse to hurt myself come from? An attempt to scratch my wildest itch? An expression of how badly I want to remove myself from...it? 

Funny that my mind feels of a place rather than a part of me. Me a part of it. I don’t think in terms of changing, I think in terms of leaving. As if the chemicals in my veins were the culprit, sending signals to my brain it’s time to leave.

On Pet Loss

Putting Lucky down was the hardest thing I had to do. Harder than fighting off urges to cut myself. Harder than overcoming substance abuse. Harder than not being on the right medication. Harder than telling my parents about my childhood trauma. I started to write about Lucky yesterday, but broke down. He was such a sweet and loving boy. I look fondly at our moments together, but I’m overwhelmed by grief because I’ll never get to experience them again. 

A few people who add insult to injury are my parents, brother, and M (who is a best friend, but not an emotionally available one). Sure they share their condolences, but they’re just not privy to communicating empathy, which is jarring while I’m so raw with emotion at this time. 

For example, my dad made small talk about the stimulus package while we waited for the vet tech to bring Lucky out. I’m waiting for our final goodbye and already mourning Lucky and my dad decides to talk about taxes? I don’t understand how someone can behave so casually at a time like that. We weren’t waiting at the DMV or in line for check out. We were putting my dog down. Another moment I found jarring was my mom greeting me in the parking lot by asking how I’ll pay for the vet bill. No “I’m so sorry for your loss” or “It’s ok to be sad. I’m here with you” -just a straight “How are we going to pay for this?”. I found it insulting. Despite this, I know that compassion and warmth are not their forte and didn’t hold it against them in the moment. I focused most on Lucky and the actual goodbye, waiting in anticipation to see my boy.

In hindsight, I’m fixating on how utterly alone I felt despite being surrounded by my family, and with that creeps darker thoughts. Negative what ifs and perpetual anger over the emotional support my family could never give me. I question if I really did give Lucky a good life, if my parents actually do love me, if anyone truly cares about me beyond niceties you’re supposed to say in the wake of tragedy. I wish I had discernible truth, but I’ll have to muster the will to entertain brighter thoughts to come to a balanced conclusion.

Here are my brighter thoughts. I imagine Lucky’s life through his eyes and can see the many family members he got to play with, the many households he could live in, and the holidays we all spent together. Introducing him to my parents as their grandson when he was a few months old. Giving him a daddy in my husband. Snuggling in bed and play-fighting until he got tired.

The sad truth is, at the moment, I can’t hold onto these thoughts for too long. I’m left with an all encompassing void, haunted by the places Lucky used to sleep, the idle way we used to play throughout the day. When I was present enough to bask in those moments with him, I savored them knowing our time was limited. This may be a morbid way to experience company with the one you love, but it’s my way of savoring the essence of a relationship. Time is always limited. For me, to acknowledge this while together is the ultimate form of appreciation and true love.

I’m worried about giving up the sadness. In a way it’s all I have left of him. The grief is a reminder of how deeply I loved and cared about him when we were together. The longing to be with him again is so apparent that I can’t think of happy memories without crying. His absence is so painfully present.

I feel an unrelenting sadness when I look at Lucky’s things. All the poop bags we’ll never use, his medication that was just delivered Monday, toys sprawled all over the living room floor, his favorite rug, the foot of the bed where he’d sit waiting for us to wake up. I remember him collapsing, passing out, and how dim his eyes looked on our way to the vet. I was in the car yesterday and couldn’t help but replay that traumatizing trip through his eyes  (or at least how I think he saw it). Through this lens, I can internalize his suffering and know I did the right thing by putting him to sleep. I can believe this was the best way possible for him to go. Painless and peacefully and with all the people who loved him so much. This was the most important thing to me, more important than how badly I would miss him. I’m grateful I could give him a peaceful out, surrounded by nothing but love.

Many things seem irrelevant in hindsight. Months prior to his passing, I was worked up over the fleas, annoyed by my parents on our trip to the Philippines, and stifled by the classic BPD triggers that liked to pop up and punch me in the face whenever I wanted to hang with friends. If I had known I’d be losing Lucky just two months later, I would have spent more time with him rather than obsessing over these minor inconveniences. Here goes me clinging to self-blame, the minimization of my feelings, and perpetual guilt. I wish being kinder to myself came naturally to me. Even at a time when suffering is at an all time high, I like to tack on more self-flagellation. I’ll have to let these undulating waves of guilt pass through me. Underneath it all, I’m only feeling them because I care and want so badly to be with Lucky again. 

I think of how hard it is for me to form strong connections with people and how easy it was to love Lucky, and I understand why it hurts this much to lose him. If it weren’t for my husband, I’d feel completely alone. Maybe not 100% of the time, but loneliness would be my default. I have to work extra hard to convince my brain that people really do care about me. This is why I’m terrified of loss. Losing the ones who care about me the most leave me with the ones who may or may not. 

Since recovery I’ve strengthened relationships and can even count a handful of people who are great at communicating empathy, but this doesn’t mean I’m always confident that they care. My mind is crazy talented at rationalizing why they don’t and it takes a lot of mental de-tangling to accept kind and loving words at face value. This inability to receive love may be why loss is my greatest fear. The pain it brings leads me to suicidal ideation, which is confusing and uncomfortable for someone who isn’t necessarily suicidal anymore. I don’t want to kill myself, but I don’t see a point in being here without the people who love me. It would be agony to live a life without my husband and Lucky, and now I have to endure half that battle. 

RIP Lucky.

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View pics and videos of Lucky on my IG: @yournewpenpal