Category Archives: Mental Illness

The Art of Self Sabotage and the Guilt of Victory, or, Clearly I Have Borderline Disorder

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Why is it so hard to let myself win?

This is a question I ask myself day in and out, as I constantly corner myself in a rut I cannot get out of. It’s almost comical, on how I’m both incredibly successful and dinging myself left and right for each failure that I craft for myself. I’ve been through too many therapists to count, have outgrown adolescent angst, and still, here I am, so far ahead, so far behind, all at once.

Financially speaking, I am proud of myself, but feel I don’t deserve to be where I am, and feel deeply guilty for what I do have, yet also terrified of not having enough. My mental disorder(s) may be most easily defined as a cross between neurosis and narcissism, which is so deeply who I am due to my upbringing and fear of taking power over my own free will.

I sat in my bosses’ office the other day, with a goal to discuss my great progress and how I “deserve” a raise. Instead, I found myself being told that I’m viewed as a bit of a mess. People like me (which is progress from where I was as a kid), and people know I work hard (which I do), but ultimately I am unpolished. Instead of asking for a raise, I ended up holding back tears and having a good cry in a bathroom stall once I got through the very accurate and very painful critique.

The painful part comes from how this story has never changed, and it’s my fault. I spent my youth and adolescence assuming as some point I’d magically grow out of it. It’s possible I have a real chemical imbalance in my brain known as ADHD, or maybe it’s the depression, or some form of OCD, or maybe I just need to grow up. Ultimately, there are a few things that I know happen which prevent me from actually being able to win:

  1. I feel stupid all the time. I work with a lot of really intelligent people, and I’ve always enjoyed being around intelligent people. I always feel like I need to “prove” my intellect, which never works, since I’m not smart. I feel there are two ways to success — either be really smart, or very talented at socializing.
  2. Deep rooted need to “prove” to myself (and others) that I am, despite lacking elegance, able to be a hero and have an epic win. This probably comes from my parents being narcissists themselves, and bragging about my big wins. That’s probably pretty normal for parents, but it was more in how they did it. My victories always felt like nothing more than bragging rights for my parents, not about taking any pride in my ability to succeed.
  3. Setting up scenarios where winning was extremely difficult and required a visible fight became an addiction. If something wasn’t hard, it wasn’t worth doing. But I wasn’t smart enough (or focused enough) to accomplish really hard tasks, so I started to make everything difficult. Cleaning my room, for instance — I’d avoid cleaning until everything had piled up and I’d have to spend hours going through piles until finally I might have a spotless room. Chances are, I’d never finish, but I wouldn’t feel bad because it was an impossible task. In the rare case I was able to finish, I’d get such a rush. It’s a true addiction, just like any other drug. Just putting things away on a daily basis, while much more practical, wouldn’t give me that rush. So I let things pile up. Today, I’ve had an epic cleaning day. I may even get through the pile. But then tomorrow, will I just be back to where I started, letting the mess pile up again? Probably. This is a problem. A huge problem.
  4. I’m a perfectionist. Maybe even a little OCD. If almost everything is perfect but one thing is off, it drives me nuts. If everything is off, it’s almost calming. Again, like I don’t have any control over it, because it’s so bad, so I can just ignore it.
  5. I’m an extrovert but I have no freaking clue how to talk to other people. I can be silly and make people laugh, sure, but, as I’ve written about before, I’m no good at small talk. I’m still much better than my boyfriend at being social, which is laughable, because I’m terrible. I’m bad at conversation. I like deep conversation about the meaning of life, and what makes people tick. Despite not wanting to be a gossip, I find myself only truly able to contribute to conversations when the topic is another person that is a mutual acquaintance. I am lucky that I have opportunities to socialize with my coworkers, who are funny, smart people, and who can talk to each other while I generally listen (or I drink — see my last post — and manage to communicate a bit.) Still, in the end, I feel sad because no matter how much money I have or how good my life is, I want to connect with other people, and it’s a daily struggle.
  6. I don’t have any long-term goals that seem meaningful or achievable. When you’re young, life is broken up into years, and the years are long, and each year ahead is something to look forward to. You go to school and do your work so one day you can get into a good college and eventually have a great career and find a wonderful significant other, have two kids, and a house with a white picket fence, where you can have backyard barbecues and invite folks over for dinner. I really don’t know what I want anymore, and I don’t feel like I have a right to want anything. My financial journey is rooted in fear — fear of running out of money, fear of my mental health issues becoming so huge that one day I cannot work, and needing a lot in savings. At least this gets me to save money, and I’m proud I may be able to hit my goal of having $200k in various investments and savings by the time I turn 29 (on track to my major goal of $250k by 30), but this doesn’t make me happy. It helps me not be totally depressed, knowing I have cushion now, but I’m then looking at what happens if I get married and have children, and how I’ll need much more than $250k for cushion then. But, beyond money and savings, I’m not sure what I want. I guess I want a family, I guess I want to be a mother, I guess I want a house. But all the things I maybe want seem like things society tells me I should want, and perhaps things that biologically I crave, but will they really make me happy? I am well aware kids are not an expensive jacket you can return to the store. Do I have any right to bring another human being into this world? And shouldn’t I figure out a life purpose well before having children?
  7. If I were to live a much simpler life where I didn’t set myself up for failure time and again, would I actually be happier? I am afraid I’d be bored. Or further depressed. Because the only real meaning I have in life right now is that addiction to making things difficult for myself and setting up situations where if I win it’s almost orgasmic and if I don’t then I can just accept it was impossible to begin with. That’s not a way to live life, however. And it’s certainly not a way to live life once you are in your 30s. It’s time to grow up, and maybe, somehow, just accept simplicity. It may very well be that is the meaning I’m looking for… being able to come home from work at a reasonable hour, and instead of turning on the TV and wasting away the evening watching bad reality shows, open up a book, go for a walk, draw something, do something meaningful with the little free time one has in adult life. Go for a walk in the middle of the day and actually see the sun. The epic meaning of life is in freedom, not being a slave to yourself or anyone else. Work should not be the meaning of life. It’s great if you love it, and it’s great if it provides your life some meaning, but ultimately, it’s a paycheck. Life is much, much more than that. I just want to learn how to live it.

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The Never-Ending Job of Managing Stress

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Stress can be a good thing. No stress in your life and you’re stuck on a plateau where motivation is neither welcomed nor refused. Too much stress, however, and you end up frazzled, producing sub-standard work, and watching your life disappear before your eyes. I’ve realized that the trick to happiness is finding the perfect balance between the two extremes. It’s not easy.

Lately, I’ve been working over 12 hours per day, and still the amount accomplished is so much less than I need to get done. Given there is no real set beginning or end to the day, it’s admittedly easy to get caught up in a less important task or other distraction, as I know I’ll be working well into the evening and night regardless of how productive I am during the day. The more productive I am, the more I get done, the more I need to get done. It’s the nature of my job that there’s no “finishing” and there’s never “enough.”

A part of me loves that kind of stress, and thrives on it. Some of my best work is created when I’m exhausted, when I’m so tired I can’t even find the energy to worry, and I sit down and just write. But lately I’m even more exhausted than that. I don’t think I’ve been this constantly stressed out before, feeling like I am having one ongoing panic attack.

I’m trying hard to prioritize and focus on one project at a time so I can feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, and thus tone down the stress level a bit, but there’s too much going on that is a priority to stop and focus on any one thing. I’ve been reading a bit lately how multi-tasking, despite what resume-writers might want you to believe, is actually a detriment to productivity.

I prefer to work hard for success and praise, but there must be something I can do to make all of this stress more manageable. Do you have any tips?

 

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When to get help for mental health: borderline personality disorder

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No one is perfect, so when do mental health issues become such a challenge they merit spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on help?

There are many days when I think I am just being over emotional, or can get by with my variety of personality disorders and fake it enough to seem normal to the outside world. Then the walls come crashing down and a tsunami of reality floods in. Life is great and yet I still feel empty, depressed, lost. This is why I’m 99% sure I have some sort of co-morbid cocktail of Borderline Personality Disorder and others. Borderline personality disorder happens to also be hardest to treat because deep down people with BPD don’t really want to be helped.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a personality disorder described as a prolonged disturbance of personality function in a person (generally over the age of eighteen years, although it is also found in adolescents), characterized by depth and variability of moods.The disorder typically involves unusual levels of instability in mood; black-and-white thinking, or splitting; the disorder often manifests itself in idealization and devaluation episodes, as well as chaotic and unstable interpersonal relationships, self-image, identity, and behavior; as well as a disturbance in the individual’s sense of self. In extreme cases, this disturbance in the sense of self can lead to periods of dissociation.

Yes, that describes me well, minus the dissociation bit. It’s quite confusing to sort out which criteria fall under the NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) bucket vs BPD, and it doesn’t help that they are considered to often occur co-morbidly despite being so similar.

“Borderline and narcissistic patients both idealize and devalue others. However, there are important differences in the ways in which they do so. The borderline patient alternates between idealization and devaluation like a young child who changes best friends and whose frustration tolerance and capacity to delay gratification have not matured. Nevertheless, the borderline patient cares about the other person, even though the alternating attitudes may lead to a slow deterioration of the relationship. The narcissistic patient is more exploitative; the idealization is related to an idealized projection of an omnipotent self. It” the other person tails to manifest this delegated omnipotence for the patient’s benefit, the other is cast aside as no longer of use to the narcissistic patient, who then shifts to a new person who is expected to enhance the patient’s grandiose fantasy. The narcissistic patient’s rage is more of a contemptuous nature when manipulation of and extraction from the other are no longer possible. The borderline patient’s trigger is usually a threat to the patient’s dependency needs rather than a threat to the patient’s grandiosity. The narcissistic patient’s idealization is related to power, influence, glamour, and status that will further self-aggrandizement and carries little evidence of human caring. The narcissistic patient “borrows” a friend’s car with a feeling of entitlement and without permission, whereas the borderline patient does so from a boundary problem—that is, not distinguishing between “mine” and “not mine.”

In that sense, I definitely relate more to BPD than narcissism. I sincerely don’t think I’m the most important person in the world or deserve more than other people, or that everything should be all about me. There are definitely times when I feel threatened over being seen as not special, but this is always in relation to being able to maintain my relationships with other people. I do not understand how to be in a healthy relationship with another person (romantic, friendly, or professional) without convincing them that I am special and worth keeping around.  This is why although I fit many of the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder, I’m pretty sure the truth is I am borderline. My parents are narcissistic in a much more typical manner. It hurts me to see this behavior. I do not want to hurt people. I just don’t know how to relate to them. And I crave deep, meaningful relationships but feel like there is no way to have these relationships, especially with “normal” people. From the outside I probably appear fairly normal, or, for those who know me better, appear narcissistic, but it’s never really about thinking I need to be the best (though my parents trained me to crave this) — it’s more about a need to fake it in order to not be thrown out of other people’s lives.

Most people with borderline personality disorder had severe trauma in their lives, and many were sexually abused. I am very grateful that I was not sexually abused as a child. But I have a feeling that my father beating me, and even more, his emotional abuse compiled with my mother’s inability to empathize really fucked me up in the head. You might say everyone has issues, everyone is messed up in the head in some way, and that’s probably true, but the severity of these issues – when they get in the way of leading a normal productive life, are when you should theoretically seek help.

The woman I reached out to for Borderline Personality Disorder therapy is $225 an hour. Should I spend $1,000 a month treating a disorder that isn’t treatable? Do I just push on and cope as I go? I’m so scared of being the person I am today and — within the next few years — becoming a wife and mother. Maybe having a child to care about and love will help, but I realize that being a mother is extremely challenging and I’m in no mental state to approach this phase of my life yet. I need help to get there. I don’t know how much money is required to fix me, or if I can be fixed. I wish I knew that answer, I hate wasting money on therapy that goes no where, especially when only I can change who I am, what I want, and resolve to a much simpler appetite for contentment in exchange for some irrational form of manic happiness.

 

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Weekends in an Orange Vest

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While the fines suck, the 3-month DUI class is a pain, and inability to travel to Canada for 10 years is a bummer, the worst part about getting a DUI is the Weekend Work Program. As part of my punishment, I have do 5 days of weekend “work” or go to jail for the same amount of time without getting to go home at night. Of course, I, and everyone else arrested for a DUI, chose weekend work.

So far…

Day 1 — sat in a cold garage all day.
Day 2 — went to a field of rocks and “picked up rocks” all day.
Day 3 — went to a park and raked leaves into piles and then raked the same leaves out of piles.
Day 4 — washed windows that weren’t dirty all day.
Day 5 — ? next Saturday is my last day, finally.

It’s fascinating hearing the stories of people who were arrested for a DUI. There are hundreds of people who gather in a prison parking garage every Saturday and Sunday to serve out their time. Some blew a .08% after driving home from a wedding and not stopping fully at a stop sign, while others blew a .26% and woke up in handcuffs after a bad accident. I’ve met people who pled guilty with a .1 BAC and got a harsher sentence than those who fought it and got a plea bargin with a .15. I’ve met people who led police on a chase driving through a few red lights before passing out and getting caught. Many are in for their first DUIs, others for their second, who tell scary stories of spending time in jail. The main topic of conversation that gets us through the day is alcohol and drugs — most people go home after they get out at 4pm and drink. On Sunday, many talk about how hungover they are. A few brag about their drug use that morning. And, to my surprise, many on the program even sneak in joints and smoke when the supervisors aren’t looking.

They say once you have  your first DUI, you’re likely to get a second. That’s only true is that once you get a DUI you are on court probation for 3 years and if you have ANY alcohol in your system when you are driving and get caught (even .01%) you will get a second DUI. Meanwhile, a lot of the people who receive second DUIs just like to party and don’t seem to care, or they think they are invincible. I’ve heard many stories now of how the first DUI and second DUIs happen, and while I don’t judge, some of the people there make me sad because I know they are probably going to get another. They aren’t bad people (well, most aren’t) but their lives just revolve around partying, drinking and drugs. I’m still the only person that I met in there who got arrested because someone called 911 on my walking to my car; but that’s what I get for thinking I was ok to drive. I’ve learned my lesson, and I’ll never go near a car after drinking.

I wish the program was actually designed to help people. The DUI class is a joke. I’ve been to one so far (I have a 3 month program.) The class was 2 hours, with the first hour spent with the instructor talking about how to get help if you’re an addict, and then we watched an hour of a video from the early 2000s (though it seemed like it was from the 80s) about a father who was addicted to ecstasy. Apparently one week of the program the cops come in and show you mangled bodies that were in DUI-related accidents to scare you straight. I’m sure there is a better way to help people learn how to be healthy and safe with their drinking habits. It’s just a waste of time. Regardless, that waste of time, and money, has taught me a lesson that I wish I never had to be taught. Too many others are going to get another DUI, and the programs in place aren’t at all effective in stopping them.

 

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DUI Saga Continues: SWAP Day One

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I’m not sure how common this is in other states, but in California they push DUI offenders (as well as other petty criminals) to trade in a more threatening and time-consuming jail sentence for day-time “SWAP” / volunteer work.

Although I received my DUI in August and quasi-plea bargain in November, today was my first of 5 days to do this “volunteer work.” To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. When I arrived this morning at 8am and saw hundreds of men gathered at the location I was headed, I thought I was going to be the only female in a crowd of mostly gangbanger men. The area is ripe with gang violence, and plenty of the men had tattoos that looked like they might be gang-related. Ok, so I was a little nervous about spending a few days with these men, even if it was under police supervision cleaning up the side of the road.

Today, I can’t even describe what normal SWAP duty is like. They were overwhelmed by the number of people that showed up for SWAP duty that they ran out of projects to have people work on. A good 50-100 of us were left behind in the jail parking garage, where we were not allowed out, but also had nothing to do. And having nothing to do (we weren’t allowed to bring anything with us besides lunch, a watter bottle, and ID) was a good bit of kind torture to the criminals. The worst of it was how cold it got in the garage, even as it warmed up outside with the sun, only small rays broke through the barred windows. At one point my hands started to turn blue.

We had to stay there from 8am to 4pm. At 8am, everyone lined up and it took a good hour-and-a-half for them to process the masses of about 400-500 people. It wasn’t very clear what was going on until they finally brought out chairs for the remainder of us and all the buses had left. So we wouldn’t be picking up garbage on the side of the road, we’d be in jail, albeit an extra-cold jail with nothing to do. I think jail at least lets you have books and writing equipment. It was an extremely long, cold, boring day, and I get to get up to do it all again tomorrow, not to mention next Saturday and Sunday, and the Saturday after that.

I had more of a post written here but WordPress ate it, so I’ll have to write part 2 tomorrow after I get back from day 2. Maybe I’ll actually get to go out to the field to pick up trash and “work” — the fresh air would be much better than being trapped in a frigid parking garage with nothing to do all day long.

 

 

 

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