New Blogger Sonja Mynd

So I’ve decided to begin again, anew over at https://sonjamynd.blogspot.com/

Just for my self, for my sense of organisation & being a bit of a new self with my new Neurodiverse diagnoses - and it just feels right. Feel free to join me there. 😘

Sense of Self in BPD in Remission

Oh what a happy title to be able to write. Hard won, so hard won. So i've been pondering the implications of having BPD in remission on my internal sense of self now compared with back in the day when I lived in an undiagnosed constant BPD haze, a fug of dysphoric mind stuff with attendant on-edge reactivity.

Being so much in the clear atm the difference is as night to day & though im always open to being wrong im feeling very much that what we call our sense of self, in the final analysis, after all the extraneous crap is out of the way will be found to be the simple yet hard won matter of being connected to the subtle compass of our real feeling self. The still small voice they call it although to me its is more a dictionary of subtle feeling in the body.

This is the true self as far as I am concerned & in BPD especially with its dysphoric pall of emotio-sensory discomfort but also Bipolar with so much distraction & loud nervous system dysfunction, it is very very hard to feel/hear, hence the famous disconnect.

The hard won part is simply that much of the trauma body accompanying, likely actually the cause of & main constituent part of severe mental conditions such as I suffer, that layer must be felt unconditionally in order to heal it. This is no small order when, as is often the case, disassociation/depersonalisation tendencies are baked in to most trauma bodies.

The reason ive been pondering this is because I keep hearing folk talk about Personality Disorders & saying well it's your personality what can you do? So this is not my experience at all. I do not relate to the dysphoric, reactionary elements of myself as being an intrinsic part of my personality but rather they are a part of my illness. The complication is when you are living under the pall of a condition for a very long time without identifying it as separate from yourself, which seems to be what a lot of people are doing. 

So I mean, you are owning these broken, damaged energies, holding them up as representing you internally when you don't need to, imo, you just need to become aware of the thought forms & urges & observe. I had a non action clause for a long time because I knew my urges were out of whack with who I wanted to be. Non action is easier than better action I found so it was a neutral & a missed gain but better than a loss which might capitulate.

I mean there's a subtle rub here, that broken energy is you, was you & you must reintegrate it into yourself, you must hold it in a maternal level of conscious awareness without resentment to be whole & well but it does not represent you, it represents harm that was done to you. It represents energy that fractured into unconsciousness in order to save the rest of you.

So, can Personality Disorders heal? Absolutely. But first you have to become aware of when your PD is not in charge & when it is & develop the wisdom on a daily to know the difference. 

That's my ten pence worth - have at it ;)

Scorpio New Moon & Solar Eclipse ( tomorrow)

 https://www.elephantjournal.com/2019/03/what-the-f-is-a-soul-tie-and-why-should-i-care/

https://cafeastrology.com/events/new-moon-solar-eclipse-on-october-25-2022/

I realised recently that Im not attached to any of my exes, not even slightly, not in a bad way just a cool calm way, a good way…….well it’s been a very long time for sure but I remembered that due to the overwhelming BPD pain of abandonment & awful obsessive preoccupation with the ex when a relationship ended I was super keen to practice cord cutting within quite a short space of time just to reclaim some energy back for myself…. I mean after all, predominantly they were doing pretty well in life post relationship compared to the nervous wreckage I always ended up in…… so I genuinely did not want to be funding their ongoing success with my own energy on any level at all when I needed it so badly myself ….. also periodically I would check for & delete cords, the feeling of attachment to exes on a regular & ongoing basis. 

I think this astrological moment is perfect to do some work on unwanted energetic attachments.

I used to make up my own, being strong on the visualisation front, I would tend to do internal versions of the common external ritual exercises….. personally I’m not big on rituals but you just do what speaks to you.

Can’t Concentrate

I can’t concentrate. I want to share all sorts of things but I can’t concentrate & I’ve got sensory overwhelm  like I’m on the Autistic Spectrum, which is actually a possibility, kind of mild Atypical Autism or something, it’s always been a possibility but with so much already in my nervous system picture it’s kind of ffs, really do I have to go there too wtf.

So ADHD is extremely frustrating on the concentration front when it is, awful. Anyway. Just checking in to say there’s lots I want to say, lots I wish I could say. 💗

Having the Language in Mental health

I just wanted to mention this as it’s so important. Frankly, I believe that not being able to describe your experience is the main reason that people are unable to get the diagnoses & thus the help they deserve. It certainly was in my case.

For example, I had never heard the phrase ‘dissociation’ or really understood the state it referred to until looking into BPD post diagnosis & it leapt off the page as an identifier for a state that I’d regularly been in, unable to function normally, losing many hours to a semi-embodied state…. kind of….. not knowing what the heck it was or why it was or what triggered it or even if my perception of it was in any way real or substantial… that’s a lot isn’t it…But it’s intrinsic to severe states of mental illness, the insubstantiality of insight, the fact that being dissociative will often be accompanied by paranoia which restricts insight even more.

Since learning about Dissociation my experience of it has substantially abated, to the extent that I’d say I’d only expect to have in in very very extreme circumstances, like meeting a hero or having a car crash etc whereas I used to have it randomly in the house when I was alone without any sort of reason or warning it seemed.

Becoming educated to the language descriptors for all of my/your conditions, traits of conditions is probably more accurate for me now, well, is crucial to anyone having problems with their mood regulation or their negativity or managing stress etc as it’s the bridge to beginning to explain & then to getting help.

Another bit of language that was helpful to me was ‘emotional dysregulation’, it’s a brilliant phrase because it removes the woolly edges away from people who talk about mood as if it was just clouds passing by in the sky rather than the big bastard weather fronts of being really ill with BPD or Bipolar. It’s been incredibly helpful to me just to discern where I am in terms of mental wellness, how much bounce my emotions have, how fast I return to okness after an upset.

Very often an over simplified mainstream mental health perspective doesn’t give you the language you need to explain a complicated ongoing situation, you have to study your conditions, bunches of traits definitely count & become your own expert, especially as the NHS is so depleted & underfunded now. Much of the natural mental health, nervous system free resources available on YouTube Etc are profoundly helpful & easy to find. Become your own expert. 

Post Menopause & Exercise - Debra Atkinson

Describing how older people of both genders are often thwarted from their fitness goals when commonly trainers are using work out regimes that are actually designed on research focused on young men at their hormonal early twenties peak. Debra is an fitness & exercise specialist who describes what the post-menopausal body needs to thrive. 

Fit n fitter - I Shouldn't Really Be Here

I’m really quite physically fit, fitter than I’ve ever been amazingly but over 50 I do accept that my tummy is now doing it’s own thing to quite a large degree now…. Unconnected to exercise or calorific intake…. just off in its own apparently…. lol 

No it’s lovely 🥰 I’ve worked really hard to achieve even this & it’s lovely…… Gratuitous bikini pix to you. 

If you’ve suffered severe mental health problems & you make it past 40 you’ve done so amazingly well - the stats are clear…. My imaginary autobiography would be called “I shouldn’t really be here”. If you add up the life years lost to each of my conditions it adds up, using the max stat for each condition to exaggerate for effect…… to almost all of my mad massive 55 years that I’ve achieved

ADHD loses you between 11-13 yrs of life when still active in adulthood, with women disproportionately more likely to die from accident….(that’s very ADD)

BPD = a risk of 15-20 yrs lost and Bipolar 1 can lose you 11-20 from the average life expectancy.

I know that’s a overdramatic way of viewing it but I’ve used it for affect…. The overall average for severe mental illness is about 10 yrs lost….but it’s the quality of life lost thats the real disaster for all mental illness imo…..the suffering, the loneliness, the low self esteem…. that’s what’s really tough…..be kind to yourself for gods sake & practice having your own back for when no one else does. 💜🙌