these are both excellent videos
im really looking forwards to the Complex Borderline Personality Disorder book coming early next year
Wednesday, 29 December 2021
Wednesday, 22 December 2021
So, Agitated Depression
I just want to share this book & a video that have helped me - the video just in the last few days & the book way, way back in 2005 when I got very poorly with anorexia, which was due to undiagnosed Bipolar plus BPD essentially.
I had long loooong depressions at that time, 9 months of the year, on my own, endlessly on my own with that & anyway, the book author was with me, it felt, she did good with me. I had that book for consolation in very extreme physical/emotional pain - I really thought I was going to die, I could not eat at all for quite some time. Somehow it turned around & this book was part of that.
The bloody heart pain. That is one of my bad symptoms, one of my really bad pains - that’s why the book title reached out to me - it feels like im physically stabbed through the heart. This video by Dr Fox explains somewhat what’s going on, it is physical, it is constricted heart arteries & BPD people are highly susceptible to it - which is very good to know - it makes it ever so slightly less shit to know BPD folk get this one a lot.
Something has been building for quite some while, all summer i've been actively mitigating hypomania & anxiety whist simultaneously trying to bust through the really stubborn blocks of my agoraphobia & social phobia, with relative success I think.
But it culminated this last week with a kind of confusion explosion. I’d successfully made it to 2 gigs at Plymouth on my own in the last few weeks but I was getting more & more scared of driving to London on my own, with just my dog Connor for support. Yet meeting my oldest friend Annebella at the venue & then to go back to Worthing with her was so very very tantalising.
I wanted to reconnect with her so much. Last time I saw her I’d not long been given my BPD diagnosis, her daughter also has a BPD diagnosis so AB was really brilliant to talk to. I was still very confused & she was great at letting me ramble, I know I was a bit incoherant. She’s a great listener, a precious beautiful lady, a PHd of Art History, a published author, I feel honoured to still have her as a friend, to have managed to not piss her off too badly. She knew me in my early 20’s when I had shorter depressions but was way wild with Hypomania much of the rest of the time.
I’ve been so lonely, for so long, for a best friend, I feel like im dying from not having anyone to play with. We just buried my friend Mary which I got through by the grace of something I don’t really know but thank you! Another old friend stayed here for a few days over the funeral but he didn’t hang out with me very much, obviously he was grieving himself.
So this looming London gig got more & more threatening. I was worried about the cost & the Omicron thing. I emailed the venue on Tuesday & they sent a refund straight away & then I just crashed. I immediately regretted cancelling mostly for not seeing Annebella but also Eddie who I really love & I kept missing all his gigs throughout 2020/21 doing his Charles Dickens thing & every time I missed it I got more frustrated that I must manage to make it despite my agoraphobia & social anxiety.
Its really silly I know but Eddie was in my mind my ‘friend’ during my early mid twenties depressions - his audio tapes & videos where literally one of the only things that made me feel hope or connected or like anyone on earth might understand my strange wonky brain, with his full on, unlimited imagination, I always felt like he would ‘get me’, mentally, I guess thats because I really 'got him' mentally & that was so rare for me when I generally felt I was too hard to understand & too much for most people most of the time.
Even at Marys wake I kept saying things that people didn’t get - I could tell I made people uncomfortable so that made me uncomfortable - I think ive just gone a bit feral from lack of human companionship - a bit more interpersonally/socially weird. Although, Lily's told me to tell people that I have Autism to explain myself a bit/get some leeway & she’s worked with Autistic teens so…….. yes maybe, hmmm?
So I got badly triggered whilst in the height of my confusion about the gig & it went straight to my heart pain with all the inconsolable crying - I had it for many months after my last relationship ended a decade ago - I was waitressing - I used to ask other people if they had ever had this excruciating heart pain that didn't go away for months & months but nobody really related very much as it was so physical.
As ever, I just shut up & put up with it. It went on so long, you just learn to live with stuff but I shouldn’t have really I should have got help. I’m a bugger for not getting help, I mainly don’t think I can afford help, maybe I also think I don’t deserve help, i don’t want to trouble anyone because there will be someone worse off that needs that help, I don’t really know why. Old habits of serious neglect die hard I guess.
I have just had a very tough few days. I disassociate easily I think, which is & mainly isn’t helpful, but is obviously something ive learned to do to cope. The immense fear of staying down & going into a long depression is absolutely terrifying. The dogs proceed to drag me from the house twice a day like the furry determined anti-depressants they are, so thats good, that’s in place, that works.
Ive been being terrible with money all year, in fact my son has now taken my bank cards for safe keeping. Overspending, comfort spending mainly on the way I look which feels so so ridiculous at my age when I don’t go out anywhere there are other people anyway. I see my daughter & granddaughter 2/3 times a week but Lily says my need to talk is too much for her supertired, supersore fibromyalgia plus ptsd/anxiety state she has going on. I see my son & his family maybe once a week but they are flat out in one way or another. I don’t get to talk, I don’t get to explore what’s so stuck with anyone, I have no other close friends or friends who I think would want me.
Im quite a bit better today - a very long FaceTime with Lily yesterday whilst Pan was out & we managed to home in on what my immediate goals actually are….. not easy for either of us as we are very similar in impractical right brain nature, with anxiety & a strong sense of brain damage to our ‘sorting stuff out’ brains. My goals are organising more tangible support & therapies that might help decommission my big trigger stuff (EMDR on NHS for start) - there’s more obv but essentially I do have goals they are just a lot more limited & health based than what most people might think of as goals……. But wtv
Sunday, 28 November 2021
Lost a friend
Well I personally lost her a while ago. I kind of lost her when I had my big high in 2015. That high scared some people & I think it scared Mary.
My beautiful Mary. So I find out today that you died around the full moon, my Taurus friend died around the full moon in Taurus 10 days ago. And I did not even know you had been ill.
I was in love with Mary for years, I would have done anything for her in a quasi platonic-romantic blur kind of way & she knew it, she had a similar effect on many people I think but she wanted & usually had a man in her life though I rarely met them. In BPD terms she was my 'favourite person' for a while - I kind of got addicted to her in a clingy, amplified way. I didn’t know I had BPD then, I just found myself triggered by her, perceiving abandonment that probably wasn’t there all the time, at tiny minor things.
Anyway. I took her to see a brilliant string quartet at the Dartington International Summer School, I think in 2018 - our last date, having not see each other hardly in 3 years she took a long phone call to the boyfriend to talk about some seemingly very mundane matters whilst we were in the queue, in the devastatingly beautiful courtyard of the Hall, lit by summer evening warm light & I felt abandoned (BPD special) & we did not really gel that evening after that.
Sometime since, im not sure when, in the last year I think, we bumped into each other outside the post office & randomly spoke politics due to the handling of the lockdown & Covid etc & to my manifest horror in her absence she had become a Right Wing Boris Johnson supporter to my Real Left Corbynism....... we lasted seconds before I agreed to differ & walked away.
So that was the last time I saw her.
These photos are from earlier when we used to hang out together more - the first 3 are from her birthday in 2012 - she was turning 45
these 2 were from 2011 when her housing situation started to become really shit
this pirate hat one was from 2016, a rare visit, my hat, I used to make everyone who visited wear it, visitors very few & far between then, I was pretty unwell
Gutted, completely gutted, Pancreatic cancer, I would have fought that fucker with you & I might have helped you to win but I guess you did not want to win, I guess you were ready to go, something was so stuck, something had been irretrievably stuck & painful for you for so so long & I know that is exactly when a Soul pulls a lifetime.
She was 54 - 3 months younger than me. Damn it Mare. God damn it.
Tuesday, 16 November 2021
Why I specialize in BPD - Dr Fox
1 min - but for anyone struggling with BPD or friends & family of a sufferer please watch!
I don't have enough words to express my gratitude to this pioneering maverick psychologist who has blown the mysterious world of BPD wide open for so many 💜💜💜💜💜
Wednesday, 10 November 2021
Vienna as Psyche Repair
I’ve already talked a bit about my Vienna trip in 2016 but there’s so much more I’d like to say about it. I’ve not travelled hardly anywhere in my adult life due to mental ill health & mental ill health related poverty to put it bluntly.
I’d had a absolutely classic untreated Bipolar 1 ‘high’ lasting 8/9 months through 2015 (I was undiagnosed)& the dawning awareness of the severity of what was happening & that I was dealing with Bipolar 1 really hit me nearly at the end of that in December 2015 with the horrifying realisation that, if this was the high, excruciating & disorientating that it was….then there inevitably had to be a crash to a low coming at some point.
I was terrified that I’d need hospitalisation to manage the physical pain from the chaotic high speed that my nervous system & brain had achieved & I did not know what to expect as I had never sustained such a long, dramatic high, there had been mostly hypomania in the past to the best of my knowledge, so I’d been more a Bipolar 2 throughout my 20’s & 30’s with excessively long deep depressions. It is known that left untreated it can progress types like that.
I’ve long been mainstream medicine sceptical & them fucking me up badly at this totally vulnerable moment seemed a real possibility. I knew without a shadow of a doubt what I was dealing with now & in my mental mayhem I struggled to concentrate & research what happens when you crash but really there was little information or other people’s personal experience in the same completely unmedicated state that I was in.
I was wolfing down nervous system sedative herbs & amino acids to minimal success as my nervous system was way out of control at this late stage. I think my physical body’s reserves of……..I don’t know what, chi or wtv, I’m sure the loss of all the nutrients that my nervous system was burning like a forest fire was having an big impact too.
I remember some of the crash, it happened over a couple of days in January 2016. It was like the pain in my nervous system, the intense muscular tension & my spiralling brain chaos merged into a plateau made of pain soup & there was a sudden, shuddering collision with a large immovable object that didn’t actually exist. Just like a wall & then you slide to the bottom in a heap, concussed.
My mind was literally like soup, nothing externally made any sense, i couldn’t name objects, I couldn’t complete a statement in my head whist retaining knowledge of how the sentence started, it was completely terrifying. I thought I was probably brain damaged for life now. I couldn’t really move physically except very slowly. I could get to the loo, Lily brought me food but she knew I wanted to see if I could recover on my own. She says I looked very poorly & depressed & was very confused. She had a new job & she was struggling with that & her own things.
Then the hot flushes started. I’d been on a low dose 3% natural progesterone cream for years to manage peri menopause symptoms but it was completely impotent in the battle with my new depleted nervous system. There is an overlap between the endocrine system & the nervous system & women with Bipolar/BPD generally have an abysmal time with pms, pregnancy, menopause stuff.
I’d had a bad time with early onset peri menopause at 42 in 2009 but I’d thought I’d got off with a difficult 3 years but this was epic. I was having hot flushes that really hurt approximately every 10/15 mins but also I had this horrible electrical sensation around my eyes that moved around & made it even harder to focus to talk to other people. Then there was the dyesthesia, which is the nearest word I could find to describe my ‘skin thing’. This was a painful prickly heat thing that was permanently fluctuating up my arms and torso from uncomfortable to fucking painful. It was a bit like being on fire sometimes. I didn’t know what it was & neither did any doctor or mental health professional I described it to. I also suddenly developed intense permanent changeable tones of Tinnitus which was completely new & very depressing in its own right.
All those symptoms arrived with the crash. It’s like the nervous system exhaustion from the high took my Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPA Axis) down with it. Tinnitus has been found to be caused by synapses failing to make their usual connections, it’s literally the sound of brain damage. If I can find the article re: that I will link it, it was fascinating & helped me so much.
I was in a weird blackscape void mostly made of pain.
Gradually over a few days I started slowly regaining physical function & my overriding realisation was that I seriously needed to avoid a depression that matched that high else I’d be dead. My 9 month depressions of my undiagnosed 20’s & 30’s where utterly gruelling & treacherous territory that I would resist returning to with everything I could muster.
I got Dr appoints & CMHT support slowly happened later over the year but right then I needed to do something drastic to prevent depression.
The only person I felt could go any way to save me from a serious depression was Beethoven - I’d been intensively learning his piano sonatas prior to the high so he was very near me in my regrouping psyche. I had pictures of him & my beloved Schubert all over my music room wall, like they were waiting for me to get back to them. To my surprise, I could still read music & doing this became pain relief & time out from the disorganisation & confusion in my head.
I found a website listing all the Beethoven memorable sites in & around Vienna & applied it to my google map on my phone. I’d received some compensation for something so I last-minute booked a flight to be there the eve of my 49 birthday & an air bnb right in the heart of Vienna. Birthdays have often been especially challenging to my lonely confused prediagnosis self & I intended to feel loved or at least in love.
It was really incredibly intrepid & brave of me. I couldn’t navigate the train ticket machine I needed to get into the town until someone helped me. My physical symptoms where relentless but I consoled myself with the fact it was going to be really cold in Vienna in February & that might be good for my hot flushes. Also endless walking the streets distracted by beautiful architecture would have anti-depressant powers. It was so cold, you had to move & moving is so good for brain health.
I arrived after dark 18th Feb & made my way across the town in a taxi utterly charmed & distracted, which I guess was the whole point of this trip.
I will do a part 2 to this hopefully as it was such an important time in my life. A real turning point on every level.
The suffering he endured my LvB, the loneliness, the depression, the rages & feeling misunderstood, the tinnitus, the deafness, the unrequited loves, the relentless physical afflictions he suffered since his late 20’s, he was my soulmate on that trip & he was there for me at every corner & every stop on my Beethoven itinerary & Schubert joined us & we hung out & it worked to keep me here. His endless relentless creative triumph over his suffering insisted that I have strength & though I have nothing like his gifts to bestow on the world, he gave me permission to stay & play, to live through his music, like finding footsteps in woods when you are lost.
And beloved Schubert. I stood outside the house/museum where he had his short illness & died so young & I couldn’t face going inside, I could feel him, his pain & his illness from the street, or so it felt as well as my love & admiration for him. He goes through me, his music goes through me like nature at it’s absolute purist perfection. They are my spirit animals those two, I guess.
Second part later, perhaps.
Sunday, 7 November 2021
Dr Caroline Leaf & Mel Robbins - Self Help High 5
Ive tried to set this to start at 33mins because Caroline does her amazing explanation of mind, brain, soul, self, photons..... anyway is just a beautiful piece of description for about 10 mins.
This whole podcast is very valuable but to really cut a short summary: making a habit of high 5ing yourself in the mirror to replace habitual self criticism appears to cut through the subconscious mind & facilitate a good brain chemistry thereby brain damage repair impulse.
The bit about being stuck in unresolvable argument mode with someone, especially someone important to you, causing brain damage was absolutely fascinating. The point being that we are hardwired to reach an understanding & see the best in others & when this fails with a loved one it results in brain trauma - I can really relate to this as it was my Dad thwarting me mentally at an early age that initiated the emotional blocks that became my Bipolar/BPD I believe.
Thursday, 4 November 2021
My dogs are unwell
Both my dogs are somewhat unwell at the moment but especially little Dylan & I’m really worried about how I will cope with them dying as they are getting on a bit now…… also it’s so hard being woken up at night, it’s so bad for BPD/Bipolar sufferers to have bad night after bad night, it’s so hard to get my Cortisol & Adrenaline under control when the dogs wake me in the night. They are almost my entire support system at the same time as being actually really difficult & problematic, mostly due to breed. Though we’ve had some good progress with behaviour of late, not least helped by Conny wearing a harness to make him a bit more manageable & because I’m more confident when we see other people (he can no longer slip his collar, the rogue that he is) it seems to go better. But yes, poorly animals are nearly as stressful, probably are as stressful as having poorly children. 😣
Dr Fox - The Curse of Loneliness and Borderline Personality Disorder
Of course Dr Fox has a video on just the thing
I think Dr Fox is actually Pluto the planet of transformation in astrology, look see the undeniable similarities 🥰😊
Surely one and the same 🤔💜
“In astrology, Pluto represents rebirth, regeneration and renewal. Pluto symbolizes intense transformations, power struggles and epic journeys to dark places we have long since hidden from ourselves. Pluto brings change.”
Not really about Dylan Moran at all
Dylan Moran turned 50 yesterday so I thought, as my very most favourite comedian I’d like to post a little personal outthink to the artistic & comedic genius in a kind of self absorbed thankyou for all of the psychological relief I’ve received from his work, which has been extensive.
The only time I’ve ever seen him live was when my son surprised me with tickets to see him at the Exeter Phoenix as a small venue warm up show for Off the Hook for my 48 birthday. We were front row & also near the door to ease my social anxiety but also so very near him in such an intimate venue & I was quickly thrown by the absence in myself of physical attraction for him in real life - I had such huge affection for him, i felt such massive psychological rapport so you know, I just assumed that automatically I’d have the most intense romantic feelings for him in physical proximity but they were most distinctly lacking. Not to say he’s not physically an attractive person, of course he is, he’s scrummy on all levels but he just did not, most mercifully I might add, trigger those kind of feelings, instead there was just the most warm appreciation & deep friendliness you can imagine. Still, I remember I was surprised.
It was a relief to find that I did not have any unrequited romantic love for my favourite & a distinctly happily married comedian, those drives in me are more than capable of making me completely insane thanks to BPD’s high capacity for limerence & obsession. The more performers I love that I get to meet as human beings the more i can enjoy a truer appreciation unburden by all the crazy fantasy elements I’m capable of creating, however much fun those can be & they really are.
I have massive problem facing reality I think, maybe it’s too late to change now coming on 55, I don’t know. I think harnessing my overactive imagination for creative purposes is my only hope. I don’t think being less lonely is gonna be easy to manifest in the real world, it doesn’t feel easy to manifest. I was so lonely walking the streets of Vienna on my 49th birthday, following my self made Beethoven & Schubert itinerary the only way to make it bearable was by imagining the two of them with me, you know hanging out with me, my best friends which since then they turned out to be just that, somehow, across the centuries, it was a life saver, my powerful sky high imagination saved my own life that time, when I needed it to most.
There was another Dylan link, Dylan was performing in Vienna the very week I was there but I was too ill to make an independent off itinerary decision, I walked past the theatre a couple of times & felt my oh too familiar sense of intense pressing paranoia (a common BPD trait) along with the completely irrational fear that somehow I’d be made to listen to it in Viennese & that that would have been excruciating …. I don’t know, it was extra money I guess, ultimately it’s just really hard to go to most things on my own, sit down events especially. If I can move about I can expend some of my nervous tension so live music events can be a bit easier for me.
Just speaking out loud which I think is good for me x
Friday, 29 October 2021
Brain Biology & BPD
This is an excellent informative presentation containing lots of info about structural & metabolic differences in the brain of those suffering from BPD. I personally found it really helpful to hear these differences explained as functional disabilities related to social & interpersonal activities- which has been my experience. The researchers seem to specialise in some kind of brain stimulation system called MST & they go on about that towards the end - I feel pretty sceptical myself about what I can gather about this new treatment but there it is. The information on the biology of BPD is explained beautifully so that’s why I’m posting.
Wednesday, 6 October 2021
Dr Daniel Fox - How to Cope with a Child or Partner with BPD
I love Dr Fox so much, these videos are so kind to those of us with BPD - they make me feel so cared about, like I matter, like my stupid overwhelming feelings matter, like people with BPD matter & have a place in the world...... im sure anyone checking out my blog already knows who Dr Fox is - if not prepare to be supported, inspired & comforted.
BPD, Bipolar & Obsession
A post I made on Instagram about always being in love with the singers in my fav bands has triggered a bit of a self enquiry session into my historically intense fangirlness.
Trying to remember the sequence - when did having an obsessional fangirl crush over take actual reality with a real person, because it did & it affected I think 3 big relationships I have had - I do consider the fact that this semi conscious activity of having a huge crush on a celebrity had its place in helping me to cope with some pretty harsh realities but as BPD/Bipolar sufferer I do genuinely loose touch with reality scarily easily.
I had a kind of moderate level crush on a young David Bowie which I used to cope with splitting up with the father of my 2 kids - I used it as a kind of fantasy thing to bounce the pain, to soften it. It was quite minimal that one. But as it was the first one I thought i'd include it. (many other earlier musical crushes but they were not entangled with real relationships)
I developed an enormous crush on a lead singer of a band I loved, really early on in my next relationship with a really fantastic, beautiful & kind, creative guy - I was 25, him a little younger - he took me on with 2 very small kids (and my undiagnosed severe mental illness).
I know that I was just using that crush to try to cope with the real relationship that was so savagely pressing all my BPD buttons: paranoia, jealousy, rage attacks, disassociation, binge drinking alcohol as coping strategy.
Under intense relationship & life stress I managed to make my secret fantasy actually brush with reality & although ‘nothing happened', it was not because I hadn’t wanted it to when I met that crush.
That relationship ended in the most severe tragedy level you can get to without one of us actually dying…… I never really was able to completely forgive myself for things I did……. nor was I ever able to give him some responsibility for some pretty awful abuse which happened.
Similarly during my next boyfriend - over 5 yrs on and off - I had an ongoing fantasy crush with REM's JMS that was pretty intense but stayed well in an occasional fantasy realm; smash glass for emergency use mainly - again it did serve me really well as some kind of refuge when that relationship broke down which was frequently. I used to talk to Michael really a lot when I was depressed for years, I remember. So helpful.
Next 4 yr relationship - I tried to go without a fantasy crush but felt the less for it - no refuge to go to when I felt lost or abandoned which was pretty persistently.
After being single a good few years I had a 2 yr on-off thing with a much younger guy, 20 yrs younger - which was incredibly incredibly difficult - BPD triggers get worse unless you know what’s happening & do active work on them with coping stategies & a therapist etc.
Prior to this i'd had a big big fangirl crush but I had let it go for reasons……..I used my imaginary friendship with that ex-crush to cope with this essentially impossible real relationship - I can’t explain it better that that - full on huh? ;)
So yes its been a helluva long time relying on imaginary friends to get my emotional needs met.
Im loath to make it wrong entirely though - so long as I can keep a foot in reality - its such a relief - imagining having a love relationship that actually works, that acts as a refuge for both people, where problems can get healed rather that resulting in emotional Dresden scenarios…...where great sex doesn’t cost my entire sense of self…… where I can hear opinions I don’t agree with without feeling like ive left the spaceship connected only by a tube.
Anyway, where am I now...... who knows..... but im not in love with all my bands like I was, im not the same as I was pre-menopause or pre-diagnosis. As I keep saying, in mental health 'INSIGHT IS ALL'. Which is despicably completely mysterious until you actually have some.
Oh damn, by way of association that brings me to Hypersexuality - both Bipolar & BPD have extreme libido issues..... that's another blog post entirely - I know, I know its related to this one - I will link them if I ever do write that one! You will most likely know what im talking about if you are a BPD/Bipolar sufferer.
Oh my this will need some editing… wtv
Sorry if its a little stream of consciousness but hey its a blog not a thesis - thx for reading
Monday, 6 September 2021
Saturday, 4 September 2021
Technically Broken
I’ve been battling with multi tech fuck ups, right across the board & I’ve been getting very overwhelmed & I’m not really competent to do anything at all computer wise as I seem to have a really bad deep trauma right on tech trouble, literally it’s burning my nervous system to try & solve. Complete meltdowns.
As a result I’ve been trying…… to achieve a couple of ostensibly simple things…… but literally it makes me so ill…..so
I just wanna go back to analog everything, camera, recording equipment & godamn cd’s to enjoy owning music ones self again, but of course that can’t happen.
So, anyway, I’m just accounting for a certain quietness on social media fronts. I had wanted to upload my harp video to (my little false name, non political) Instagram which is already on here (first post I think) thx to a very old YouTube account, which I can no longer access, for reasons, I couldn’t ever begin to explain.
Erm, I have a copy of that video on my back up drive but then it’s power supply died, I replaced that & now the video is sitting uselessly on a big old iMac that isn’t seeming to back up to iCloud in any intelligible or reliable way. It’s achieving kind of sporadic link up like on just pagan holy days or something.
Essentially everything is a mess to do with iCloud & I’m too demoralised to pay for professional help right now.
So that’s screwed with my autistic/ocd need to finish up the past before feeling able to look at anything new, future recordings or videos, sad but true, my brain is not ok, tech is a big issue.
Not letting tech frustration kill me is totally my top priority. I would happily not do anything with vid, photos, recording ever but it seems a shame when I can play 3 instruments ok enough & sing not to create some sort of content……
Hmmm we may see, or we may not.
Thursday, 2 September 2021
Yuga- Chopin Encore
Friday, 20 August 2021
BPD - Book of Love by Dr Fox
I think this is brilliant & a very hopeful, uplifting & insightful take on dating that EVERYBODY could learn something from but especially us with BPD. I am literally someone who starts to discuss trauma with strangers passing me in the street.
Wisely, I took myself off the market in regards to relationship & dating a decade ago now so as to spare myself excruciating BPD relationship triggers & trauma multipliers. Does this make me want to change my solo world, well, no. But its nice to have the information as always. Hopefully younger people with BPD can benefit much from it.
Wednesday, 18 August 2021
Manic Depression or BPD
On the face of it, determining the difference between Bipolar 1, Bipolar 2, the more obscure Bipolar Mixed State versions and Borderline Personality Disorder looks tricky.
From the inside, for myself this is not at all tricky. Having Bipolar 1 is the Classic old school expression of the condition, around since time in memoria, Manic Depression that charts a very clear course if not managed & thwarted in some way, (heavy duty pharmaceuticals being historically the most common form of management) worsening over the span of a life due to what is called the kindling effect of previous episodes.
The other variants, somewhat more modern descriptors but I think useful *are* more confusable with BPD but the over arching distinguishing factor is the inter-personal destruction. That is *first*, that is the most primary hallmark in BPD, plus excessive rage & self destructive frustration. Having overwhelming, difficult to control anger, emotional toxicity & awful behaviour such as burning relationship bridges is 90% a BPD thing in my opinion.
Bipolar episodes in my life have been triggered when my BPD emotional dysregulation drives loved ones to reject me, leave me, react in an unloving way due to my difficult behaviour.
For me, a Bipolar swing from neutral takes a lot of externals to set in motion. A major relationship breakdown, a relentless series of smaller scale disappointments, the cumulative affect of feeling that I’m endlessly failing at something important, the frustration of that, endlessly feeling misunderstood or thwarted.
These things have sent me to either pole, High & Low, in the past, sometimes fast, sometime took a while. If you remember that I was told there was essentially *nothing wrong* with me by a Psychiatrist in 2007 when I was anorexic & believed I had an entity! People with big qualifications seem so trustworthy, but I had gone in there 95% sure that I had Bipolar (plus an entity) to be floored when he laughed at my descriptions. Having enough insight to communicate accurately to another person what’s really really happening is the hardest thing of all with mental health dysfunction.
Throughout my 20’s/30’s GP’s repeatedly said similar when I presented with the endless yawning chasm of depression & suicidal ideation. On a hyper manic (this is a limited mania) I was having a great time, having a ton of amazing sex, usually trying to get a band together, binge drinking alcohol to blow myself up & bring myself down a bit, until the real world chaos I was creating came back & bit me on the bum. Also, the physical neglect of a Hypermania inevitably results in a crash to a low. How serious a low depended, for me, on external support & circumstances, ie how much had survived my behaviour.
Self Insight is literally god in mental health awareness, we have to grow our insight into our states, behaviours, triggers, habits of thought etc. Having the incredible benefit of my twin diagnosis since 2019 to overview my life is like been handed the owners manual to my brain, mind & nervous system.
BPD is a daily struggle with oversized emotional reactivity to triggers, especially interpersonal but identity stuff can trip me up too & completely mysteriously, just walking into a room can make me disassociate in the most baffling way & which can take all day to recover from. I have days when I’m tired & my eyes just stream like I’m dumping neurotransmitter waste materials, I have days when everything is so vulnerable & tender that I burst into tears at the slightest thing.
Sleep problems are for me mainly on the Bipolar side, Bipolar for me is a lot, if not entirely about Dopamine & I guard my Dopamine receptors with a small army of Elves. 🧝♀️
Dopamine is the motivational reward neurotransmitter, so sex, hot music, exercise, sugar, carbs etc all increase Dopamine in the brain which gives you the energy, direction, enthusiasm to persue stuff. The absence of Dopamine is truly horrible, nothing has value, attraction, interest, there is *no* physical energy to push with, it’s a very believably incapacitated state & other people, perhaps bringing a little Oxytocin, are often necessary to help break out of this.
With a true Bipolar 1 Low, the longevity of the thing, in my own experience, grew to such monolithic proportions, 9 months out of 12 every year at age 30. My stomach sinks to remember losing whole summers to being bed bound & toxic, alone & apparently unacceptable, unloved, unwanted. Bipolar 1 Low causes significant brain damage, as does Bipolar 1 High.
I have not had a Low like that since I got my dogs. The last decade I’ve used dog power to shift my ass up that hill. It was a gamble & I think it worked. There were costs, but overall it worked. BPD low is not the same. In my experience, BPD low is a lower case low, it has light still entering through beautiful but sad stained glass windows, it is not destroyed to the ground, some structures still remain standing with which to rebuild from. It’s fucking lonely yes, it’s a bit hopeless, it has a core sense of despair attendant with it, like fuck I’m never ever going to be able to get my needs met, but there’s some acceptance of attempting to live with that rather than to escape from this life entirely as with Bipolar 1 Low, which has already walked, wants out & does not really give a fuck about that either.
BPD high, too, is a lower case, shorter duration Dopamine play date. They are quite nice to be honest compared to the personal demolition of a full classic Bipolar 1 High, they are really nice, they are a lot of fun perhaps a bit over the top but the place isn’t trashed & you can still find your car keys afterwards. Post high in 2016 I could not cognitize hardly any written information at all & my short term memory was shot, making very much ordinary life things extremely difficult. Imagine filling in a benefits claim form in that state. Surprisingly, & so welcome, I was still able to read sheet music to piano which was my best friend & healer.
Phew. I’m gonna edit this in situ but I think I’ve said what I wanted to say.
So this is just the distinction, as I see & feel it between two commonly confused severe mental health conditions that are now known pretty conclusively to be very distinct from each other & have a very very different cause, basis, expression & most importantly treatment.
Lots of Love
Feel free to comment won’t you, I don’t bite ♥️💜💕💕💕🧝♀️
Sunday, 15 August 2021
What is BPD and Its Cause - Dr Daniel Fox
this is 10 mins long & could save your life or the life of someone you know
Fox Rocks!
Wednesday, 11 August 2021
BPD - Do Things Change or Stay the Same? (challenging the myths)
Wonderful, concise general purpose info from Dr Fox - challenging the myths
some of the comments
Monday, 26 July 2021
The 4 Main Trauma Responses - Dr Caroline Leaf Podcast 302
This is very info dense but cut it into small portions if necessary - She’s brilliant 💗
Wednesday, 21 July 2021
4 things to know about BPD
I love this but it makes me sad……. It’s so simple & so obvious yet BPD has been in the shadows ruining life’s, friendships, relationships. Mine own, to be sure.
I realised I did a clever thing in isolating, it was top self preservation, everything hurt so much, I didn’t have much choice but it’s how I’ve learnt to be more comfortable being alone which is one of the classic BPD indicators (not being able to be alone). By limiting my exposure to others I’ve limited the risky coming together & parting again natural cycle that magnifies our aloneness, so excruciating, so wildly triggering with attendant fears of &/or actual false perception of rejection or even actual real world rejection risks at every juncture.
and this one by same channel is quite neat & useful too
I lose concentration so easily, whilst I was watching it I was thinking, oh I will comment on this and that & now a few mins later I can’t remember what, I’d have to watch it again. So I will let it speak for itself.
One thing that’s salient though is the fact that different sufferers will have very much more of one symptom & little or none of another. For instance I don’t relate at all to the symptom of feeling very empty, ever, I am never bored, I have far too much going on internally to be bored but I do get very easily overwhelmed & I do very easily disassociate, lose time & feel mentally very confused.
So funny, watching it again & I keep disassociating at ‘trust issues’ 3 times I tried to watch that bit lol 😂
Sunday, 18 July 2021
Untitled
I’m alway chuffed when *I don’t feel* I look like complete crap in a photo - wearing a wet cloth prob a bit suss tho 🙌🌞🙏
Dr Fox - BPD Does & Don’t
This might seem too oversimplified but I do just love Daniels calm reassuring delivery
I didn’t like the ‘fat cat I’ve been feeding’ analogy but I guess…… my thing is avoidant, I haven’t been feeding it but I’ve been allowing it to sit in the corner staring at me ominously, making healing & changing & everything seem impossible. To be fair I did not know what it was for so long that I think to have survived so long without diagnosis, validation or support is a goddamn miracle tbh 💗✊
When I got my BPD Diagnosis
I thought to share about getting diagnosed, coming up to 2 years ago now. I had been receiving regular support from the local Community Mental Health Team since my Bipolar 1 diagnosis in 2016 & my support person just out of the blue said we have an appointment with the Psychiatrist for you, I was confused, these are really really hard to get on the NHS & I hadn’t asked for one, I assumed that they were going to confirm or change my original earlier diagnosis which I wasn’t really happy about that being interfered with at all, after it had taken so long to get it.
I generally suffer a pretty constant level of white noise with almost constant anxiety making it hard to think clearly & decision making frequently impossible & to be honest, pretty much everything is majorly stressful under those conditions.
I went to the appointment with my support person & immediately hit a wall of terror, absolutely helplessness like the floor had gone. It was a new psychiatrist who I’d never spoken to which was like handing yourself over to a stranger to decide if you live or die. Literally a visceral thumbs up or down Roman Emperor moment it felt like.
The physical tension from the stress in my neck shoulders & upper body was excruciating, I did not feel entirely in my body, I could barely follow what was being said but I was becoming increasingly paranoid that they wanted to take my Bipolar diagnosis away & replace it with BPD which I knew very little about.
I fought to keep my original diagnosis desperately, not fully able to follow what they were saying.
After the 40 min appointment I went home & put myself to bed, absolutely baffled by what had just happened, I felt like I’d been on a spin cycle in a washing machine for an entire weekend. I proceeded to have a headache for nearly a week during which I managed to write an extended complaint about the psychiatrist to my GP.
Gradually I came to understand that I had a very distorted perception of what had actually happened, the psychiatrist had been adding BPD & not removing Bipolar, I had been so intensely paranoid I had misunderstood the outcome completely.
I started to research BPD & rejected the possibility entirely for weeks. Over time, I read more & I found that 10% bipolar also have BPD & that it’s really hard to see the latter when the former is activated at either pole.
In all, I think it took me about 3 months to fully accept the additional diagnosis and from that point forwards it has been the most helpful thing that’s happened in decades of interpersonal trauma & general dysfunction caused by my unrecognised mental illness.
Validation. It’s been hugely validating to know that I was not making it up, or exaggerating for manipulative effect. That the terrifically bad choices I kept making where the result of a brain based reactivity that was intrinsically baffling & believable & also sought to make trouble I believe, as a kind of self harm because I couldn’t work out how to make this damn disassociated thing float, not in any helpful of useful life affirming way anyway.
The most painful of the Mental Illnesses, BPD, deserves much much more recognition & respect for the devastation it causes in full flow without recognition but also to the tragic 1 in 10 suicide rate that is associated with this difficult of difficult mental illnesses. 💕
Made of Millions
https://www.madeofmillions.com/conditions/borderline-personality-disorder
Enjoyed this page & looking around the main website, very impressive push going on here to educate & reduce stigma & extend a supporting hand. Also with a live-streaming content programme. 👍
Saturday, 17 July 2021
Life with Borderline Personality Disorder - Short Film, BBC Stories
This is lovely to watch as a sufferer. I have never self harmed in the more well known ways which I think delayed getting a diagnosis significantly. I did have disordered eating for a very long time though which can often be an expression of self harm.
It’s so easy to see how lovely many people with BPD are underneath all that intense suffering & frustration about intense suffering.
Rosie describe BPD emotion as like being electrocuted & I find that the most brilliant & accurate description I have heard, it gives me heart that I am not alone in this excruciating level of emotional dysfunction.
We are lovable. 💕
Amazing Virtual Reality Self Interpretation of BPD
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/clip/4ca40af3-50a0-433b-b632-70a94f68b507
This is an extraordinarily deep interpretation & expression of what it can be like to live with BPD 👏👏🙌🙏
There are lots & lots of variations in individual experience. I love to see this though, I feel less mad/crazy seeing this 💕
Attachment Styles and Borderline Personality Disorder
All & any insight is helpful & will help us heal 💕 when I’m feeling crap I try to research because I can’t think straight in my own mind but hearing objective sense can really help.
Thursday, 15 July 2021
I hate you, don't leave me - BPD Articles
https://mental-health-matters.com/borderline-personality-and-abuse/
Be warned that the second article is particularly heavy & kind of heavy going at the same time, but I think both offer really important insight.💗💕
Sunday, 11 July 2021
31 Natural Factors that May Increase Myelin
https://selfhacked.com/blog/myelin/
Excellent!
There is now much research being done into understanding of the distinct connection between reduced Myelin sheathing in certain areas of the brain & the severe mental illnesses.
This is a brilliant article listing some natural ways of potentially stimulating an increase of Myelin in the brain 🙌
Brain Food for Mental Health
https://centerfordiscovery.com/blog/brain-food-mental-health/
Neat little article - although I find the inclusion of carbs a bit confusing - as a protein type I feel better running on protein & get blood sugar problems without it…..anyway
“Nutritional neuroscience is an emerging discipline that is opening the doors and shedding light that nutritional factors are directly connected with human cognition, behavior, and emotions. Changes in brain signal transmission at the level of a chemical synapse are essential in the development of mental disorders or a change in a neurotransmitter’s chemical structure, or an imbalance at any point in this complex process may affect emotions, moods, thoughts, and behaviors. Mental health status can be a direct result of the interaction of different factors leading to malfunction of certain brain chemicals neurotransmitters which leads to the development of mental illness. Deficiencies in neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, nor adrenaline, and γ amino butyric acid (GABA) are often associated with depression.
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