BPD & Negative Fantasy

So I went back to try to find out where I’d picked up the oh so helpful phrase “negative fantasy” & there’s not very much out there, I can only assume it was a phrase that Dr Fox used in passing in one of his videos to describe BPD obsessive worry particularly regarding the special person relationship and that whole potential trigger fest.

Not wanting to spook the shift I’ve just made since writing that last blog post but the insight that extreme worry is essentially negative fantasy (and a common BPD compulsion and preoccupation) does seem to have helped me move, so far, so good. It’s a empowering concept that there a choice, that it’s something you are choosing to spend time doing, like positive fantasy is. Of course compulsions don’t have much choice attached by their essential nature but maybe a chink of insight is a way out on this occasion. I hope so.

Its definitely trigger based, there was a rapid fire group of triggers a month ago that I felt couldn’t defend myself from, the pain was like being burnt alive, my nervous system seems to melt, I even got my weird skin pain that I call dysesthesia….  which started after my big Bipolar 1 high in 2016……no it was during the high there were so many weird nervous system sensations during the high that went chronic in the crash.

Anyway, once I was in permanent severe emotional pain resisting a compulsive was not even in the room never mind on the table. In between bouts of pain there is a kind of sorrow & disappointment in myself that I’m wasting my time suffering so badly for no real reason or point when I should absolutely know better…… which paradoxically makes me suffer just enough to fall back down. I should have had help, like in the way AA people look after each other, I should have a BPD mate who knows what’s happening.

If you don’t know what’s happening it just looks like depression but it’s not depression it’s agitated, absolute high anxiety, low mood & yes that famous bpd phrase, frantic efforts to avoid perceived abandonment that are actually the exact opposite. Its a bit like running into a flaming building to avoid a downpour.

Lol 

I can laugh now… which is great.

New insight has reduced overall anxiety levels which is nice but my general sense of confusion and lostness persists.