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.
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
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 💜💜💜💜💜
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.”
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.
