A part of being me is a whole load of resentments. They range from little things all the way to life changing things. One thing all my resentments have in common is they overwhelm me. We all resent something, be it getting up solely to go to work when the bed is nice and warm and the day is cold, or that our government sees fit to spend our taxes on funding wars in places where we shouldn't have stuck our noses in in the first place. Most people go through their everyday lives giving their resentments very little thought and just air them once in a while with friends over drinks on a Friday evening.
Some resentments fester, they grow like a tumour of the mind eating away at all the positive thoughts and tainting everyday life. A lot of relationships are destroyed by resentment. Something that was endearing at the beginning of a relationship may become a bone of contention a few years down the line. That little hiccough-burp you thought was so cute grates on your nerves because it happens all the time. The forgotten spoonful of sugar in your cup of tea that you found silly in the beginning becomes annoying when you have taken that first mouthful yet again expecting a taste that never came. Divorces have been granted because the toothpaste tube was squeezed in the wrong manner causing the offended party to become acutely depressed.
Resentments need air time. They need addressing. You have to accept you are resentful of something or someone, ask yourself why you feel resentful and learn to forgive yourself for feeling that way. Feelings are real, they are never stupid, perhaps overwhelming, perhaps different from someone else's in the same situation but never stupid. Your feelings are there for a reason, they tip you off about your current circumstances and whether they are healthy. Some mental ill health conditions can change your perspectives and so your feelings seem inappropriate, or too overwhelming, but those feelings are still a valid representation of you. Always listen to your feelings, always work out which emotions are causing those feelings and then work out why you are experiencing those emotions. Does the situation you are in warrant these feelings or the depths to which you feel them? If so then change your situation, if not then challenge your interpretation, but forgive yourself when you think you are feeling something inappropriately, there is a reason why you feel that way.
I have many, many resentments because of my own mental ill health. My biggest resentment is that I work so hard everyday to keep a positive attitude and people can be so negative around me, I then resent having to positive for them too. It's an irrational one in my own opinion. People have a right to speak their negative feelings, to be negative for a little while, I just find it tiring to deal with. If I want to stay positive I have to negate their negativity and it's hard work. I resent having to put in so much effort to make someone feel better just to make sure I don't start feeling bad, but then I feel bad anyway because I feel resentful.
My resentment is my own just as yours is yours to own. To keep ourselves sane we must let go of our resentments. If they are to do with a relationship and wish for that relationship to continue we must find a way to forgive ourselves of our resentments and work on how to not feel resentful of certain things. Is it something the other person need to change, would that be a reasonable request? Is it something we need to change our perspective on? Are we seeing the situation with empathy and understanding of the other person? Are we asking too much of ourselves or the other person? If you don't see the relationship surviving don't wait for the resentments to make you bitter, move on.
An ex-boyfriend's brother said of me that I would never amount to anything. I was already a mother when he said this so I knew he was talking out of his rear end. But it got me thinking about the way people rate each other and how I rate myself. He meant that I would be unlikely to hold down a job, that I would never make a name for myself in the world of employment. But then again, how many of us actually ever do? Does the best shelf-stacker in the world get publicly commended for their work, or do they melt into obscurity after a brief announcement of recognition from their boss and a minuscule pay rise? Does the architect of the first World Trade Centre get his fame from building the towers or from them having toppled?
I want to become economically active, I want to contribute my family's financial income. I am not in control of my illness enough for it to work outside of the home and I haven't the qualifications to take on many of the stay-at-home jobs on offer. If I am exposed to social situations for long periods of time I crack under the pressure, I become confused and angry, I lose motivation and need constant supervision. One of the therapeutic techniques for overcoming anxieties is exposure, so for the past 12 years I have subjected myself to walking from my house to our local supermarket, interacting with the people that I meet and trying to hold my concentration to get the shopping that I need. I still feel as nervous as I ever did, I still have the same panic attacks as I had 12 years ago, I still forget key items off my shopping list even if I have the written list in front of me. I get home, I have a cigarette, I pour some coffee and work on what little mindfulness training I have managed to forge for myself through years of research to calm back down. Slowly the heart palpitations dissipate, slowly the fog in my mind clears, slowly the dissociation takes me from feeling like I am wading through a lucid dream to high definition reality. Then I have the exhaustion to cope with, I normally just want to take a nap, but my mind is working so quickly with so many thoughts that I cannot find sleep. If I can't cope with basic shopping how am I supposed to cope within an environment of employment?
My fiancé works as an adult tutor. I have helped him write a couple of courses in the comfort of our own home. The simple task of finding assessment methods and putting the ideas to paper takes me several hours, numerous coffee and cigarette breaks and a few breakdowns as I can't do what I want to do perfectly and feel like I am letting him down. Either that or I can't understand what he is asking for, no matter how many times I ask and how many different ways he explains it to me he still ends up spending the majority of the time hovering over my shoulder as I ask for validation on almost every word I type. I inevitably end up in tears at some point, call him all the names under the sun and collapse with exhaustion before I have finished, with hours more work left to do that he manages to finish off in an hour or so once he's finished doing the bit he needed to do. The following morning I ask if I actually managed to help, the answer is always yes. It may have taken me 4 hours to do work that would have taken him 2, but in that time I saved him 2 hours of work. He honestly thinks that my diligence and attention to detail makes my work more enriched than anything he would have managed to achieve. My blood sweat and tears are worth it, but in the world of employment, impractical.
I also have an issue with the people who decide whether I am well enough to work or if I am ill enough to qualify for benefits. I present my case, how my illness affects me and those around me, how employment breaks me and I can't even hold down voluntary work for very long unless I only have to do an hour maybe 2 a week. At minimum wage the most I could earn for a salary would be £656.24 per annum. Well that's Christmas and few birthdays paid for...
It would be nice to get some more qualifications, there are distance learning courses to do online and in your own time. I signed up to a free one, an 8 week course of online lectures and just stuff to write up and submit. I didn't get round to it, just looking at the email telling me the new week's lectures were up caused a wave of nauseous anxiety. I have managed to do a few community courses in the last 12 years, one since my diagnosis, qualifying me as a breastfeeding peer supporter. Unfortunately I haven't finished going through the volunteer process because I need my psychiatrist to clear me as able to cope with 4 hours of voluntary work a month. Hang on a minute, I spent two hours in a court room pleading with two professionals that I wasn't capable of work yet and to please make the government pay my national insurance contributions so I don't miss out on the state pension at retirement age, if I live that long!
But I want to work, I don't want to be a benefit scrounger for the rest of my life, I want to stop feeling like an economic failure. Is there no business out there that needs a proof reader for a couple of hours twice a week to send their paperwork to? Is there nowhere that needs someone to admin or moderate a business forum? Does no one want someone who can organise social media advertising for them? I can't organise databases, I can't play with spreadsheets, I have been taught how to use excel and access many times and I still can't do it. I haven't yet played with Photoshop so photo editing isn't a viable option.
Ah well, little madam gets into the community nursery in January so I'll try looking at my options again then. Until then I'll just try and get sufficient content in my blog for AdSense to take me seriously and hope I can generate enough pennies to buy my kids some sweets at the end of the month as a treat for just being them!
I have Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and I hate it! I got the diagnosis 7 years ago amid one of the worst times in my life. The diagnosis gave me a lot of relief, I wasn't just going mad, I had a real illness that could be controlled, with help.
I was started on medication and put on the waiting list for therapy and so my journey to recovery began. I started seeing a clinical psychologist who worked on my schemas, she helped me learn to rationalise and put things in perspective. We drew up a timeline and explored my core beliefs, I didn't even think I had those hidden depths! I moved on then to have a Community Psychiatric nurse who came to see me at home, we didn't really do much therapying, more exploring my thoughts and feelings in a real world setting. I got mental health support workers who'd drop in to my home to see me, offer some motivation and keep a track record of my ups and downs so that I could be monitored for an upcoming major crisis or depression. I now have a Recovery Nurse that comes to see me every month and two support workers who alternate each week once a week. I did attend an Anxiety Management course during the later stages of my 4th pregnancy, and to be really honest, it was a load of crap, I knew more about anxiety management than the person holding the course!
So here I am, 7 years later, living with Borderline Personality Disorder. I was diagnosed with Dyscalculia (numerical Dyslexia) and Dyspraxia (co-ordination processing disorder) when I was 17 and failing my first year of A-levels for the second time. As an Introverted person I suffer from extreme Social Anxiety that I can't control at times. I also have an unofficial diagnosis of Auditory Processing Disorder to go along with my poor hearing. Oh yes, and I have osteoarthritis. Basically I'm falling apart both mentally and physically. But it's OK, I'm still here and my children and fiancé love me, I have a mum and dad that are proud of me, a little sister who doesn't need me any more because she's all grown up and trusts us to be OK a few thousand miles apart, we actually found our way back to each other just before she left for the States, it's all good. I have a Grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins just a phone call or a social media message away. I have made friends! I have discovered friends I made in school who still think I'm alright, who always thought I was alright. I have even become close acquaintances with people who thought I was decidedly odd in school.
One of my stumbling blocks to recovery is this damned intelligence I have. Academically speaking I am highly intelligent. I can learn almost anything and apply it to everyday life, my common sense is a bit of a let down, I seem to have the creativity of an amoeba that suddenly flares to that of super nova intensity for all of a few minutes and then exhausts me. I don't know what motivation is other than a chore... But I know it all, there are days I wish for ignorance, not knowing would hurt so much less. Not understanding would motivate me because it wouldn't seem so god-damned hopeless. Knowing that some of my illness is physiological and that no amount of therapy or medication will rewire my brain is frustrating to the extreme.
As a Borderline I have a screwy Hippocampal to Amygdala communication. I am constantly in Fight, Flight, Flock and Freeze mode, did you know you can manage to combine a few of those in one go in a crisis!? Every emotion I have is extreme, I don't know what mild embarrassment feels like I go immediately to shame and humiliation. And then I can't calm down. Some one recently compared a Borderline to an old fashioned whistling kettle you boil on a burner. It whistles when it boils so you take it off the heat but the whistling doesn't cease for a while afterwards. Many Borderlines self-harm to release those overwhelming feelings. This is something I used to do by cutting myself just a little. And then I realised I could make everything stop if I cut deeper and that's when the suicide attempts started. These were not cries for attention or help, just wanting it to stop, to go away!
These days I just muddle on through the best I can. I have a wonderful fiancé who understands that it's hard for me to even get out of bed. It's not that he's not good enough for me, it's not that his love and patience can't break through the veil of stress and depression. It can and does or I wouldn't get out of bed, but for the need to look after the children. He takes those metaphorical steps backward from my tantrums, sees through to the core of the rage, it's not the personal stuff that's spewing out of my mouth, it's the emotional stew boiling over my too small pot. He's not superman, he gets hurt by what I do and say from time to time, he argues back and steps over the threshold of my stress tolerance level making me go bang. But he's still here, he's still right beside me fighting for my recovery, whatever that means. The man deserves a medal, hell he deserves and OBE! And me? Well my next step is some Mindfulness training. I will always have to contend with the overwhelming feelings and emotions, I will always have to bite my tongue, I will always have to force myself to think positively, so I will always be exhausted. But life is worth it now. I know I have friends and family that would miss me if I wasn't here. I have accumulated vast amounts of knowledge in certain areas that I can impart for the betterment of others. I have training that can make a difference in other people's lives and I have the opportunity to use it. I have people that are proud enough of me to make me proud of myself. I have a decent network of very strange people that make me feel normal. Together we'll all make it through our own personal struggles that we face every day. All I can say to those of you helping me through mine is thank you, I appreciate you, crappy song swaps and all, OK, Ke$ha's not too bad! Give yourselves all a big virtual hug from me and remember I'll be here for you too.
