Instinctively I think there is a pure need to connect. A drive to figure out a way back to where we are most comfortable. To be understood. respected. loved. those are all pretty basic needs. Often an oversight until they aren’t there, either because they are in fact gone or because our mind deceives us into thinking they are. I’ve spent a long week or so fighting to find my footing and scrambling to make sense of it. It has become a teeter table. A steady back and forth between rational thought and irrational fear. Within the back and forth there are the emotions one might associate with fear and worry. Further there are feelings and impulses that seem to be operating in a very different privative realm. I should say I use the word for lack of a better one. These emotions and reactions flow as if from a broken pipe not a partially open spigot. There is a huge difference. I, in the years sitting and listening/ sharing come to accept my vulnerabilities. I may not know them all but I have earmarked quite a few and know when to erect a defense before I get leveled. This is different. This is being battered from storm I little understand though clearly grasp the severity.

I fought hard to shake off the diagnosis of Borderline. Never accepted it. Walked away from my DBT experience and hospitalization at more of a dead run than a walk. It unleashes a hellish desire to defend myself just to think about that time and that dx. Sadly the events of this past week have made me feel more like a borderline than I ever felt in all those years. It is horrifying to me on so many levels. Were all those doctors and therapists right? sure feels that way. I know that sounds terrible but I think I need to say in my defense I only saw BPD at its most severe. In seeing that and living it I have a very clear panic response when labelled as such. I lay the template of all I saw and came to understand and lay it over me it causes such fear and discomfort. so as wage a war with all these emotions buffeting me I can only wonder why now? How could I have put together a life worth living. Created a strong, albeit with issues, relationship that has lasted. As I saw it in the beginning that was doubtful. I returned to school. I stayed out of the hospital. I did all the things they said I couldn’t do. I proved them wrong. I was not a borderline. In the almost 20 years since I have grappled with deep dark depressions and many episodes of suicidal ideation. They were not fast moving like this, more a smoldering slow moving fire as opposed to this raging brush fire. This is evolving from somewhere deeper and darker. somewhere closer to my core identity and not a mood disturbance. I understand my depression. I own it and live it. It is familiar, sad, I know. this is not that. I think it is indeed the perfect storm I have discussed. The clocks changing the racy hypomania and the crash off that. That isn’t helping this. I know that. this is far more insidious. There is so much self loathing and doubt right now. The suicidal thoughts remain intrenched. It is a dark sad place. I hate to doubt myself to such a degree. I keep fighting to find a more rational process of thought but look at what I am seeing. I was okay. Least I thought I was. sure there were some tough spots. yes, this winter was hell but I was putting one foot in front of the other. I could run mindfully and put each day behind me like a task done. One more day I’d tell myself. Closer to the spring and warmth. Closer to some relief. and in an instant I am no better than the 20 year old batshit kid I was. Just that quick. How can I reconcile that? how can I figure it out and not doubt myself, my sanity, my health and my stability? Kind of hard. maybe impossible.
I don’t know how to stop all this. A 2×4 over the head maybe. I am as always scrambling to figure it out. process it, understand it. I don’t and maybe that is the problem. When I have lost my way I always knew Virgil would cast some light and I’d find my way back. the drugs would work and I’d climb out of whatever hole I had found myself in. Even after my suicide attempt I held tight to the hope she had I’d get better. I guess I’m lost without that. I have lost sight of it. I have allowed my fear and anger to cloud my judgement. As the anger has been replaced by hopeless sadness I wish I could go back and find it again. Instead I have given up and blamed myself. I have squarely thrown it all back on myself. I’m too fucked up. Too flawed. I let her off the hook. I swallowed whole the implication that this is mine. my overreaction. my problem. I should have held my ground. should have defended myself. I didn’t. and in giving up I let her defender herself. It came back to me. my issues. mine. yep, mine alone. I’ve lost confidence and trust in the person I thought was the only one who could save me. The only reason I was still living and breathing. I don’t know what to do without that. I am heartbroken. I know that. The pain is as raw and hard edged as any I have ever felt except now I feel it alone.