long-term trauma & abuse, BPD, relationship breakdowns, lack of support/community, difficulty finding work

[tyme]

I love seeing your vivacious spirit @magnolia84 .

Please know things can and DO change. You are in the driver's seat. Steer your life the way you want, moving forward 🙂

If you'd ask me 15 years ago, I thought I'd be 6ft under by now. To this day, I'm still in awe that things changed to be what they are today.

When I look back, my life was absolutely terrible. Each day was just another day closer to the end.

Mark my words, things CAN change. But it will be hard work.

[magnolia84]

Thank you @tyme I really appreciate your encouragement.

Unfortunately lots of aspects of my life are over but I'm still pushing on. That's all we can do right?

[tyme]

Hey @magnolia84 ,

There is an element of loss that comes with things that are 'over'. Yet from what I learnt with my BPD journey is that the end of one journey is a new door opening to the next.

The rest is then up to you. How are you going to approach this new (sometimes scary) journey?

What is it that you want from life?

Remember, YOU are the driver. You have power. We can't control how windy and bumpy the road is, but we can control the vehicle we are in.

I believe in you.

Hope you hear from you soon!

[magnolia84]

@tyme thank you so much for your very kind message. It has meant a lot to me. 

You've certainly asked some thought provoking questions. I'd definitely like to have more stable friendships and relationships. Not overthinking if I don't hear back from anyone. Just being much more settled within myself would be nice. What was the turning point for you?

How to approach this new journey? At the moment it's just taking one day at a time and working through the emotions. A lot is out of my control and I just have to be ok with that and work on what I can control I guess.

How are you going?

[tyme]

I'm not going to lie. I had a lot of intervention and support with my BPD journey.

I had just over 18 months of mentalisation based therapy which was twice a week. We had both group and individual therapy.

Through this therapy, the turning point was towards the end of therapy when I realised these supports would soon be removed. It was then when I put in all my effort to make the needed changes.

I had to push myself from my comfort zone and make sure I don't 'give in' to myself.

For example, when I'm upset, I naturally remove myself from the situation and hide. As part of recovery, I had to tell myself that this was not helpful, and I would make the effort to do the opposite and reach out - no matter how terrible I felt. 

I feel that with BPD recovery, it's about doing things to retrain the brain so that you learn and practice helpful ways of coping.

I don't even know if I'm making sense. @magnolia84 

[magnolia84]

Thanks so much for your transparency @tyme 

At the moment I just have therapy once a fortnight. I'm not yet able to have an admission or outpatient help just yet but hopefully soon I can.

I tend to be the opposite when I'm going through a crises. I tend to want help and I've very much noticed that through my life I've chosen people who have wanted me to support them endlessly but when the situation has been reversed they have bolted. It probably has made me less inclined to ask for help now if I'm honest.

[tyme]

That's precisely it @magnolia84 . There were those I was so close to that I 'smoothered' them when I needed help. I became dependent and it wasn't helpful.

From then, I steered the other way and shut down. 

So I guess treatment was about finding the balance.... actually.... 'balance' was a key focus for most things in my life... my entire BPD life was all or nothing! Do you find that too?

[magnolia84]

@tyme to an extent it resonates. It very much depends on the person. Which is why there are times I feel I align more closely with CPTSD. In saying that I don't know how to trust how I feel about other people at the moment. My current circumstances means I've lost a lot of friends so therefore I doubt anyone's alliances and whether they will ever talk to me again. 

I recently had a situation where I deleted my social media and sent a friend a message saying that I knew everything that was happening was really tough and if she still wanted to be in my life i'd love that but if she made an alternative decision then I respected her. At 2am the police were shining torches through our windows for a welfare check even though I'd never once stated I had any intention of doing anything. It's a fine line.