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What I'm doing well...

When my mom decided not to help me medically anymore, I decided to try to help myself. I worried for quite a while that I was making the wrong decision. Decided to have the courage to make a mistake. Started fundraising. I have to raise over $8500 for the medical treatment my doctors are recommending. I've raised over $2000 so far.

Seeing two new counselors. Not sure I can tolerate therapy right now with no meds and in severely poor health. Am still trying.

I want to give up all the time, fall into self pity. My physical and mental health offer no breaks. Feels I'll never get out of this huge relapse hell.

Not giving up yet.

horrible session with new counselor last Friday...BUT did NOT collapse with caregiver and seek her comfort. Cried on my own, had her take me to try to shop for a bit to self soothe. Only got in mildly better place. despair and exhaustion overwhelming. Still, i did try on my own to feel better. independent. tried my best. Really tried so very hard. Very independent.

may go back to t. May decide i cant hack therapy right now. cant follow what he's saying, may just be a set up for more emot. dysreg if i dont have the cognitive ability. im not superwoman. may try one more time this week before deciding. Still, im hangin in.

im just hangin in.

I hate it. I fricken hate this space im in. Still, im hangin in. Im hangin in. staying as open as I can. not going to collapse too much. Not going to shut down too much. not going to fall into my defenses too much. staying as open as I can.

saw an old counselor today. helped a lot to stabilize me again. out with caregiver today, was doing ok, then starting going downhill again. Tried for a BALANCE between allowing her to know some of waht was going on with me, but not totally collapsing. Came home. still not doing well. giving myself credit for how incredibly hard this is given how sick i am. Also trying to just observe. also tried to do opposite emotion...find something to laugh about. called a friend to try to cheer them up. trying very hard to not go into self pity or giving up. yay for me.

Good job Liz! Being with others just to try to put a smile on their face is itself rewarding .
Keep up the good work.

Very proud of myself. Had MUCH better appt. with new therapist today (third visit). Made myself STAY OPEN, not shut down into my defensive thinking. Considered how nothing has been working, so perhaps i need to consider that I'M the one in the way. Then got out of my own way.

Feels like a big accomplishment to feel CONNECTED to my therapist and thankful for his help instead of feeling forever offended. Also forgiving of myself that i melted down last time. So what. I'm not static. I change and grow. How great that I could change!

Had i not gone back for this appt. it would have felt like an awful defeat, hopelessness. Instead it was a victory.

still dont know if i can tolerate therapy when im as sick as I am (physically). I feel forgiving and understanding of that. But im doing my best to try.

Thinking maybe this is always the ego reacts....I believe i've just had a very good accomplishment but I'm finding ways to discount it...Had second really good appt. with new counselor...dont know if i've ever felt that good about two consecutive appts...I believe something has changed in me. I actually felt connected. Like a good person. Like Im getting better. Yet I'm thinking things like...well it wont last. Or it's too soon to say. or it's not that big of an accomplishment. There is still part of me that feels this is a big deal. Have done lots and lots of work to get to this point. Feeling relief last two times. This is good!

So how's it going? Had another appt with the T? I hope you had another good one. Even if not that's okay. Reads as if things are clicking for you. Share your secrets please! LOL
Keep us posted.

liz94,

Hey, Good for you. congrats.

You are a good person, never lose sight of that fact. You are a child of the universe; you have a right to be here. This is part of the wonderful writing by Max Ehrmann's writing called Desiderata. Look for it, make a copy and keep it close. When things seem crazy around you, remember his words.

dagwood

My "secret" in that instance was that I considered that if I'm constantly getting offended, *maybe*, just *maybe* the "problem" is *me*, not the other person. I went back to therapy after the difficult session, with the intent to focus less on getting validated for how I saw things, and more with the intention to learn what happened in the session before. I gave my therapist the benefit of the doubt in assuming he was trying to help me and tried to find out how he was. I still shared my concerns, but not defensively. More like, "this hurt me when you said this. I feel like a bad person. How can I cope with this?" and I stayed open to his feedback on how to view things differently.

Strangely, I ended up feeling validated, but just in a different way than i was wanting.

So I guess that's how.

oh, no appt this last week. nother one next week.

Well Liz reads as if your grabbing hold of your situations and handling them well! I am learning more about that myself. Been doing lots of homework myself.
I got an appt with my T next week. I think it might be our last, I don't know. The government organization I receive my counseling from switches what's suppose to happen next nearly every session thus don't know what the next step is. Very frustrating. I tried to get into another, more professional, practice but they won't take me saying that I'm too heavy a case so I get referred back to where I'm @. Yet I've been doing lots of CBT homework and I believe I'm starting to put somethings into perspective. I've learned quite a lot these last couple of weeks. Being here has helped a lot too. I'm still a newbie to all of this but I feel as if I'm coming out of my cocoon.

Thanks for keeping us posted and feel free to continue to do so SVP.

Another better appointment today. Can things actually be changing for the better?

I didn't feel as connected or as thankful today as the last two times. But I don't feel traumatized or deeply distrustful of myself, or deeply offended. This is very good.

hey liz,
happy to hear that

OK, this has changed. : ( See, I knew it was too soon to say, and things always get shitty again. : ( (trying to laugh here at my words)...Oh, this is supposed to be a positive forum/posting. Um, um.....Well, even though several days after the appt. I started spiraling down again in self doubt/distrust and feeling confused/angry/hopeless as some of his words...it's not *as* traumatizing as it has been in the past.

Gawd, will i EVER be a normal person?! $%@#$!@#$

It doesnt seem like much to hold on to - to think that it wasnt *as* traumatizing. I'm sick of bpd life. um, i guess i should be posting in season passes, not here.

Well, ok - to end then - a few things Im doing well...still seeking the medical treatment. Also started thyroid medication. Not giving up.

Hey there Liz,

I'm sorry to read that it's gone down again.
If I may be so bold to give a quote for the day:
All things are temporary

Ups and downs are normal. Can you identify what is bringing you down?

hey there,

thanks for the reminder. I was thinking that last night while journaling. I was thinking how there have been things I thought id never get through that i eventually did and i tried to take hope in that. When i get stuck in something for a very long time and do that frequently, it's hard to focus on the fact that i have been there before and things change. Cuz all i see is the ongoing suffering. i need to shift my focus to the positive that things change, not that it often takes me so long to change.

yeah, what brings me down is believing Im untrustworthy. Then i feel like a horrible person. When i feel invalidated it shakes up my whole being and I don't know if I'm trustworthy and/or if the other person is. They seem cruel and I hate that! A very big trigger for me is feeling invalidated regarding my physical illness. Im extremely ill, and feel about 75% of the time like I could die. I heard words that my therapist said that i interpreted him to basically say to push myself physically when i get signals from my body not to. I didnt like what he said and we talked about it a bit before I left last time, and I was sort of ok with it and had a better context for waht he said. Then a few days later, when i was feeling very weak physically, his words really triggered me. When Im triggered, it's very hard to even remember the conversation, the context, or to think in a cognitively rational way. I just feel scared and then i feel untrustworthy. I also have extremely severe sleep deprivation and that makes good cognition very hard. Sometimes I wonder if I can do well in therapy without better physical (cognitive) ability. sometimes I wonder how much of bpd (even without sleep dep) is just a seriously poorly firing brain. I fricken hate distrusting myself and feeling others are cruel and not being able to emot. regulate!

Aw, I got tears swelling up in my eyes after reading that.

What is the future looking like for you, I mean for you physically? Is it a situation where your going to get better, stay the same or get worse? May I ask about that? If not that is okay. If that belongs in another board I would be happy to respond there too.

Take care Liz. Your genuine self is what's real, not what you feel due to extreme physical factors. The lines become easily blurred due to overwhelming feelings.

Stranjer, thank you. I've been in huge relapse for a number of years with my physical health. The treatment i am raising money for - my doctors have high hopes it will pull me out of this. Not to complete health, but out of this severe setback. So this is very good.

Thought I'd update how things are going in therapy to remind myself...I haven't had a severely traumatic appointment with the new therapist whom i've been seeing for about three months now, other than the original one I posted about. Not that it's been all smooth sailing (it hasn't), but I have not had another session where I felt so terribly disconnected. In fact, it's pretty calm in his office. And the last session didn't destabilize me at all. This is a huge shift from how i was in therapy a little over a year ago (differnet therapist). I had quit then because i just felt I could not emotionally regulate at all and was really getting nowhere after 1.5 yrs with him.

I don't feel great. But I haven't been feeling that awful kind of hell that happened that one time and which I feared would be a never ending cycle. It's so hard to think things will be different when things are intensely awful and there is a pattern of it being that way. But I have to take note that things have *not* been as I'd feared. They've been better definitely.

I'm in quite a down state with my phys. and emot. health combined and the new therapist said not to try to feel better, just less worse. hehe. I think that advice really helped! There is a lot that is not going better. But I need to take note that one expectation I had was that things could likely continue to be awful in therapy. And they haven't. So when I start telling myself that things *always* go awful in my life, I can look to this and tell my ego to remember this time.

So perhaps this is progress. I *am* less worse. And that is actually - better.

hey liz,

thanks for the update.

hope you'll be in a better state soon... both physically and emotionally.

Thanks mere.

Had three weeks wo/an appt with the new therapist i started seeing in July (three weeks off due to conflicting schedules/other appointments)...but yesterday's appointment was another non-traumatizing appointment. Feel a lot more connected and supported. A little over a year ago most of my appointments were traumatizing. Am I actually changing?

Gotta remember that my fear after that one awful appointment in late July was that all my appointments would be that way, just like in the past. But they haven't. Need to remember this when I think "everything always goes bad, just like expected." Maybe that belief is not true.

hey liz

sounds like you're making some progress in your thinking... especially the ability to think that not every appointment is going to turn awry.

so what did you talk about in your appointments? has it been helpful?

Have had ten appointments now, over three months, and only one has been awful. Something is different. I think this is good.

mm, what do we talk about? I guess about finding the gray area.

MM, what do we focus on....My struggles have always been over *who*s fault it is that im ill (referring more physically here)........There is a big part of me that believes in the body / mind connection - ive had freinds who have spiritual healings from their physical ailments. It woudlnt be that big an issue except that my phy. health has destroyed my life............so who's fault/responsiblitity is it? Tehre is part of me that believes I can release the past, love my mohter despite her narcisssitc, compeltely utterly annoying ways and I would be healed. Nonetheless, day by day, i only have moments of such surrender to her, and mostly i remain quite ill. Bu still hauted.......If I can relase the past, maybe I can be done with this horrific physical agony.

On a brighter note........in finding the gray area.........perhaps all of the above are true AND i need to find a way to physically help my condtion....so i have raise $4k toward a $10k physical treatment my dr's are recommending and which they feel very hopeful about me healing from this severe set back which came on with the use of meds that now have efforts underway to change them for safer prescribing....so maybe i was a victim of this. And maybe despite that. im finding my way out. It's amazing im raising this money despite not only nearly pysically incapacited, but wiht the self doubt too.

My mohter is no help. trotting aroud europe!!!!! oh well hahaha. bro is luckwarm. sis is sweet but not a go getter.

Still, honsestly do applaud myself............Two yrs ago i NEVER could have asked for help, never publicly, never would have been abel to take comfort in my friends during my treatements which have ben excruciatingly painful, I never could have done any of this, this campaign, this believing in myself! (despite the fact that you all know of my deep insecurities)..

So I guess I have to say, regardles of if this works,
Good Job Liz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Yup, good job

hey there liz!

wow, you managed to raise 4k? cool. you go girl, continue to raise the remaining 6k

am very happy for you taht you are making progress