[lunalelle]

I'm sorry. I feel like I'm cluttering up the board with my ramblings, but I'm still waiting for my next pdoc appt.

Times like this, I think I make myself crazy. I worry that because I do so much research about something, I unintentionally start adjusting myself to become that. Part of it is that, in researching what I didn't know before, I'm getting new language in order to express experiences and feelings. But then I wonder whether I'm describing the experiences or having the experiences in order to describe them.

And because it doesn't bleed into my real life. It's all in my mind, so it makes me think that it's all just me, doing it to myself. I'm mostly functional - not fully, but everyone's got issues. No one knows how bad it is, so it makes me wonder if it's really that bad, or whether I'm just exaggerating. Now I'm worried that I malinger (deceive) even myself just for attention. Sure, I deliberately try to avoid attention for these things around people in real life, but maybe I do it just for attention here and on my journal and with Graphics Queen and with a psychologist.

I don't know, and it drives me nuts. They say the most important thing for someone with BPD is to be mindful of yourself, but I feel like I'm nothing but mindful. I'm aware of my emotions, of the process between event to emotional response to thought response to action. That's not the problem. I'm aware enough to second guess everything in my head. I'm aware of myself enough to know that I don't make sense to myself - I'm aware enough to know that I'm not completely ... complete. That's what I call the fracture of my soul.

But I don't know whether it was already there or whether I put it there.

The most common etiology (time to start using my new vocabulary so I don't have to keep looking it up) or cause of borderline personality disorder is abuse as a child. Strike one. Another is abandonment as a child. Strike two. Another is genetic predisposition, such as an immediate family member with a strong mood disorder, personality disorder, or schizophrenia. Strike three. I know that I've always been sensitive, but there is no cause.

Therapy will be pursued regardless (appointment my new psydoc attempt is the first Friday in December), but it means that I'm not sure any possible diagnosis is tenable yet, which leaves me without something to hold, examine, and fix.

I should go to bed. It's late, which is probably why I'm thinking about this kind of thing so much.

[tryp]

Hey,

Here's what my pdoc says about the whole "Am I doing it for attention?" thing:

Quote

If someone was really pretending all of those things for attention, then clearly they STILL need help, because THAT'S a pretty MI thing to be doing in and of itself

She also says that if someone is doing things to seek attention, then maybe they just NEED attention and aren't getting it, and there's nothing really wrong with that.

That's what she says when I endlessly question whether I am just making the whole thing up for attention.

But anyway, I think it's pretty common to feel like you are making the whole thing up - it happens to me a lot, and I'm not making the whole thing up. I bet you aren't either.

Also, while many people with BPD have abuse history, there are lots who don't. Being naturally "sensitive" sets the stage for having BPD, and sometimes people just end up with it. I don't know your history, but it doesn't have to be straight up abuse, either. Linehan calls it "chronic emotional invalidation" which can take many forms. One hypothesis is that people with BPD naturally are difficult to read emotionally, so people don't realize how they are feeling and this leads to BPD. That's from Linehan's book.

Anyway, these are hard questions - but you have the right to your feelings, and I don't think you're making any of it up - it sounds too familiar

I hope you get to talk to a professional soon.

Also, "clutter up" the board as much as you need to - it's what we're here for. Me, I always love reading about BPD - makes me feel less lonely

[lunalelle]

tryp, on 21 November 2009 - 10:10 AM, said:

Hey,

Here's what my pdoc says about the whole "Am I doing it for attention?" thing:

Quote

If someone was really pretending all of those things for attention, then clearly they STILL need help, because THAT'S a pretty MI thing to be doing in and of itself

She also says that if someone is doing things to seek attention, then maybe they just NEED attention and aren't getting it, and there's nothing really wrong with that.

That's what she says when I endlessly question whether I am just making the whole thing up for attention.

But anyway, I think it's pretty common to feel like you are making the whole thing up - it happens to me a lot, and I'm not making the whole thing up. I bet you aren't either.

Also, while many people with BPD have abuse history, there are lots who don't. Being naturally "sensitive" sets the stage for having BPD, and sometimes people just end up with it. I don't know your history, but it doesn't have to be straight up abuse, either. Linehan calls it "chronic emotional invalidation" which can take many forms. One hypothesis is that people with BPD naturally are difficult to read emotionally, so people don't realize how they are feeling and this leads to BPD. That's from Linehan's book.

Anyway, these are hard questions - but you have the right to your feelings, and I don't think you're making any of it up - it sounds too familiar

I hope you get to talk to a professional soon.

Also, "clutter up" the board as much as you need to - it's what we're here for. Me, I always love reading about BPD - makes me feel less lonely

I guess there's just so much stigma for people who have to ask for attention. I know that, to some degree, I do need a little attention, since I expend so much energy trying not to get it but probably needing as much as the average human, but I wouldn't think I'd create a whole insanity just to get it. Attention-seeking seems to be considered a bad thing in the psych world and in real life, and if that's what I'm doing, I don't like it.

The thing about invalidation is that this has only started happening within the last few years, when I stopped agreeing with the people closest to me. And I wasn't agreeing with everyone before just because they wanted me to. I wanted to. It was my head that made me compliant with the views of those around me. I wasn't trying to go another direction. Now I am, and I'm feeling invalidated, but the fact that I've changed should not invalidate what I was. Hence, the lack of abandonment in my childhood. I remember a profoundly happy childhood from about birth to pre-puberty. Puberty began the descent.

And thanks. I just sometimes need to run my mouth, and I never quite know whether it's appropriate to talk so often. I quasi-justify it by acknowledging that I am getting help, it'll just take some time. I'm not here in lieu of therapy.

This post has been edited by lunalelle: 21 November 2009 - 01:52 PM