Category: Introducing this Blog

Some thoughts on what this can and cannot be

This is a post that I think that I will revisit and update from time to time.  I’ve been wondering how to make this hang together but in the end, I decided to post as several separate thoughts, on what this blog can and cannot offer or be.  I hope this doesn’t come over strangely. These things seem important to express about what I’ll write here, though all quite different from each other.

So…

I am not a medical professional.  I am writing from my own thoughts and experiences of living with several mental (and physical) health diagnoses, including borderline personality disorder, and of caring for / about loved ones with mental health difficulties.  What I post is my personal experience and opinion only.  If I describe certain experiences, thoughts, behaviours, I am doing just that – describing them, not advocating them.  I may discuss what has and has not helped me, and again this is very personal – I do not intend this as direction to anyone else or to say that such-and-such an approach will help everyone.  This path has taught me clearly that no two people’s experiences and needs are alike no matter how similar they may seem on the surface.

I hope that what I write may help someone.  I hope that if this blog generates discussion (for example, in the comments) this will also help people.  But because I am not a health professional, this cannot be a place to find treatment for particular problems and particularly not emergency assistance in a crisis.  I hope that anyone who is visiting this site who is struggling or feeling unwell or in crisis will also be able to access face to face medical support.  Having said this, I may put together a separate post containing resources and contact details of organisations and support networks that I have found helpful in times of crisis – or indeed, at any stage of living with mental ill health.

Please bear in mind that information you share in comments and posts on here is publicly visible.  For this reason I myself will be very cautious about disclosing personally identifiable information and specifically will not divulge my full name, where I live or the specific service within which I receive treatment.  I would encourage everyone who posts here to be similarly cautious.  Having said this, I will always keep confidential anything that you tell me in a message, the one exception to this being if I believe that you are about to harm yourself or another.

The frequency with which I update this blog will vary.  This is for many reasons, including my varying mental and physical health and the fact that I work part time in a stressful job.  This also means that I may not always be able to respond to every message or post, or may not be able to respond promptly.  If I do not respond promptly, please do not feel that I am choosing to ignore you.  That is not my intention and I am very thankful for any posts, messages etc that anyone wishes to take the time to share, and I value these contributions.  I may simply not be able to reply right now.  I ask for your patience and understanding and I am sorry that I may not be able to reply as quickly as I would like to.

I do not intend this blog to have a political or religious slant.  However, I may discuss social, political and religious issues as they become relevant in particular posts.  Again, these are my personal experiences and personal beliefs.

Starting out

(I would be grateful if you would please read “About” before reading this, or any other post)

It has taken a long time to come to this point.  The idea of starting some form of blog has taken shape over several months.  Writing, on and off, has been an important part of thinking, processing experiences and emotions, praying, reflecting, sometimes reaching out to people, keeping in touch (sometimes when anything else is too frightening), building relationships.  Sometimes just a way to walk through the frighteningly frantic thought processes that spin round and round.

I’ve also hoped that somehow I may be able to bring something from my experiences that helps someone else.  I firmly believe that everything we experience, however bad, in some way eventually increases our understanding of the world, of others; increases our ability to empathise and love.  (Yes, I can say that now, because today I have some degree of calm… the next time, whenever it be, that I am in the midst of the terror and anxiety it will probably be impossible to comprehend this hope, but somewhere, very faintly, it remains, and I am thankful for that.)

So I guess I hope this blog may bring together the purposes writing serves in my life and the hope to help someone and to share with others experiences.

It is hard to know what is helpful, or interesting, to others – not least because I don’t know who will visit these pages and what they may need or feel.  Therefore, though I do deeply hope this site will bring about some good and help for others, I need to be clear that it’s a personal experience, a personal story. I am not clinically trained. I am not a doctor or counsellor. My knowledge of the conditions and issues I discuss here comes from my experience of my own life, the life of people close to me, the services I’ve come into contact with and the therapies I have participated / am participating in (also, some little experience of working in support roles in psychiatric healthcare settings and as a volunteer).

I also think I need to make clear that some of what I share here will be painful, because the reality of what I’m going through is painful. It is frightening, often feels out of control, often feels hopeless, often all I can see is dark and bad. Equally, there are surprising moments of encouragement, which are surprisingly easy to forget when the next stage in the struggle comes, and I hope to be able to explore those too, and genuinely be thankful.

It seems to me that a strong feature in Borderline Personality Disorder is that feelings become so very intensely consuming and real that they can block out all other truth and experience and in the midst of them, it can be impossible to know anything else, no matter how much the “else” is otherwise important to us, central to our lives.  Then, despite how absolute they seem, these feelings change so fast.  This does not mean they were not genuine at the time but can be very hard for me, and anyone around me, to understand.  Perhaps this means that what I express here will also be hard for anyone to understand at times.  If so I hope you’ll tell me.

And finally, I really am thankful to people who take the time and interest to visit here. I’d like to know what you think, for you to ask questions, or share your own experiences.

This journey is in no way the course I thought my life would take and I did not choose it. And I cannot see far ahead.  Perhaps that is a good thing in some ways – though I may want to, often the little I do see of the path frightens me because it seems insurmountable.  Yet I hope that this blog is one way that it can be a fruitful path and a shared one, and a way to keep taking just one step more.

Thank you.

Ginny x +