Tag: Coping Strategies

Out of it

I’m going between boiling anger that I can’t stand (a force rising inside me which I can’t swallow down, just force and power uncontrolled and bursting free) crushing anxiety with spiraling thoughts, lists, growing out of control faster than I can count, no air to breathe, dread that I can’t surmount, and numb.

Numb. Nothing. Stopped. Watching. Un-engaged. Dumb. Deaf. Hearing what everyone else says but it makes no sense and causes unbearable sensations if I try to respond – I need numb.

I’m drinking tonight to make sure I stay numb and make warmth and cotton wool replace the ache, distancing the hurt from my dissociated state so it can grow without sensing the raw pain or maddening and crushing demands of the ‘other’ (real) world.

The pain from my gynae problems has been scary too, as well as the arthritis. It’s almost funny – completely messed up inside and the physical stuff out of control too, things ‘breaking’ one after the other. Nothing medically serious but it does seem to make me as useless as possible in the real world.

I don’t often drink and it’s a dangerous and stupid choice, especially now. I’m in a really dangerous state right now. I tried and couldn’t get help. I can’t choose rationally what to do. I’m saying it’ll just be tonight and tomorrow I’ll try to face it all again.

You don’t waste good

“You don’t waste good.” [Or, Gibbs’ Rule #5, for NCIS fans 😉 ]

Don’t waste good…. I’m trying to hold on to that right now. Hold on. There is good even though it’s very hard to feel it right now. I have a home (for now). I have a job. I have an understanding employer. These things can be built on. Two very good friends seem to be able to see some hope that it will be alright, even though I can’t. Don’t waste good. Don’t waste it because I give up right now because it’s so scary and I don’t know how to get through this night. Don’t waste it because everything crumbles and I lose my job because I stop going to work and give in to the fear and drowning sensation that tells me to stay at home. Don’t waste it because I stop looking for little gifts and little joys – or big ones – my beautiful god children, compassion of a friend, something at work that makes me laugh, being able to try to do at least something to help people at work. Don’t waste it because I assume rejection and punishment is all I deserve and all I will get in the end. Don’t waste it because I get so wrapped up in my own little world and little problems that I miss chances to serve, chances to thank, chances to show compassion or do that little bit more to help another in some small way.

You don’t waste good.

Ginny xx

[“You don’t waste good,” – from NCIS Series ?8 episode “Baltimore”. All rights to NCIS series belong to CBS / Channel 5 and respective directors and artists]

What do you do “out of hours”?

I really needed crisis support on Friday but didn’t get it. After therapy group I was spiraling down and out of control, then a number of bad events came snowballing, knocking me further down. I had a brief conversation with the duty line at the hospital and was supposed to get to speak to them again later in the afternoon but they didn’t have time. I was in pieces, cut and was on the edge of the very dangerous place I cannot take a single step more and decide to end it. Thanks be to God I didn’t but I took a higher dose of my tablets than I should to knock me out and stop the hurt (not really an overdose as it wasn’t over the maximum dose of anything, but I took more than I’m prescribed and everything together).

I’ve been fighting through this weekend as I’m working. What I want is numb, stay at home, stay under a blanket, no more feeling, no more thinking, no more hallucinations, no more noise in my head, never have to speak again, never do more harm, someone to hold me, to go to the dissociated place, forget everything I have to fight through and just stop and be allowed to need it to be no more, stop, sleep.

What do you do when you feel this and you can’t get help? It’s the weekend and/or evening. I couldn’t get help from the hospital on Friday. There will be nobody available until Monday and who knows if they will have time then to see or call me.

I could go to A&E but I wasn’t sure what they’d do, and it’s not really an emergency and there isn’t an instant solution. I need more help day to day. I could call 111 the NHS out of hours line, but they tend to tell you to go to A&E if you admit to self harming or being suicidal. They’d probably take my tablets away too. When I’ve been put in touch with a community crisis team before I’ve actually found it really unhelpful. They did not (in my uneducated opinion) understand BPD. What they said piled on the guilt and made me closer to ending my life and they were determined to show me I didn’t need (or deserve,  I feel) any help and Iwasn’t genuine. If i got that right now I would go through with ending it.

Part of the problem needing help out of hours is having to try to explain your whole story – trauma, abuse,  flashbacks, hallucinations, voices, BPD, hurt, fear, desperation and needing to end it – to someone who doesn’t know you or the therapy you’re having. It’s too frightening to do and the cost of being misunderstood too great.

I promised a friend that if it got to the worst I’d go to A&E before I did anything. I would,  I’d keep that promise.  I made it only because she would be more worried about me and stressed if she thought I wouldn’t. I would go at that point, out of honesty to her. Even though having reached that point I’d not want to be stopped.

What do you do when you need support out of hours and can’t see your GP or your usual clinic / hospital team? I’d be interested to know what others do.

I know a lot of it may involve other coping strategies not going to someone else for help. But what about when it’s bad enough they don’t work?

Ginny xx

Hurting tonight

It hasn’t been a great week.

Hurting with physical pain from gynae problems and joint problems.

Going between guilt for worrying and burdening my family and not being able to do what I should, and feeling cut up that I’m “in the way” to them and need to be compartmentalised so I don’t intrude on their life – the part of it they actually want not just feel obligated to do.

Seeing far too many things. ..scary things. ..that aren’t there… that are hallucinations from memories that grip me and shake me.

Wishing someone would hold me and tell me it would be alright even when the flashbacks come.

Working through water or a fog each day and knowing I’m getting it wrong and doing wrong and so so tired.

I slept about 4 hours tonight if that. Tomorrow is group therapy again. I am so scared to go. I will go because I mace this commitment to everyone in the group, the therapists, and to trying to get better, to God, and I won’t throw away what I’ve been given. But I’m scared. I don’t know where we are, I don’t know how to be, I don’t know who to trust, and I can’t trust what I did trust or where I thought we were before. Everything unraveled last week. I wish I need not speak. I wish I could just sleep and stop it all.

I will try to go forward thankful. I will ask thankfulness for another day, to learn to thank our God for revealing His loving kindness in the tiny little helps of each day and pray to notice and see them not just the mess in my head. I will try to work to make something beautiful – even just draw, colour, sew, write to my family and my closest friends who mean so much to me simply by still somehow being here.

Somehow this moment will pass but good will remain. I’m trying to believe.

Walking this Borderland #6: Shine

Walking this Borderland #6: Shine

Stars can’t shine without darkness.

To everyone who is alone, hurting, fighting, crying, tonight –

Don’t give up. If you can’t say, one day more, say, just one hour more.

When all you can see is that everywhere is darkness and you are breaking and cannot believe that it will pass, if all you can do is breathe, then that is how you can go on.

In this darkness, you will be the stars, and this struggle you give your strength and your heart to will make you shine the brighter.

Ginny xxx

Walking this Borderland #4 : 5 more minutes

 

please read the Introduction to Walking this Borderland before this or any other post in this Series. Thank you.

 

When I feel the compulsion to do something to hurt myself I find it very hard to resist and do something else to cope with the feeling or the desperate need to obey the voices in my head telling me to punish myself.

On the occasions I have a little bit of control, I sometimes say to myself,  “Wait 5 minutes. You can do it, but not yet – just wait 5 minutes. ” If I can force myself to wait 5 minutes then when I do harm myself, then sometimes a little of the initial force of feeling has passed and I do it less viciously.  I’m hoping eventually I’ll be able to wait longer, little by little,  and then eventually sometimes not to self-harm.

I got the idea when I worked with people with eating disorders. One technique that may help people who struggle with purging after eating, is as a first step to delay a few minutes after eating before purging rather than doing it straight away. Then you can try to make the gap longer and longer and in this time, with support of a therapist or carer, try techniques for acknowledging and coping with the awful feelings and thoughts that are contributing to the compulsion to purge.

I’m new to doing this technique to delay self-harming. I think it’s working a little bit.

Ginny xx

 

Walking this Borderland #3: Good things happen over tea

 

 

Please read Walking…#1: Introduction before this or any other post in this Series. Thank you.

 

Good things happen over tea. I saw that quote on a gift mug today. It’s true. Perhaps I’m particularly English 😉 though it’s my coffee I really can’t get through a day without!

This one follows quite well from#2 and is another way of practising grounding and mindfulness.

If it’s not too wet a day, I like to sit outside for a few minutes with my tea. I don’t mind if it’s cold – I wrap up well and the nip in the air adds to the sensations that keep me rooted in the present.

I hold the cup. Enjoy the smell. Watch the delicate progress of the steam wafting upwards and maybe feel it on my cheeks if it’s a particularly cool day. I sip slowly and really enjoy the flavour and the comfort the warm milky drink brings inside.

Then I turn my attention further outwards. A good place to start, I’m told,  is to name 3 things you can see, 3 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 3 things you can smell. Sometimes I start there and then go on to appreciate in detail something in my familiar surroundings. For example, how many different shades of green / gold / brown are there in the big tree opposite my flat? Count them. What shape are its leaves? Are there fewer today,  if it has been windy?

By this time, if I was feeling okay when I started I may be feeling calm enough to try some slow breathing exercises. If I was in a state of very high emotion, turning my attention outwards in this small way may have been enough to just slightly take me away from the extreme, to a place I can be a bit further from acting on dangerous impulses.

Ginny xx

Walking this Borderland #2: Grounding

Please read Walking…#1: Introduction before this or any other post in this Series. Thank you.

Six ways to ground yourself when you notice the early stages of an overwhelming emotion building (eg, panic, fear, anxiety)

I find these particularly help me. The aim is not to deny or stop feeling the emotion, but to reach a safe state where you are not overwhelmed with distress or driven to compulsive actions, and where you can perhaps begin to recognise your emotions and also recognise that they are not permanent and are not all there is of you or of the world – they are valid and they are allowed and also, they will sometime, somehow, pass.

I know the ideas below sound as if they couldn’t possibly make any difference when you’re feeling terrible but somehow, sometimes, they do. I was taught that it is good to practice using them when you are feeling okay, so that they become familiar, and to try to use them as early on as you can when you first feel your emotions rising, because when you are already in a state of peaked, extreme emotion, it can be too difficult to be able to try to use them.

  1. Step outside if you can, or if not, just into another room. Notice all the sensations around you. What does the ground feel like under your feet? What can you hear? What can you see? Can you touch anything – the wall, the door? What does it feel like? You are here and now. These things you see around you are concrete. They will remain. The emotion, no matter how terrifying, really will somehow pass.
  2. Touch a favourite object. What does the surface feel like? What colour is it? Does the sensation of touch calm you? Is it an object that reminds you of a happy time or place or someone you love?
  3. Count backwards in [threes] from 100 to 0. [Especially occupies your attention if, like me, you are not very good at maths/logic 😉 !]
  4. Clench and unclench your hands rapidly, focussing on the sensations in your muscles and on your skin.
  5. Make a hot drink. Hold the cup whilst it’s still hot. Focus on the sensation of the spreading heat relaxing the muscles in your hands. Breathe in and out deeply and focus on the scent of the drink or the warmth of the rising steam.
  6. Repeat a grounding “safety statement”, even if you can’t really believe it at first. For example (replace the […] as appropriate): “I am [Jane Doe]. The date is [5 December 2015]. I am [35] years old. I am [in my room in my flat] in [name city].  I am in the present, not the past. I am safe now.” I am relatively new to using safety statements but my CPN told me that this is a good way to recover from flashbacks / re-experiencing memories.
Walking this Borderland #1: Introduction to the “Walking…” series

Walking this Borderland #1: Introduction to the “Walking…” series

I’ve decided to start a new series which I’ve called “Walking this Borderland”. I’m going to try to make each post in this series short and readable. My idea is that each will share an idea, skill, or thought that I find helpful in coping with an aspect of the symptoms of my Borderline Personality Disorder. Some of these are things that have been suggested to me by health professionals. Some are ideas a friend (perhaps who also has BPD) has given me permission to share. Some I have come up with or encountered myself in my path living with BPD.

I am sharing these in the hope others may find them interesting or helpful. Perhaps if you suffer with BPD or another Personality Disorder or know someone who does, you may find they are things you can identify with or are relevant or helpful to you. Perhaps they might equally be helpful to people who struggle with other mental health conditions – or even to anyone curious about emotions. Perhaps as a reader you would like to share your own experiences and ideas that help you, in the comments. I’d love it if you did want to do that.

As I have said many times before on this blog, what I’m sharing is personal and every person is very different in what is helpful to them or how they experience emotions. I really hope there is nothing I post in this “Walking…” series that would be unhelpful to anyone reading but please bear in mind that I am only sharing from my experience. Though I have worked in many mental health treatment settings and had some non-clinical training, and receive therapy myself, I am not a doctor, I am not clinically trained, I am not medically qualified to provide support or help to people with a mental health condition. So whilst I hope that this series is going to be useful, I very much urge you to please please access and rely on support from clinicians who are trained to help you.

Ginny xx

Deeper Still

I feel so tired and cold inside today. Last night and this morning my emotions were rocking between extremes of sadness and anxiety and hurt and I cannot justify any of it. Now, even though I have done some nice things today and received some very good news, which really is a gift – I went to coffee group this morning so I was not on my own, and my offer of work was finalised which means I will have some form of financial security – despite all these things, instead of feeling thankful, I’m feeling scared, empty, useless, lost and numb. I’ve slipped into that cold state of feeling that I am only watching and desperately wishing I were not alone, sad but angry with myself at the same time.

These times make me doubt even more what’s really in my heart.

I’ve been listening to this prayer song :-

Deeper Still by Bebo Norman

She turned her head as if to hide, there was just nowhere to go. ‘Cause standing tall on every side, the mighty fear of letting go. She said, my God I’m so ashamed, thirty years a tragedy. I still believed that he could change, but he pulled me down like gravity.
He broke my will, but it’s deeper still, deeper still .

She told me morning was the time, when the sun burned bright and clean, and love grew fragile on the vine, all wrapped up in gold and green. ‘Cause after all we know we all are after all the same things – but for the sun no rain would fall, and it burned him up and turned him mean.
This fire that kills me, it’s deeper still, deeper still.
Tonight I rose up with the moon, and looking down from high above, I saw a world carved and confused into valleys deep in need of love, and falling down all thick with grace, Heaven’s cloud of mystery was filling every empty space, down to the depth of human need.
This love that heals, it’s deeper still.

Love that heals me, love that heals me, love that’s deeper still.

This love that heals me, it’s deeper still, it’s deeper still.

“Broke my will, but it’s deeper still; this fire that kills me is deeper still; and filling every empty space, Heaven’s cloud of mystery – this love that heals is deeper still.” This is the only thing that lets me carry on in these times. Without it I am nothing. The promise that no matter how black and cold it is in our reality of this moment, how matter how much we are hurting, no matter how much we fear what is within us, what is always deeper still is God’s love for us that created us to do good, God’s love that longs to fill us in every empty depth of our hearts.

I hate what I see that I am and the fight that goes on in my head and the frozen darkness that stops me seeing anything good. But this does not change the truth that God is love, God is beside us on this road, and the greater my emptiness and my need, all I have to do is cry out to Him, plainly admitting how things are and everything I cannot change. Then, deeper still, deeper still, will He come into my need and sustain me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ7g9Gf64ns – not my video. With grateful thanks to Marco Bonaccorso. From Bebo Norman’s album “Ten Thousand Days”.

Ginny xx