I've just flicked back through the last 3 weeks of posts, and I can see a pattern. Kind of. If it were a graph I think it would look a little something like this:
Thankfully, I'm nowhere near as bad as I was when I did the above, but there are definite ups and downs. That said, the gap between the downs is getting longer, and when I hit a down, it's of a lesser duration, but my god is it intense while I'm there.
The last two days are a case in point. Do you know those images you see of clowns on unicycles balancing plates on long sticks? That's what I've felt like, except the unicycle is wobbling all over the place, and the plates are teetering dangerously close to falling off. This morning, I felt deeply resentful of needing to keep all those plates up - the yoga, walking, therapy, medication, dbt, sleep, diet, routine - there's a lot there. The temptation to feck the lot of them on the ground and walk away was very, very strong. I don't want to have to keep up this effort. But what choice do I have? Even a few days of ignoring the routine, letting yoga slip, letting my sleep get erratic, have had a big impact. So much so, that I find myself desperate to hide away, and retreat to the safety of my bubble. (Just as a brief aside, there is one big change in the bubble scenario - before I would have wanted to be completely alone. Now, it's the bubble of walks, baking and pottering I've had with the kids that I'm yearning for).
I mentioned last week the great gaping void that I touched on with Therapist. It's still there, and I think it's that feeling of falling into nothing that goes with these lows that scares me the most. It also comes up in a big way when I think of not seeing Therapist for longer than a week, so clearly the notion I had a few days ago of taking a long break has gone out the window. The low and the prospect of managing without her is a heady combination, and hit me with force today as it looked like we weren't going to be able to schedule an appointment for next week. I felt sick. I was having difficulty breathing normally, over reacting to everything and my head felt like a pressure cooker. I changed plans with a friend because of how I was feeling, and was convinced, utterly and completely, that I had destroyed a really important friendship. Disordered thinking much?? Then I went into my DBT group, the final session. We were talking about setting goals, even small ones, and what we can do to help ourselves when these overwhelming emotions come along. My difficulty today was that although I technically know what I need to do, I hit a couple of hefty barriers:
- I don't believe I have the time to sit down and work through these things as they happen (small people and introspection don't go hand in hand)
- If I'm not able to meet even these small goals, then it's my fault that I feel the way that I do..........
And so the cycle continues. Can you see why sometimes the plates feel like they're spinning out of control??
Thankfully, I decided to go and talk to the friend I thought I'd so badly offended (big step, would have stewed over it for days if not longer a year ago). Things are totally fine, and in fact she understood so completely how I'm feeling that I came away feeling much more settled. I also managed to sort an appointment with Therapist for next week, the the relief that came with that is immeasurable, instant mood lift. So, good points - I'm ending the day feeling better than I started it, and was able to admit to feeling like poo. Bad points - I'm still very, very much at the mercy of my moods and heavily dependent on Therapist. But it's all part of
what I've got. I'm working on it.
Labels: agitation, behaviour, borderline personality disorder, breathing, challenges, DBT, emotionally unstable personality disorder, frustration, negative thoughts, routine, symptoms
