Today I hopped back up on the rollercoaster with another visit to the psychologist. Last time I saw her was incredibly emotional, today it was much more clinical as she started doing the pre DBT assessment with me.
It was a really strange thing to be doing, and mid answer I caught myself marvelling at how surreal it all felt. Well maybe marvelling isn't the right word. More desperately curious..........how did I end up being someone who answers these kind of questions? Questions about self harm, suicidal ideation, impact on relationships, past trauma. I found myself thinking that it has to be wrong, this cannot possibly be real. It can't be me. Can it?
She talked about how most therapy is about acceptance, but DBT is about acceptance and change, at the same time. It won't be about looking at past issues, it will be about coping in the present, and reconciling the polar opposite extremes that so often go hand in hand with borderline. Since I've taken a step back from writing, and the break from Therapist, I feel at such a distance from all this that it doesn't make sense any more. I've stopped reading about what's going on in the world of mental health. I've put significant distance between myself and See Change, and Please Talk. I've barely posted here, I've done no writing publicly, and I'm more or less avoiding any possible conversation about the state of my mental health. I'm hiding. It's been helpful I think, to a point.
But now the distance is making me doubt myself. It's becoming more challenging to keep things straight in my head because I've no outlet and nothing to give me perspective. I've blown seemingly minor situations completely out of proportion, almost to the point of losing sleep and certainly to the point of feeling physically sick. I'm also finding it harder to accept the reality of having bpd. The answers I gave to all those questions ticked so many bpd boxes that they make me an ideal candidate for DBT, yet I can't reconcile this with being myreality. I'm moving back towards thinking there's something intrinsically wrong with me, that I'm essentially a bad person with a wicked tendency towards melodrama.
Writing this has helped, because I can at least see where the pitfalls of my current put-everything-in-a-box strategy are. But, it's the only strategy I have right now. The lid has to stay on the box.
