[Bandaid]

Here, have a post about self pity

I am a mixture of bandaids and safety nets.   Having not had much in the way of therapy for my BPD, most of what I have piece together of what works for me are just bandaids.

Writing on my arm so I can remember things when I'm irrational.
Stopping conversations and forcing an acknowledgement out of my friend/partner of the pain i'm sitting through so we can continue.
Communicating my shifts in emotion.
Sitting in cold water.

I did this, because I am drowning.

And now I'm being forced to address these bandaids.

Because, and everyone who knows me will acknowledge, that I turn into a broken record when lost in the depths of my irrationality.  I cannot stop arguing.  Things continue for 3 and a half hours longer than they need to.   And. I. Repeat. The. Same. Stuff.  Where once the bandaids saved me from this maze in my head, they are not long term solutions, and I'm engaging in personalities where I can't just yell down my friend/partner and force them to give me those bandaids anymore.  They stand their ground.  Something, with no training on my part, pushes me farther into the maze.

I know I spend a fantastic amount of time bringing up my BPD on social media and clear the stigma surrounding it.  I'm sure most of you when encountering a BPD individual or the possibility of a diagnosis have moderately more fond feelings of the personality disorder than prior to my engaging in my awareness campaign.

There is still a dark side to it.  Its VERY easy for us to be overwhelmed by panic during conflict to the point where it feels like we are dying and we don't have a way to expel it so we put the knife in to another person, another soul, and twist it til they give us what we want.  This is the conundrum of the BPD.  We destroy ourselves and our relationship as a reaction to the perception we're being destroyed.

Its not just a "oh, i'm really uncomfortable cause I'm distressed" emotion. Its "if I dont get this I'm going to die"

I've stabilized since coming to Seattle.  I have many more emotionally consistent friends, and now I have energy to address these things.  But in doing so, I'm having to reconsider the aspects of "you were doing fantastically, look how far you've gone in 5 years." to "HOLY HELL LAURA, YOU HAVE A REALLY REALLY REALLY LONG WAY TO GO, JUST GIVE UP NOW BEFORE YOU HURT ANYONE. " 

I feel like I did when I was first diagnosed, and now I feel like giving up.

Stepping aside to my current relationship, this is the healthiest thing I've seen, ever.  And its terrifying to me because I ... am not.  I am a bandaid. What do i look like to him? How many chances am I going to get.  All of my conflict coping mechanisms are out of date.

So I started my research again.  And crawled back into my bed and cried.  There's no good help out there.  About "what to do when lost in your own head"  "how to not kill someone while flailing while drowning."  "How to breathe underwater"

Most everything is why you shouldn't date or be friends with a borderline.

I'll be honest. I don't have a clue what to do.

I guess I'm just proud of myself that the super red line of no return still is never reached.   That I hit a ceiling and start retreating inward repeating the same things over and over instead of becoming aggressively mean, with name calling, insults, character attacks and physical violence.

Thank goodness I'm at least half a human instead of just a quarter human.

I have 6 different paths I could take and every one of them is the wrong one because I'm not healthy enough to notice the 7th.

"Laura, you are amazing, because even in your worst moments, you haven't succumbed to that red line and you put so much of your focus into not harming others even when you can barely function."

Its like I'm this sorcerer, and I have this demon attempting to invade this reality and he's trying to take control of my body, but I'm at the CD store with friends, and not really responding to their questions appropriately and they're upset at me because I'm busy arguing with this alien dude in my head and these people never understand how much self awareness and self control and focus I have to keeping them safe, even when I and every voice in my head is telling me just to stop fighting it.