TAKING CONTROL OF THE FIRE

When the fire of Borderline Personality sparks, many feelings and thoughts fill your mind and body. As the thoughts and emotions spill into the fire like gasoline, the fire grows and grows until it becomes out of control. Suddenly you're in an emotional episode. The fire is so powerful you feel paralyzed. You fear it will never stop.

Borderline Personality Disorder makes you feel emotions much more strongly than others do. If you let your emotions turn into an inferno, you have lost control. However, by taking steps, you can stop the fire before it burns everything within you and leaves ashes and destruction in its path.

In a Borderline support group I learned skills to help get through an episode.

First I needed to observe what is happening within me without trying to change or control it. I noticed the emotions building up and I noticed how they were igniting the fire. I was tempted to distort them, change them and control them, but I had to resist. I needed to just observe.

Then I learned to stop and take a step back from the intensity of my emotions. I would take deep breaths through my nose and release them out my mouth. I would try to focus on a picture or object that was calming to me. Listening to relaxing music or doing breathing exercises are helpful.

Next, I looked at my behavior. When the fire is burning I scream, cry, throw things, cuss and spit out angry words at the people I love the most. Then I looked at my emotions. Many times my emotions were out of control, they hurt, and at times they seem to control my actions. It is also important to look at your thoughts. During an episode my thoughts were negative, self-hating and angry. My thoughts also became very painful as if they were knives being stabbed into my soul over and over again.

Finally, I got some distance from my episode. I acknowledged that I have an illness, but I am not my illness. I found taking a walk calming. Journaling about my thoughts and emotions helped me release my them without igniting the fire further. Sometimes going out to dinner or to a movie helped me get away from the place where the emotions seemed to ignite. Being in a public place distracted me. Sitting home is where my emotions at times seemed the strongest.

Take control of the fire before it burns everything within you. Don't live within the aftermath of your illness. Find a therapist or support group that can teach you skills to cope with your illness. You can take control of your illness and live a happy life.

Learning these skills and many more has allowed me to stand up to my illness and take control. I no longer have emotional episodes, and because of the skills I have acquired, I live within the light.

I found these skills and many more in A Systems Approach To Treatment: Borderline Personality Disorder Skill Training Manual by Norman E. Bartels, M.P.A and Theresa D. Crotty, L.C.S.W.

 

Let me know about your experiences with mental illness by leaving a comment.

Next week there will not be a blog post because I will be out of town for the holidays. Please check back December 1 for a new blog post. Enjoy your Thanksgiving and be grateful for all God has given you.

WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

We all have fears, and sometimes those fears are overwhelming. Sometimes fears become debilitating and, at times, turn into phobias. Fears can hold us back from living normal lives or trying things that are new to us. Sometimes our fears can stand in the way of our own happiness. When we suffer with mental illness, those fears can be magnified by our illness, create more sadness or stand in the way of our recovery.

I have a phobia of being held down or trapped beneath something. I use to panic when, as a kid, we piled on top of each other. I'd scream and cry, my chest would tighten and I'd struggle to get free. I always had to be on top of the dog pile. Some people have phobias of closed-in spaces, of spiders, of heights and so on. Phobias are a very serious type of fear.

In school, I developed a phobia of teachers, and that transferred into my adult years as a fear of anyone in authoritative positions. When I started working at a grocery store, anytime I had to talk to a manger, I had to struggle to force the words to part my lips. My hands trembled, my heart raced and I felt sick. I put up with other employees treating me unfairly because I was too scared to ask a manager for help. I couldn't even ask the personnel manager for a form for the dentist.

I felt helpless and useless. By not asking for help I allowed myself to become a victim. I fell deeper into my sadness and began to hate myself more. I worked hard while a fellow employee stood around talking. Managers seemed like monsters who would gobble me up. Just saying hi to them seemed impossible.

My biggest fear is being alone. I hung on to abusive relationships when I should have let go because I couldn't handle the idea of having no one. My husband and I chose not to have children, but I fear what will happen if my husband passes before me. We have no children for me to move in with or to help me out. Will my siblings want to bother with me? Will my nieces and nephews be there for me? Will I be put in a home with no visitors and no one who cares I'm alive?

This fear kept me in bad relationships and made it impossible for me to live by myself. I moved into apartments with the wrong people and ended up moving home. I lived at home with my parents even though I applied for programs to get apartments based on my income. I became dependent on my parents and feared what would happen to me in the future if my parents passed on and if I never found my true love.

In therapy, I learned to stand up to my fears and take control of them. I learned that managers are not evil monsters. Even though I still get nervous around managers, I now turn to them when I need help. I'm still working on facing my fear of being alone. I try not to look at the future. I thank God for what I do have and I reassure myself the Lord will never leave me by myself. Learning to stand up to my fears helps me dance within the light.

HEALING THROUGH WRITING

Many famous writers suffered with mental illness, such as Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot and Earnest Hemingway. Hidden within many people who suffer with mental illness is the ability to write. You can use this ability to help you heal and reach recovery. Even if writing is not your strong point, you can still use writing as a process of healing by journaling or writing for yourself.

Writing about your struggles with mental illness and describing what you have gone through can release deep emotions. It can free your soul of pent up feelings and can help you rediscover yourself. The process of writing about my mental illness and the harassment I received in school released feelings I had been holding within me for many years. While I write I cry, I get angry, I grieve and then I let go of all those buried emotions.

I'm writing a memoir about the harassment I received in school and how I found love, comfort and acceptance at our family garage. Writing the scenes about the abuse at school has brought back many painful memories and is allowing me to find closure. I pour all of me into those memories, and in the process I open up forgotten pains. By opening up these emotions, I allow my past wounds to heal, buried emotions to be released and new strength to be found.

Writing my blog is not just to educate and to reach out to others who have mental illness, but it is also healing for me. It helps me deal with the struggles I have faced and I still face. I put all of me into each word of my blog. I spill out my heart and soul, and by doing that I find strength, release and most importantly, relief. My blog also reminds me of the things I need to do to stay within the light.

Our own writing can also show others how to help us heal. My blog posts educate my friends and they use my blog to help me when I am struggling with the symptoms of my illness. I tease my friends about using my blogs against me, but I am glad I have taught them how to be able to support me.

So, write to rediscover yourself, to release emotions, to heal past pains and to reach for the light. Even if you never share your writing with anyone else, it is still healing. If your struggling with your illness write to get your trapped feelings out and share them with someone who can assist you in finding help.

For those who write to share with the world, writing about your experiences also educates others and shows people with the same problems they are not alone. By putting my story into words I have found the light of recovery stronger and old wounds have healed and are still healing.