Shifting sands of truth

If truth is absolute, concrete, unchangeable fact then people with BPD are nothing less than freaks of nature!  When truth is understood as honesty and transparency in the light of current understanding then perhaps it is possible to make sense of some of the rapid changes of self-perception experienced by many with BPD.

Today I am completely normal.  It feels as though BPD happens to someone else.  I am perfectly able to go out and get a normal, professional job in keeping with my skills, experience and qualifications, which I will be able to hold down.  If someone comes round I will be friendly and hospitable with no sense of awkwardness or anxiety.  I don’t need my medication and it makes sense to phone my keyworker and discharge myself.  Someone like me really doesn’t need mental health team services and I shouldn’t waste their resources.

I have been here before.  Often!  Just as I have to work hard to resist urges to self-harm I have to work hard to not impulsively do everything I think I can at these times.   They are so real at the time that resistance seems illogical.  However, experience says otherwise.  It doesn’t last.  Experience tells me that as suddenly as this insight appeared it will disappear and I will be left to deal with a package of initiated projects, job applications and letting down people who have trusted me.  These sudden moments of “normality” are almost worse than the constant “feeling rubbish” because they add to my stress, failure and the sense of being a source of distress to everyone in my path.

On the other hand, it is at these times I am inspired to start projects and schemes that are successful.  I am that normal person and that screwed up BPD wreck all at the same time.

In an effort to deal with this I have some personal rules for those “normal times”.  They have developed from experience (at least I can learn from mistakes).  These rules are:

• ·         I must not discharge myself from services unless I have been like this for at least two months.
• ·         I must not stop medications unless I have been like this for at least one month.
• ·         If having initiated a project, job/course application I am allowed to withdraw if I become ill at the thought of it.
• ·         I must not pull out of such applications if I just feel a little anxious, because some anxiety is normal.

In the last week I have had enough of these times to complete an application for training for a completely new career.  For me it is a step of faith.  I am hoping that by the time the training starts (if I’m accepted), I will have done enough of the DBT to be in a much more stable place, and genuinely able to do the training, and ultimately, the job.

So, all at the same time my self-belief is both true and not.  My truth shifts from hour to hour, and in that knowledge I try to plan a better future for me and my family.