A concrete example of radical acceptance

Well i have been trying to think of a concrete and good example of radical acceptance for a while now and i finally have one. Hope this helps you understand the concept better. As most of you know i am waiting to get into St-Luc hospital to do a medical detox. If you have read any of my posts on this i had been told that if i get a referral from a doctor it would about a 2 week waiting period instead of a month to 3 months waiting period. So i found a doctor after a long search who agreed to sign a referral for me and i sent it in last week. Today the nurse in charge of that department called me to say he had spoken to the dorctor and that my referral is not being accepted since the dr that signed it is not the one that gave me a prescription for dilaudid and because i am now buying my dilaudid on the black market as they say. He explained that it is more for people that for example had a bad accident and have been on prescribed dilaudid for a while and are having a hard time getting off these drugs. Now on the first of every month one can call at 9am and they take 8 apointments for that month. So tomorrow morning I and many many others will be on redial trying to be one of the lucky 8. So when i heard this message on my phone this evening right away i started crying and got really anxious, i started thinking the following "what will i do, how can i wait another month to get in as the nurse said if i dont get an apt tomorrow morning it will be begining of december, how can i last another month, will i run out of pills, this is not fair, why is it so hard to get help" then i started crying. I calmed down after about 10 minutes and started thinking the following "Stop right now, this is what it is, that is how this system works and there is absolutely nothing i can do about it, i can spend all evening worrying about it, feeling horrible, getting really anxious but what purpose will this serve me?". I then right away thought of radical acceptance. Can i change this? NO. So instead of freaking out, texting the whole world and calling everyone to say how much this sucks and making this a huge dramatic thing, well i can tell instead tell myself the following. This is a fact, this is something i have ZERO control over, i can not change this, yes it sucks but this is just the way it is. Now accept it and instead of freaking out think of a solution. I have decided i will first concentrate on calling tomorrow morning and perhaps be the lucky winner at the St luc lottery hahah. If that doesnt work well at THAT time, i will proceed to think of other solutions and focus on what i can do about this and not on what i can't do. I decided this will not change the nice evening i had planned for myself, i CHOSE to not let this ruin my evening. I am stuck in this situation right now so i have a choice. 1- i can spend my evening, crying, bitching, feeling sorry for myself, feeling like things never go my way and how unfair this all is and get myself all worked up and sad and depressed filled with anxiety and not sleep at all OR choice number 2- Well i can just accept it for what it is, stay calm as tonight obviously what can i do about this NOTHING. I can chose to spend my evening as i had planned, with my nice supper, watching a few of my favorite shows, chatting with a few friends, blogging and writing the letters i wanted to write tonight. So to me it is now obvious..and i chose number 2. I realise i can do this with everything in my life. Whenever something big or even the smallest things happen, i can always chose to react in a calm manner. Accept the things i cant change and work on solutions or change the things that i can. This can be a way of living as their will always be unpleasant big and small situations in my life. A year ago this would have been the end of the world. I would have called everyone in tears or angry and would have whined and complained and it would have been a huge dramatic thing, and i would be the oh so poor victim in all of this, the person for whom things never go right! NO MORE. This does take practice as i keep repeating all the time. Sometimes i jump right away on my emotions and let them overwhelm me and take over everything. But if i take the time to actually stop and think rationaly and not with my emotions and just calm down and think of this in the way i just described well what a happier easier life i can chose to have! I find this can apply to anyone's life out there with or without bpd. We can really chose how to live our lives every second of the day. It might be harder for some of us, but i really think i can do this with hard work, and that eventually it will also become a habit and a new way of living for me. This can work for YOU TOO!!!! All you have to do is give it a try, what have you got to lose anyway if you are not happy the way you are now :o) Thanks for reading me :o)

Guilt

I will start by saying what a uselss emotion!!! I am realising too that it can be a bit selfish and a also a bad coping skill to avoid my problems or issues. Since i seem to be a roll of starting to understand and being able to actually apply things i have learned in therapy so far i have decided to talk about guilt today. Well as I have said before, my whole life i have always always felt guilty. Guilty about everything under the sun! Their are certain things i have always felt guilty about, guilt at all the pain, worry, stress, sadness, dissapointment etc i have caused my family. That is always number ONE in my head since i was little. Then i always feel guilty about different things, one day it could be that i feel i dont do enough for myself, or i think i dont try hard enough and i could do more. Some days its guilt because i dont exercise enough or smoke cigarettes. Other days i will feel guilty for not having completed my ridiculous lists of cleaning and things to do in a day. Then i will feel guilty thinking i am a really bad influence for people in my life. I even go as far as feeling gulty thinking am not a good person for my cats!!!! I mean really!?!?!? Well first of all, as i was told repeatedly in therapy when i feel guilty about something i should first stop myself and ask myself what exactly am i feeling guilty about. If it is something that i have done and regret doing, well is there something i can do about it. If i have already appologized and fixed whatever situations, then what is the point of feeling guilty about it. If there is something i can do about it, like appologozing to someone i might have hurt or offended, well then i can simply fix it by doing so and be done for the guilt. Then if i talk about my BIG things i mentionned i always feel guilty about well i am really starting to see how much this impacts my life in very negative ways. I will try to explain. My whole life as i said but even more in the past year, i have huge amounts of guilt that my parents are once again helping me. My mom and dad have lent me so much money and gotten me out of so many jams in my life, more often then i care to imagine. I have always had a big problem with compulsive shopping when i am not feeling well and have never ever been able to budget. And mommy and daddy would always end up having to help me. I have so many feelings of guilt over this it's overwhelming and was eating away at me my whole life. Well i am not doing them or me any good whatsoever by hanging on to these feelings of guilt. When i spend nights or days thinking about this and getting really anxious and feeling like a monster, what do i end up doing when i feel this way..i end up SPENDING, or all the other bad coping things i do. How is that any good for me or my parents. In my fucked up way of thinking as i have mentionned a few times in my most recent posts, without realising it i really thought i was NOT ALLOWED to NOT feel guilty. I know it sounds weird, but i really thought unconcsiouly until now, that if i did not feel selfish or have any problems then i was a really bad person, how can i not feel guilty after doing all those things, i am not allowed to feel guilty free, i am not allowed to have a good day and tell people about it, then they will think i don't regret the things i have done. So therefor i must always feel guilty and not be happy. Well what a bunch of pardon the language BULLSHIT that is. I have done everything i can do make a mends, to explain why i do these things, i have appologized, i am in therapy working hard at it, my parents are helping me to learn how to budget, my dad especially with the help of my magnificent roomate. I am ready to fax detox and my addictions and get the help i need. I am being pro active about getting all the help i need. I came clean with my problems and admitte to the truth. WHAT ELSE CAN A PERSON DO?!?! Nothing. If i CHOSE to continue feeling guilty for everything i have ever done in my life well i will just keep doing bad things and be stuck in this vicios circle of mine. I will not be helping myself at all and will just keep hurting the people around me which will bring on more guilt and on and on... So i am slowly catching myself every time these feelings come during my day and stopping myself instantly. I use some of the tools i have learned so far and mentionned in previous posts. I first talk myself out of it by pretty much telling myself what i just wrote and then i distract myself. I will go watch a funny tv show. I will chat with a friend. and yes the old lady with the crazy cat will go play with her cats hahah. I sometimes blog about it. Today i distracted myself by going for a walk. And you know what if i have time to sit there and feel guilty well i have time to try these wonderful new tools and do differently then i usually do. I can chose to do something about what is happening in my life instead of just feeling guilty. I almost find it selfish now to sit there feeling guilty instead of being pro active and fixing things. And does it ever feel good and what a weight off of ones shoulder's when you chose to not feel guilty. I know i will still have days and my moments of guilt but i think by keeping this up, and by practicing practicing i will get better and better at it AND SO CAN YOU!! Thanks for reading me :o)

Drama and gossip

I will try to explain this as best as i can. Pretty much my whole life if i look back on it i have been a drama queen. Everything was always dramatic and demanded attention from others. Dont get me wrong i have always been quite a positive person even annoyingly positive sometimes but again i when things were not going well, i certainly knew how to amplify it or overdramatize it to the max!!! The smallest problems would become BIG problems as i would feed into it and make it become overwhelming. Later on in life for quite a few years i got caught up in gossip with a bunch of so called friends and without noticing i become really negative, always bitching about everything, there was always something going on. It is only once i started therapy and stopped hanging out with those friends that i realized how i had become and how much it affected my life. The amount of stress that left me was astonishing to me!!It was amazing and quite a relief for a while. A few months later i found myself bored, really bored. There was nothing to gossip about and no one to gossip to and nothing dramatic going on in my life. It's then that i realised i was pretty much addicted to drama and gossip in many ways my whole life. I can now see clearly that gossiping and dramatizing everything was a perfect way to avoid my problems, my issues and also a perfect way to avoid being alone with myself. By gossiping about others issues or problems well i avoided dealing with my issues and problems. Being dramatic about everything also got me attention from others but i see now not very good attention and i also can see very clearly how draining this can be on friends (real ones) and family members. I was also always throwing myself to help others to the point of draining myself. Again another way to avoid dealing with my problems when you are completely focused on helping others all the time. Don't get me wrong i will always be a giving person that enjoys helping others but now i know i have to have bounderies and be able to say no and not help others to the point of forgetting about myself. Then when i was not doing well, i did not understand why others did not do the same for me. Well i now see clearly that none of those people ever asked me to give up my whole life to help them, and be there 24/7 etc etc. And i do NOT in any way whatsoever have the right to demand these things from others. It is not healthy for me or for them either way. Now when a problem arises I am getting better at trying not to make it into a huge deal where everyone around me has to stop their lives and give me attention or help me. Yes i do need help and people to support me but i see now that they can only do so much, they have lives to live as well and their own issues. They are not there to fix things for me or pick me up and take over every time i fall. I have also realised that if i am always always talking about my problems and complaining about them, it becomes draining to others but to me as well. By dwelling on things, or being negative or helpless or playing the victim (which i used to be oh so good out without noticing, but i see it now looking back...makes me ashamed just to write it) i am only making things worse. I now see that when an issue arises i dont have to blow it out of proportions with panic. I try to use my radical acceptance skills if you have read my previous posts...pretty much stop accept and now find a solution to the problem. Every little thing DOES NOT have to be dramatic. I now have a hard time with people who complain all the time about everything and never see the good in things. My very positive self is coming back and i am enjoying it quite a bit. I will give a few examples that i have shared in another blog. So i can chose to make my dayno non dramatic if i want by chosing to react differently to things around me. Now if i get into a cab, instead of thinking, oh god i hope he is not chatty etc etc. I actually join into a conversation or spark one up. I will chat with people on the bus. I know the people at my corner dep and coffe shop very well. Same as the pet shop and pharmacie. They have become aquaintances that make my day nicer when i go out into the world. If i have a problem with something small, i now see it doesnt have to become big. I chose to react to the person or problem in a calm positive manner if they chose to do differently i have the chose to not let it affect me. A big lesson is i will never ever be able to change other people but i can certainly change the way I CHOSE to react to them. I can do differently. I dont have to let every little thing affect me. Same applies to my past i can never ever change it but i can chose to change the way i react to it or chose to not let it affect my present anymore as well. I know i am kind of going back and forth on this post but my head i seem to be having a hard time saying what i am thinking, i hope this makes some sort of sense to someone out there hahah. Bottom line is gossip, dramatizing every little thing and being negative are choices, and to me they are bad ones and only affect you in very unhealthy ways and prevent you from moving forward in life. This is not easy to do at the begining at all but i find with practice and noticing the way i react to things and doing differently then i normally do i am starting to get the hang of it sometimes. I am hoping with more and more practice it will become a habit. I really try hard to see the good things that happen in my day because even though a lot of days are really hard, if i look hard enough there is always something good or at least a leson to be learned. My mom always says that the beauty of life is that you can change it at any second. I kind of like that thought. Thank you for reading me i hope i made some sort of sense :o) ps. Listen to yourself talk for one day or notice the way you interact with people in one day, you might be quite shocked or surprise as i was to find out how negative your thoughts, actions and words are and how draining they can be on others and how unhappy they end up making you. REALLY listen to yourself.

Your legitimate rights

This is something that was given to me in therapy which i find very helpful, i even keep it on my fridge, hope it will help some of you. Feel free to ask any questions, i will do my best to answer them. 


Your legitimate rights as a person


1. You have the right to need things from others.
2. You have a right to put yourself first sometimes.
3. You have a right to feel and express your emotions or your pain.
4. You have the right to be the final judge of your beliefs and accept them as 
     legitimate.
5. You have the right to your opinions and convictions
6. You have the right to your experience-even if it's different from that of other people.
7. You have a right to protest any treatment or criticism that feels bad to you.
8. You have a right to negotiate for change.
9. You have a right to ask for help, emotional support, or anything else you need 
     (even thought you may not always get it).
10. You have a right to say no; saying no doesn't make you bad or selfish
11. You have a right not to justify yourself to others.
12. you have a right not to take responsibility for someone else's problem.
13. You have a right to choose not to respond to a situation
14. You have a right, sometimes, to inconvenience or disappoint others. 
15. You have a right to trust yourself even if others don't 
16. You have a right to change your mind.
17. A judgment is not a challenge.


Everyone is worthy enough to apply this to their lives. Remember though others have the same rights for example, if you ask someone for something they also have the right to say no without justifying themselves. This can be very difficult for bpd people but the trick is to try to never take it personally. 

Life skills Radical acceptance (reposting since a lot of people like it)

Radical acceptance was the topic of my life skill group this week again i will do my best to explain it well, i hope this helps. The quicker you accept an unpleasant situation, a person that bothers you or you feel hurt by, events of the past, things of the past and present that you can NOT change, the quicker you will move on to a plan of action and feel better. I accept what i cant change or control. Remember, you cant change or control others (the way they feel or act or what they do) YOU are in charge of yourself, your feelings and your reactions and you have the power to change that. NOT ACCEPTING=NOT WORKING FOR YOU Always asking yourself "why? why is it this way? why me? why did this happen? why is this happening? etc " is useless. It is what it is. Look at what you are doing or thinking and see how YOU are letting yourself feel this way, when you feel sad, angry, upset, depressed..etc. It serves no purpose. Yes it is ok to acknowledge that something unfair might have hapenned or someone said something you did not like, perhaps you were rapped or beaten up when you were younger etc, the list goes on. It is ok to feel angry or sad but to stay in that state will prevent you from ever moving on. Acknowledge your feelings and then move on to a plan instead of staying with the pain and acting out by either drinking cutting shopping doing drugs etc... I will give a few examples the first one is very simple You leave the house in the morning and ask your spouse to do the dishes. You get home and the dishes are not done. You are very tired and yell at your spouse "why did you not do the dishes i asked you to, you should have listenned to me" most likely then your spouse will reply in a defensive way and a fight will start. What event happened that led up to this situation: I was TIRED and CHOSE to say something about it and it turned into a fight. (no matter if it is fare or not if the dishes were not done, the fact is they are not done and you were tired and chose to yell at your spouse) so step one acknowledge and own up to the fact that you were tired and said something while you could have handled it differently What rolde did you play in creating this situation? You again were tired and yelled at your spouse and were rude. what do you have control of in this situation? You can do the dishes, talk calmly with your spouse and make a compromise...etc What dont you have control of in this situation? The fact that the dishes are not done and that your spouse chose not to do them. What was your response to the situation? You got angry , hurt, frustrated and the dishes are still not done How did your response affect your own thoughts and feelings? You felt unvalidated, sad, angry, upset, hurt, then guilty etc. How did your response affect teh thoughts and feelingss of the other people in the situation? Perhaps your spouse had a bad day at work, and might feel hurt by this, feel attacked, insulted, sad....etc. What YOU do has an affect on YOU and on OTHERS So basically this situation can ruin your evening and end up in a long fight and you feel like crap. How could you handle this differently...well first ACCEPT it there is nothing you can do about the fact that the dishes were not done, they are not done and that is that. You could sit down with your spouse explain calmly that you are tired and really would have liked to have the dishes done, you can chose to say nothing and just take the 10 minutes to do the dishes (instead of hours of fighting and feeling like shit), you can leave the dishes til the day after. This is of course just a tiny example but it applies to everything in your life. I will give a more serious example and i will use myself. Pretty much my whole life i have been trying to please a certain person to get a certain type of validation and love. I realised this lately only, i have been doing it my whole life. Well evidently it isn't working for me, i am not getting what i want. I did this without realising it most of my life and even now that i see it i still sometimes catch myself doing it. Well one day in therapy a few months ago it dawned on me "hey, this person is NEVER going to change, i am always going to feel this way, why do i keep putting myself through this pain?" I then realised it was time to accept that i will never be able to change this person or they way they act or react to me. I will never be able to change anyone for that matter. But what i do have control over is ME and the way i let it affect me and what i do about it. Whether it is fair or not that i was not getting the attention, validation or type of love i wanted, it is what it is and its not going to change. I have now stopped trying to please this person, and stopped waiting for something i am never going to get. I changed the way I CHOSE TO LET IT AFFECT ME. I can chose to not let it hurt me anymore. I can chose to accept that this is the way it is and from now on, i will not stay in pain over this forever it serves me no purpose except more and more pain. In every situation we always have a choice. As i have said in previous posts i was rapped when i was younger. Is it fair? NO was it my fault? NO Can i change what happened? NO...I can spend the rest of my life in pain asking myself why why why...that will never change anything and it only keeps me in the past and in constant pain. I have to accept it, stop asking why cause there is no answer and move on,,,by moving on i mean, accepting the pain, acknowledging it and doing differently. Catch myself when i start thinking about it, or start wondering why, and stop myself before it escalates into a panic attack or a night of crying and suffering. I try to catch myself, tell myself yes it happened i will never know why then distract myself RIGHT AWAY, by either baking, reading, watching tv, calling a friend...the list is long if you have read my previous posts. You always always have a choice about how you feel or react. Most of us have spent our lives trying to be validated, to feel like we matter. And most of us only got that attention when behaving badly, by either drinking or cutting, or suicidal attempts etc...and as we get older this is such a brainwashed habit that we keep doing it. By cutting and drinking etc is a way to yell at the world I AM IN PAIN, I want attention, i want to be validated. Because this is the way we are used to getting some sort of negative validation. But no one will ever be able to give you the real good healthy validation except YOURSELF. DO DIFFERENTLY. Try something different. When you are starting a panic attack the last thing you want to do is go for an ice cream belive me, but you have the choice, you can let it escalate and be in pain all night, or you can tolerate the pain and instead of acting on it in an unhealthy way FORCE yourself and go for that ice cream, write an angry letter, go for a walk, Do different and you will get different results, Obviously what you are doing now has not worked for you or for me. We have to delay the instant gratification of relieving the pain and suffering by again eithe cutting, shopping, drinking, fighting, crying, panicking...etc,. Delay doing that you know as well as i do it is only a short relief and then afterwards the guilt kicks in, then when you feel guilty what do you do again, cut, shop, drink...and the vicious cycle never ends. You have to basically delay the gratification, accept the situation, reframe the situation, do differently and find solutions. It is not easy at all and takes TONS AND TONS of practice but what do you have to lose by practicing you are already not feeling good anyway. Slowly you will learn a new way to cop with things by practicing this radical acceptance. Soothe yourself, no one else will. Calm down before making any decisions or acting out. SO TOLERATE(feel it)-DISTRACT YOURSELF======RADICAL ACCEPTANCE remember When u know better you do better. take responsibility for your choices and actions Holding a grudge is like having someone living in your head rent free. I always think of a day when i was looking at a fly in my window (which is next to my door) the fly was trying every which way to get out throught the window. If only she would have flown right next to the window the door was wide open. Look around you and try differently there is a door open for you too. I hope this makes some sort of sense, it is a hard concept to grasp and takes a lot of practice, I tried to explain it as best as i could. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask and i will do my best to answer as clearly as possible. Thank you for reading me :o)

NFL player Brandon Marshall comes out with his story and battle with bpd

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/football/other_nfl/view.bg?articleid=1376057&srvc=sports&position=recent

Happy day!!!

I wanted to share my happy feelings with all of you today. It is presently 430 am i cant sleep but not because i feel bad, just because those pills the doc gave me to help with my withdrawl symptoms made me sleep all day til 930 pm. So today i am really really feeling better then i have felt in years. I will try to explain as best as i can. First maybe you should read the post i put on my blog called Radical acceptance...its a big 3 month chapter we did in our life skills group. Well i was sitting here wondering what was different in me today. I realised i have hope, a lot of hope in me. For the first time in years i see a big light at the end of this tunnel. In therapy they are always teaching us tools to practice all the time. And i was wondering once and asked m individaul therapis the following.. I know what we do is kind of like brainwashing our minds to think differently by practicing practicing practicing..catching yourself before self sabotaging and doing differently then you normally would, catch yourself at the begining of a panic attack and stop it before it becomes overwhelming. Also stopping yourself when you have spining thoughts or guilt or shame or when thinking everyone hates you and you are a bad person etc etc. And i thought we would always practice and become good at doing it but that it would be something i would have to practice and consciously do the rest of my life, but my therapist told me no and that most people after the 2 years get so good at practicing that they do end up applying these tools and techinques in their life without consciously doing it. It becomes a habit. Well i have noticed today, that i am actually doing some of these things without noticing and that makes me really really happy. For example last night i had a great time at dear friend's house, we laughed so much it was really really nice. Then for some reason i came home and all of a sudden i felt that anxiety rise in me and the paranoid thoughts that i am not a good person, no one really likes me they just put up with me blah blah blah that tape that is always running in the back of my head. Well if this would have hapenned to me like 6 months ago, it would have lasted days or even a week. But no last night i stopped it on my own WITHOUT even noticing. All of a sudden i caught myself thinking. No nacadie, you are who you are right now, you are the best you can be right now and that is good enough. If someone does not like it well too bad, there is nothing more you can do at this moment. And then it stopped on its own and I went to bed feeling fine. Today i looked back and thought wow its really true i will start to be able to do this without thinking about it. Now i know there is a long road ahead of me and that there will be very very hard days but i somehow at the same time feel like i have for the first time in a very very long time, a few goals in my head. In my head, i see good in the future, which has not hapenned in forever in like I said a very long time. I see that i will do detox, then rehab with the quit smoking programme, then back to bpd therapy. And it dawned on me that if since only january i can already apply some of these tools in my life well imagine after finishing the hole programm!!!I actually see a bright future in the distance and at the same time i am enjoying this day of joy. We also practice mindfullness which is living in the present moment. And i have noticed i do that more often now. Usually i always live in either the past, and think of bad things that either hapenned to me or bad things i have done and sit there constantly feeling guilty, ashamed or mad etc etc. Or i will think of the future and make negative predictions without noticing, always thinking i will fail and never be good enough. Well i now also catch myself and say STOP. Right this second, right this instant i am sitting down drinking tea and happy...enjoy it because your life is now, its not when this or that will happens that I will be happy or when I get to this point i will be happy. But i catch myself also thinking well right now i am happy and that's good. Another big thing, well HUGE HUGE thing, is that i am really starting to let go of THIS HUGE amount of guilt i always have inside of me. I always feel as if i am not allowed to not feel guilty because i have done bad things and if i dont feel guilty or permit myself to be happy then i am being a bad person because of all the things i have done, or even the guilt i feel for things i have not even done. I always knew this logically but am now starting to sometimes be able to apply it to my life. A few times this week the guilt would start coming and i would be in the middle of my spining thoughts of guilt and i now see looking back at it that without noticing i actually started thinking... well what exactly are you feeling guilty about? And I feel guilty for ridiculous things i have not even done. If its things i have done, i tell myself they are done, you can never ever change the past no matter how many hours, days or weeks you sit there thinking about them and feeling guilty will never change anything and I will never go forward if i keep it up. Then i think, well i have apologized enough, i can't do anything more except to keep working hard in my therapy and working on the present moment. And i also try to tell myself, it is ok to feel happy and have a good day. The past is the past, no shoulda coulda woulda..not gonna get me anywhere. And when i am thinking in the future and making negative predictions i have stopped myself on my own by saying Nacadie most of the negative predictions you are making almost never happen. If i worry for example about oh i dont know let's say an apointment for example i would have in a week. I imagine it will go really wrong, i will fuck it up somehow but it almost never happens, so i have wasted a whole week of my life stressed about something that will never happen anyway. And even if it did happen what is the point of wasting my NOW or my "present moment" by worrying about it. I know some days I will not feel like this AT ALL but i also now know it will always pass and it will happen a lot less often and when it happens it will not last as long and that it will just get better and better because i will never ever give up and I will always do my best!! So what a good day for me. I wanted to share my happy feelings today since i mostly share negative feelings well why not share the good ones too since i am allowed to feel them!

My mixed up head

Well after all these years and with therapy from which i have learned quite a few things...it still amazes me how my thoughts and feelings can switch from one second the next, and from one extreme to the other. I was having an amazing day today, and all of a sudden my brain just switched to the complete opposite. I was feeling as if i was a good person today which was a rare treat for me....i must say it had been quite a while. Then all of a sudden just like that i was convinced that i am a bad friend, a bad person, a bad daughter and sister, a bad person period. I somehow let my brain once again convince me that i would sometimes be better off alone on a deserted island where i would not be a bother to anyone on this planet. It just overcomes me sometimes like a huge wave. I all of a sudden a feeling comes over me, a knot in my stomach and i really feel like the most unbearable person on earth and wonder why people even talk to me. I become convinced i perhaps should just leave everyone alone because sooner or later they will not be able to take me anymore i will be too much for them and they will leave and abandonment is my worse fear. I realize i really dont let that many people in, like have really really intimate friendships, if someone is too friendly it scares me off. It takes me forever to really truly trust someone and even when i do some part of me is always on guard waiting for something bad to happen, or waiting for me to screw it up. Some nights like tonight i really believe i am not a good person. BUT and thank god there is a but, I am realising that therapy must be helping me somewhat because as opposed to many months ago, i do know this will pass. It is never gone completely, There is always a tiny part in me that believes this but on the days where it gets really overwhelming normally i would jump into panic mode and this could last for days or it has lasted for weeks before. But today even though i feel this i know it will pass and will be a lot less overwhelming and it gives me hope that as i move on on this long journey to some peace of mind, that one day perhaps these thoughts will never or at least very rarely occur to me.Today though I am convinced that i am doomed to be somewhat crazy for the rest of my life, that i will be stuck like this forever with highs and lows and highs and lows and that I am THE one that will fail my 2 year therapy, that I must be the worse case they have ever had where i go to therapy and that everyone will eventually leave...I dont like feeling like this BUT like i said I at least now know it will pass. It always does, so there is some hope and a tiny light at the end of this long tunnel.Tomorrow is a new day..... Thank you for reading me :o)

Update

I thought i would give an update on my situation for anyone that has been reading my blog. Well first of all never would i have even imagined how hard it would be to get help for an addiction. There are only 2 places in Montreal that do a medical detox. The best one is at St Luc hospital and the second one is at a place called Le Cran. All rehabs in Montreal will not take me in unless I do a medical detox first. Now to get into st Luc if you don't have a doctor's referral the waiting list is about 2 to 3 months wait. If you have a doctor's referral the waiting time is about 2 weeks. So I thought ok no problem i will go see my Dr and she will give me a referral saying i need medical detox. Not so simple mu friends. My Dr refused saying it was not her responsibility after I pretty much was begging for help while cruing. I was really really shocked. That really discouraged me. I then started making calls everywhere even ibm NB and the waiting lists in other provinces are even longer. Then one night I had the idea to start calling all medical clinics in Montreal until i found one with a Dr willing to help. I can kind of understand how reluctant they are about giving me a refill of dilaudid to keep me going until i get into detox yet they all tell me do not stop this drug on your own...keep using its too dangerous. Kind of a catch 22. So on my I think 25 th call i found a clinic with a Dr willing to help me and give me a referral. He did not prescribe me dilaudid but he prescribed me Clonodine which is a drug to to help with the SEVERE withdrawls from getting off dilaudid. He told me to take 3 a day and every 2 or 3 days take one less dilaudid. I started yesterday with one dilaudid less and i was amazed at the results. The Clonodine makes me groggy and very very tired. And the withdrawal symptoms from dilaudid so far are really not too bad. I feel like I have a huge cold with aches and pains and very tired as i mentionned but that is it so far...so I plan on going as low as i can until i get into st Luc. I am really really surprised at how difficult it is to get help and how hard it is to find a Dr that will sign a simple referral saying my patient needs a medical detox. I van not imagine how hard it must be for a homeless drug addict person to get help! So that is my update and again thank you to all the people in my life helping me supporting me and not giving up on me. Thank you for reading me :)

A better way to help

As i have repeated many times in other posts if any of you reading this will know i have said the following a few times. We feel guilty pretty much all time from thinking that we are bad bad people, bad friends, bad daughter or son, bad sister or brother..etc. As illogical and hard as it is to understand for others, in our heads we always think we are doing the best for everyone around us and we are 99% of the time completely wrong. For example, let's say i fucked up like i really did, fucked up my budget from not feeling well and jumpting to spending to feel better. In my head it was logical to try to fix my budget myself, cause i always belive that i can, and lie and say everything is fine. In my head that is the best solution as to me i think well it will avoid others from worrying about me and stressing over me etc etc. Which makes no sense at all since i end up in a mess that is too big for me and then have to come clean. Not only have i hurt the people around me from lying to them for one, but also stress them more cause they now worry about what else i might be doing wrong and not saying or if its worse then what i say. Another example, i have a friend that tried to commit suicide a few months ago, the reasoningt in her head was that she was so miserable and such an annoyance and pain to everyone that she kept lying and pretending everything was ok as to not bother anyone, and one day she thought well everyone around me will just be better off if i kill myself. Obviously that just cause more pain to others because she did not chose to talk to them or ask for help and they would have been devistated if she had actually died(which she almost did) and now they worry all the time, is she really ok, will she try this again, is she lying to us thinking she is protecting us. We never ever have bad intentions but in our fucked up logic way of thinking we really think we are doing the best to avoid pain and hurt to the people we love. We all KNOW that fucking up, like overspending, trying to commit suicide, cutting, drinking, doing drugs, not eating right, not exercising enough, smoking too many cigarettes, etc etc etc. And usually all those things are done automatically as this is the way we have learned how to cope with life and with the pain and emptiness we have felt our whole life it is obviously a really bad way of coping with life and a bad survival skill we have developped to try and protect ourselves. We know for example that when we start feeling that pain and emptiness and sadness and lost feeling, we should call a friend or family member and ask for help or talk about it but as simple as this sounds to people it is really a lot harder said then done. The guilt and worry about burdening or bothering or annoying someone stressing them and making them worry is really HUGE. So most of the times we just jump to what we know how to do and go for our bad coping skills, then lie, try to hide it really truly believing this is the best way to protect our loved ones. And of course this is a fucked up way of living and coping. It also brings up a huge huge fear of abandonmant, because when we do call a loved one, alot of timess they dont know what to say or do, they get worried or stressed or they become really overwhelmed and then start distancing themselves from you because it is just too much for them to handle. I can only imagine how hard it must be for others to try and help. How annoying it must be the hear the same stories over and over adn the need for reassurance and validation. I can not even tell you how many times i have called people saying the same things everytime...Am i a bad person, are you sure, are you saying this only to calm me down or do you really mean it, do you hate me, do i get on your nerves, am i always doing things that annoy you, Am i crazy, do you think i will stay this way forever, do you think everyone hates me and thinks i am a really bad person, and on and on and on...takes a long time to "somewhat" belive it on really bad days. Now when we chose not to call anyone and fuck up royally believe me WE KNOW IT. I know after the fact that i have overspent, i know i should not have cut myself, i know i should not have gotten drunk, i know i should not have done this or that. WE KNOW and we feel soooooooooooo guilty its almost unbearable, it comsumes you 24 hours a day for quite some time sometimes. Now i know this must be hard, but being told repeatidly, You should know better, you should have done better, you have done this many times, you have hurt me. You should have tried harder, this is unnaceptable..etc etc. It is completely understanble to express ONCE that this was hurtful and not pleasant that it happenned again and that it hurt you. But once is plenty, there is nothing you can say that we dont know. If it is constantly repeated, the self esteem goes further down and down and the guilty becomes worse and worse and what do we do when we feel guilty, jump right back to horrible coping skils and do horrible things again to try and make the pain go away. It is very very hard when you have tried so hard (in my case with my therapy), when you are being taught new coping skills and many tools to help yourself and you have given it your 100% and it goes well for a while and then you fuck up again, it is sooooooooooo discouraging, it is as if you have done 10 steps forward and then poof you are back at square one. Then you have to find the courage to get back up and try again, and it is really really hard to believe yourself after failing a million times before. WE know what we SHOULD do and what we should not but sometimes it overcomes us and we just cant do it even though we KNOW. We already feel horribly guilty and ashamed and embarrassed. A better way to help like i said is too express that our actions did hurt you, and that you are doing your best to help and that it really sucks that we fucked up and their are ways you cant help out anymore..but then stop talking about it instead say. Ok now its done its done, we belive in you. You can do this. You will get it right, Dust yourself off and get back up you can do it. We dont think you are a horrible person and we know you did not mean to hurt us even if it did hurt us and we will continue to support you in the best way we can and we love you...etc. That gives us confidence takes away alot of the guilt and helps us not to jump to our bad behaviors. Its really ok and your right to express what you feel but repeating it over and over is just making it worse and worse. And saying you should do this or that is usually not very helpfyul at least not for people in therapy since we are being taught many things. Perhaps for people without therapy suggestions could be very helpful. But i know for me in therapy and what i have heard from others in my therapy we pretty much all feel the same. I know this must be extremely hard to do when you are angry or fed up with us but it would go such a long way to help us get better as we do try our very best. Please try to keep this in mind and have some patience i know it must be really hard to believe us and have patience and keep giving support but it really means to world to us, more then you will ever know. A special thank you to all the people in my life trying really hard to help me and to understand me better. PS. It is of course perfectly fine and even helpful for others to set limits and bounderies so as to not enable us. Thank you for reading me :o)

Another helpful link

Thanks to my dear friend here is another link that you may enjoy http://bpdfamily.blogspot.com

Angels

I want to take a moment to thank all the angels in my life. I am very fortunate to have a fantastic family and amazing friends that do not give up on me. My family is just absolutely amazing through this difficult period. As is my individual therapist. My roomate and my friends. It is really amazing to me that after all they have been through because of me they are still willing to support me and help me and still belive in me. It means the world to me. After so many failures at trying to get better in my life it sometimes is very very difficult for me to belive myself some days that i will get better but what a difference it makes to me to know some people still belive in me and do not give up on me. I am blessed and very lucky. Thank you to all of you, words can not express my gratitute. I love you all very much xxxx

Link

An angel in my life sent me this very interesting link http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html?_r=2&pagewanted=3 enjoy :o)

There is hope..do not give up

Well as i said in previous posts i am in a thearpy program for 2 years 4 times a week. Of course i was and sometimes am still sceptical about the outcome and how much better i will be after this 2 year program. I have been told by my individual therapist, and by doctors in my other group therapy that this illness can be really well managed and one can become fully functional and have this bpd under control for life after this program with this therapy. I had and still have some days a very hard time believing this BUT, there are some people in my group that are close to the end of their 2 years or i have been in a group once where a girl came in for her last session after 2 years...and i have to say i was shocked!!! The amount of progress she made and belive me she was really really fucked up with quite a hellish past in many many ways. Well she talked alot on her last day and it is unbelievalbe how well this person is now in...this was a few months ago and i got an update from her and how well she is doing. Basically with all the tools she learned in therapy, after A LOT of practice and really hard work. She is now fully fonctional, is back at work and in university. She says her panic attacks are gone. She still gets anxiety but no longer needs her anti anxiety meds to get over the anxiety, she uses the tools learned that i have been sharing in my previous post and she says they are becoming and automatic thing now...she often does this without even trying now. It is starting to come to her naturally. Her self esteem is really really remarkable. She really has her bpd under control and says that she some days almost feels like she does not have it anymore.. She does still see an individual therapist about twice a month which she will do for about a year to make sure she does not relapse. I am also seeing other people that are nearing the end of their therapy and i am amazed, i mean really really amazed at their progress and how much they have changed their life. I always assumed that even after therapy was over after 2 year that all the tools i was learning would always be a struggle and a daily thing to deal with and put into practice, but they are all saying that it is slowly becoming second nature and after practicing for 2 years its is becoming part of their life without thinking about it. I know not everyone has access to thearpy which is really really unfortunate. I am really really hoping that people reading my blog will be able to benefit from my posts from therapy. As you also know i will be out of therapy for a few months until my addiction problems are delt with, and then i will resume my therapy and i will be giving it my 100% as i now see a huge light at the end of the tunnel. So please do not give up, there is hope and this ilness can be managable and help you function in a healthy way with daily things, such as working, dealing with interpersonal relationships, not acting out or thinking with your emotions alone but actually acting in a safe way without even having to think about it after A LOT of pracrtice but you must be willing ro put in the work and really really practice on a daily basis the tools i have listed in many of my posts. DO not give up. Again thank you for reading me :o)

Paragraphs

Well i appologize i have tried writing my post in my word program with paragraphs then copy paste and have tried other things it just does not work. And i know how much it sucks to read it without paragraphs. I will keep trying.

Update

Well i will give an update on myself and my dilaudid addiction. I have been trying to get help for the past week and let me tell you it is a hell of a lot harder then i ever could have imagined. First all rehab centers for example Fosters, Dollard Cormier, Toxico stop etc etc...do not have resources to detox someone safely off of dilaudid so everywhere i called i was told to call st luc hospital where they to a 10 day detox from dilaudid using methadone. You stay there for 10 days since the withdrawls are horrible. I tried stopping myself one day and after about 15 to 18 hours, i was vomiting, i had diarrhea, sweats, tremors, leg kicking syndrome or restless leg kicking, anyway my legs were kicking on their own, my body was twitching, severe muscle cramps, stomach cramps, massive headache, hot minute freezing, one minute super hot, fever, blurred vision, hallucinations, trembling, fast beating heart..etc etc, not fun at all!!! I of course cracked and continued taking the dilaudid. Every person i have talked to since, rehab people, nurses and doctors tell me i MUST NOT stop using until i get help BUT they will not prescribe me any dilaudid, they pretty much tell me to keep buying it. Now getting into St luc hospital detox is not a simple task. First i called and their computer system was down, i was told by the lady to call back the next day, she said the waiting list was not bad at all about a week and a half. So i was really happy about that. When i called back i got a man whom was very kind and proceeded to explain that if i say i am buying my drugs from the streets the waiting list is 2 to 3 months BUT if i go to the doctor who first gave me a prescription after my fall and injury to my back, tell her my problem, she signs a note saying what she prescribed me, what amount, says i need detox and sends it in by fax and then it will only be about 2 to 3 weeks max before i can get in. So i went to my doctor this morning explained the whole situation also asked if i could have a prescription to keep me going until i get in. She takes all the information, congratulates me for taking action and trying to get help, says that at the end of my shifts she will make a few phone calls cause she has never done this before and will do her best to help me and call me by the end of the day. Well i get a phone call from her secretary at the end of the day saying that she will not be sending in a request for me to get into detox as she feels this is not her responsibility!!!! I was quite shocked, frustrated and discouraged. I am shocked at how hard it is to get help to get into a much needed detox. I do not understand that they all keep repeating do not stop using it is very dangerous, you could have a heart attack, respritory failure or even go into a coma but no referral to get into detox and no one will prescribe me anything! Where is the logic. I can certainly understand much better now how homeless people with addiction problems have a hell of a hard time getting help and getting off drugs. They also keep telling me to try and decrease my dose on my own!!!Well if i could do that, i would not be asking for help, my body is literally addicted by now, i start getting the shakes after about 4 hours if i am not taking them. And it costs money to buy these drugs. I am fully aware i did this to myself and it is my own fault but i want to stop and i need help and it seems impossible to get. I may have to try to go back home to get into a detox because in new Brunswick in rehab centers they all have detox facilities to get you off dilaudid safely. I will be going to St luc hospital IN PERSON and be quite persistant and vocal about needing help. Well this is my life update. Not much else to say. Wish me luck and thank you for reading me again :o)

test for paragraphs

This is just a test to see if i managed to fix my paragraph problem. 1 2 3

How i am feeling the past few days or even weeks

Again this is hard for me to write but a lot of people have been telling me how much it helps them so here i go. As i said in previous post, i have become addicted to morphine that i was taking for back pain. Tomorrow i have an apointment with a nurse at a detox centre to get an evaluation. Unfortunately most rehab places that are free have a long waiting list and i could be stuck waiting as long as a month to get in which scares me a lot especially since i now do not have any therapy until march when i will resume my bpd therapy. The plan is to do detox then rehab. Then i will be in a programm called phase 2 of rehab for about 3 months, i think it is about 3 times a week and i will also be doing a cessation smoking programm at the same time to then restart bpd therapy in march. I feel like i have hit rock bottom in my life which I know is good in a way because i will be getting all the help i need but my mind does keep playing tricks on me. I often think wow i just turned 37 and never ever would i have thought i would be 37, divorced, no children, in therapy for a mental illness, waiting to go to detox and rehab, uncapable of working and managing money...not exactly a beautiful portrait. I know logically i should be telling myself that i asked for help and admitted to many problems and i am doing the best i can but my brain has a hard time believing it even though i am doing the right thing. I still feel like a big loser and a huge disapointment to family and close friends even though they don't say it. I am basically paranoid, lonely and feel like a really really bad person and have started to isolate myself for fear of being too much or annoying to others and have them leave me...i pray my wait to get into detox and rehab will not be long. Thank you for reading me :o)

Getting along with others

The following list was given to me in therapy. It will explain why a lot of us have a hard time with interpersonal relationships and why we act the way we do, and give you an idea of what goes on in our heads. Factors reducing interpersonal effectiveness: LACK OF SKILL You actually DON'T KNOW what to say or how to act. You don't know how you should behave to achieve your objectives. You don't know what will work. You are really concerned about what others think about you. WORRY THOUGHTS Worry thoughts get in the way of your ability to act effectively. You have the ability, but your worry thoughts interfere with doing or saying what you want. WORRIES ABOUT BAD CONSEQUENCES. "They dont like me," "She will think i am stupid", "i should just keep quiet and pretend everything is ok" WORRIES ABOUT WHETHER YOU DESERVE TO GET WHAT YOU WANT. "I am such a bad person i don't deserve this or anything" WORRIES ABOUT NOT BEING EFFECTIVE AND CALLING YOURSELF NAMES. "I won't do it right", "I'll probably fall apart", "I'm so stupid", "I am going to fail again, why bother even trying" EMOTIONS Your emotions (ANGER, FRUSTRATION, FEAR, GUILT, SADNESS...ETC) get in the way of your ability to act effectively. You have the avility, but your emotions make you unable to do or say what you want. Emotions, instead of skill, control what you say and do. INDECISION You CAN'T DECIDE what to do or what you really want. You have the ability, but your indecision gets in the way of doing or saying what you want. You are ambivalent about your priorities. You can't figure out how to balance: Asking for too much versus not asking for anything. Saying no to everything versus giving in to everything. ENVIRONMENT Characteristics of the environment make it impossible for even a very skilled person to be effective. SKILLFULL BEHAVIOR DOESN'T WORK" Other people are too powerful Other people will be threatened or have some other reason for not liking you if you get what you want. Other people won't give you what you need or let you say no without punishing you unless you sacrifice your self-respect, at least a little. I can't speak for everyone but these thoughts are usually in my head most of the time which makes it very hard sometimes to have close relationships with others. It's like a recording in my head that has been there since i can remember thinking and i don't even realise it half the time. I have to stop and think of what am actually thinking and try to change the thoughts which is very hard since i tend to not believe the good thoughts about myself. Thank you for reading me :o) I again appologize for the no paragraphs, i just can't figure out why my computer won't let me put paragraphs and i know it's annoying.

You have the right to your own experience

Ok, so if any of you have read some of my previous blogs, there is one called "Your legitimate rights as a human being"..on that list there is one called "You have the right to your own experience". Well i always had a hard time understanding that one but i now understand what it means so i will explain it in case any of you did not understand it as well. My whole life as i have said, i have always felt guilty, this is pretty much daily, i always feel guilty, i always think i did something wrong or that i am not a good person. And as i have said in previous posts i have always kept everything inside, all the pain for example like after being rapped i would say "its ok, i am lucky that i am fine it could have been worse, it made me a stronger person etc etc and never permitted myself to feel the pain cause i had to be "TUFF". Same as when i got divorced, i would tell myself and others, these things happen, it's not the end of the world, a lot of people have it worse then me..so i kept on smiling and pushed the pain away believing i had no right to feel pain or complain since as i always say "There are worse problems in the world". I say that phrase quite frequently. So i never allowed myself to feel pain, sadness or dissapointement. I was always as i said "TUFF" and trying to always see the good side of everything and pushing the pain inside. When i do feel the pain, when i am sad or depressed, i always feel guilty and always say, what the hell are you complaining about, some people are dying of hunger in other countries, some people have no family, no health, people out there are going through way worse then i am so shut up and take it. Now i understand that of course that is not healthy in anyway shape or form because in order to avoid the pain i assumed i was not entitled to feel, well i either spend money, drink, cut..etc etc which is not very healthy at all. So by saying you have the right to your own experience means that yes when i feel sad or hurt or depressed even though someone else is going through worse or their are people dying of hunger out there, the fact is i am hurting and i am allowed to feel it. In fact it is important to feel it so it does not stay bottled up inside and come out later in a very unhealthy way BUT and their is a BUT, it's ok and normal and healthy to feel your emotions but you must not dwell on it either. Here comes in the radical acceptance part. Acknowledge your feelings, yes i am sad and hurt that this hapenned to me, its not fair and it sucks, now accept it as it is because you cant change it THEN ask yourself what can i do to make this better, what do i have control over. Accept that it happenned and you have no control over that because it is already done and you just cant change that...then move on to a solution. A healthy solution. I have listed many many coping skills and activities or distractions one can apply at this very moment. So to me this is what "you have the right to your own experience" means. I will now actually say "You have the right to your own experience WITHOUT FEELING GUILTY" I hope this helps you understand and again as always thank you for reading me :o)

Little ways to help

When i have a panic attack, there are certain things i like to hear that usually calm me down, i thought i would share them perhaps it will help someone that has a close friend or family member that has bpd or panic attacks. When i panic, sometimes all i need to hear a few simple phrases, they are phrases i can tell myself as well, but sometimes i don't believe myself and it helps to hear from others. -This will pass, it always does, think of the last time you felt like this nothing hapenned. -You are a good person, things always have a way to work out. -You are not alone and never will be -You are not crazy Then sometimes the person i am talking to will start small chit chat, what they did that day, what they ate for supper or ask me simple questions like that. Always simple questions, even just like i said, what did you eat today, what time did you get up, did you watch tv, is the weather nice outside..nothing too deep or complicated. I find these little things often help me. I actually tell friends and family members ahead of time what to tell me and it does really help, someone that listens and takes a few minutes to say the following things. Everyone might want to hear different things, these are pretty general though. Thank you for reading me :o)

Can't sleep

Today i had to admit i am an addict and need help. I have realised this has been going on since the age of 12 when i started drinking. Then around the age of 15, i started doing drugs. I was always partying and usually drinking to oblivion. In my early 20's i would go through bouts with my back then husband. I would go on drinking binges for months and months and then stop for months as well. Then when i moved to montreal in 2000 i was quiet for quite a while with the alcohol and drugs, only once here and there. But towards the end of my marriage i started drinking more often and when we divorced i belive in 2006 i went on a drinking and drug binge for quite a few months too. Then i stopped for a while. Two summers or 3 summers ago i partied all summer, all alcohol though. Then i stopped again for quite a while. When i stopped partying for a while, i would of course jump to another addiction, spending money, overeating, or not eating...or to the health kick extremes i described in my previous blogs, but when i look back, their is always some sort of addiction. In july i fell 2 times on my back and really really hurt myself, my back still hurts. I am now addicted to the dilaudid. I will have to do a medical detox and perhaps a rehabilitation programme as well which i want to do. I admitted i needed help when i realised this was out of my control. Once i realised this was out of control, i looked back on my life and realised this has been going on my whole life. I was sure i had everything under control. What fooled me the most was the fact that i could always stop for months and months at a time..but even when i went without drugs and alcohol for a while there was always an addiction there. So i am writing this personal stuff because i will have to do a medical detox and perhaps a rehap programm starting within a few days and i may not be able to blog for a while depending on what happens to me. If i can't blog i will still continue taking my notes and blogging when i can or when i come back if i have to enter a treatment facility. Thank you for reading me (whoever that is cause some days i have no clue) :o)

Feel like sharing?

I would love it if some of you would post what it is like to live with or know someone who has bpd, to help us understand how you see us and how we can perhaps learn how to interact better. I would also enjoy any other people with bpd sharing some of their stories...remember you can post anonymously. Thank you :o)

We are black and white....

I am writing this specific blog to try and explain to our non bpd friends what it means when they say Borderline personality people are all either black and white with their attitudes and moods and actions...everything to the extreme. No grey zone. I will also explain why we act in bad ways sometimes. So basically we are to the extreme. It's all or nothing. If i decide i am going on a health kick, example am starting to eat very healthy and exercising and going to the gym and doing my meditation etc etc..well it"s to the extreme, to the point of burning myself out. I will end up exercising hours a day, cleaning hours a day, eating super super healthy, quit smoking...i know these are all good things, but its not done in a correct way. And it has to be perfect, if not i feel like a failure. For example if i start going to the gym and do let's say 20 minutes on the stairmaster then 20 mintues running and then if i go the next day and only do 15 minutes on one of the machines its not good enough, its as if i never even went to the gym. So i keep adding and adding to the exercises til its become ridiculous and a chore i hate. Quitting smoking is already hard enough alone...then i eat super healthy and if god forbid i ate super healthy for a week then have a peice of chocolate, poof i am a failure. The week of eating well does not count. It's as if we set unreachable goals and set ourselves up for failure. Then the more to the extreme you go the harder the fall when you stop. Then once you fall from your let's say extreme health kick, you fall hard. Then its to the extreme in a bad way, everything becomes out of control, it's like fuck the health, fuck everything, i am no good at it, i am a failure. I cant do it and i dont deserve it. So then we jump into the compulsions as i call them..if you have been reading me you know them...shopping, overeating, not eating, alcohol, drugs, no exercising, cutting...the list is long. Depression and anxiety kick in with the shame and guilt of having failed one more time. It feels as if one has taken ten steps forward and then poof back to 15 steps back. Then you have to get up once again and try again, and the longer you do this in life, the harder it is to believe yourself or trust yourself, you just feel and know you will fail if you try again. It gets discouraging and hard quite a bit. Why we jump to bad behaviors was talked alot about in my life skills group too, and i found it very interesting. All of us from what i am seeing in therapy and from my own experience or from what i feel, we all have very low self esteem and feel we have never been validated or heard. We all have a longing to belong, to feel loved or validated..their is an emptiness that is always there, a hole as if something is always missing. We long for love and acceptance. I will start by an example they gave us. Let's say a 4 year old falls down and hurts her knee and cries. The best way a parent can handle it is by acknowlding the pain by saying something like "i am sorry you fell it know it must hurt" console them a little bit and then say something like "what can we do about it now" and then put a bandaid on the bruise. This way the child was validated that her feelings were ok and she was heard and felt loved and accepted. If a parent says something like "stop it you are being a baby"...the child feels unvalidated. So most of us in therapy, were never validated in life and we long and search for that. Most of us only got attention when acting out. When young, by either throwing tantrums, or fighting...etc. This varies of course from individual to individual, but for me i was like that. I was also always talking loudly and demanding attention at all times, there was always some sort of drama in my life, i have been called a drama queen quite often. Then at the age of 12 i started drinking and behaving badly as well...on to drugs after that, bulimia. etc.This was the way i would get attention, when i would act out. So this is brainwashed into our heads sometimes. If i am not well, if i am suicidal or cutting or you know the list...then i get some sort of love, attention or validation. Someone is hearing me say in my self destructive way, I AM HERE, I HURT, I WANT TO FEEL LOVED AND VALIDATED. It is very hard to stop this behavior since it's been a ways of living from a very young age. And when we do get validated in a positive way, we dont believe it anyway since we are absolutly convinced we are bad horrible selfish people who do not deserve anything. Now we are learning in therapy how to self sooth ourselves and provide ourselves the validation we need instead of trying to get it from either your parents, or friends of close ones...varies from person to person. Usually it is more specifically one person or two that we project onto other people as well. Now learing to soothe yourself, and feed yourself that love you need well let me tell you that is not easy. Your whole life you believe you are a bad person and you dont love yourself or belive anything good about yourself. It is a long and hard process...I will post soon some of the techniques and coping skills we are learning in my life skills course. Thank you for reading me and again i appologize for grammar mistakes and my computer still will not let me do paragraphs unfortunatly :o)

Quick guide to coping with external stressors and skills for handling job stress

1.Self care: diet, sleep, exercise 2.Direct action: prioritizing, goal setting (even if only small daily goals) 3.Support seeking 4.Situation Mastery: Knowing your own limits, controlling and changing what you CAN and not what you can't 5.Humor Yourself, have fun, laugh (humour and laugh with others) 6.Adaptability: positive attitude towards change and demands 7. Time managementf (don't over book yourself, have some time for you) TAKE 5 (SKILLS FOR HANDLING JOB STRESS) 1. Take a break: physically remove yourself from the situation for a moment 2. Take a stock of stress-creating habits: work to change them 3.Take action to change the situation: If possible 4.Take it as it is (like radical acceptance from my previous posts): cope with things you cannot control. 5.Take care of yourself: eat right (bring healthy snacks to work), get enough sleep, exercise, take a walk around the office, go to bathroom and put cold water on your hands and wrists. THREE GOLDEN RULES 1. Don't sweat the small stuff 2. It's all small stuff 3. If you cannot fight or cannot flee, FLOW Thanks for reading me :O)

Paragraphs

I appologize, for some reason my computer will not let me make paragraphs, so everything is a big blog with no paragraphs, i am trying to fix it.

An instant relaxation exercise

Art times we find ourselves overexcited, angry, or just needing to calm down. This simple exercise may be a valuable tool for reducing excessive arousal quickly and effectively during upsetting moments, in effect, a quick way to "calm down" in the face of a stressful situation. The basic mechanism for stress reduction in this exercise involves deep breathing. The procedure is as follows: STEP 1: Assume a comfortable position. Rest your left hand (palm down) on the top of your navel. Now place your right hand so it sits comfortably on your left. You eyes should rem ain open. STEP 2:Imagine a hollow bottle, or pouch, lying internally beneath the point at which your hands are resting. Begin to INHALE, imagine the air is entering through your nose and descending to fill that internal pouch. Your hands will rise as you fill the pouch with air. As you continue to inhale, imagine the pouch being filled to the top. Your rib cage and upper chest will continue the wave-like rise that was begun at your navel. The total lenght of your inhalation should be 3 seconds for the first week or so, then lenghten to 4 or 5 seconds as you progress in skill development. STEP 3:Slowely begin to exhale-to empty the pouch. As you do, repeat to yourself this phrase, "My body is calm". As you exhale, you will feel your raised abdomen and chest recede Repeat this exerise two times in successsion. Then continue to breathe normally for 5-10 successive breath cycles, but be sure to emphasize the expiration of each breath cycle to the point of relaxation. Then you may repeat the entire process again-2 deep breaths followed by 5-10 normal breaths during which you concentrate on releasing any stored tension on the expiration. Should you begin to feel light-headed or should experience any discomfort, stop at that point. You may wish to shorten the lenght of inhalation to avoid light-headedness. After about one week of practicing, omit step 1, start with step 2. If you have any health concerns, consult your physician prior to using this exercise. NEVER USE THIS EXERCISE WHILE DRIVING.

Quote i like

"If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is"