Recovery

Lost in The Fire.

/ toseealife / 1 Comment

Well, the Oh Hellos released a new EP, and my Dad’s house burned down, so it’s been interesting since I last posted.

My dad wasn’t in it, thankfully. But he was pretty shook, as we say now.

Right now, it’s the third day of me waking up and seeing a yellow sky out my bedroom window. It’s so weird, like a post-apocalyptic teen movie. I guess there’s a strange beauty in it, and for a wonder, it’s been much cooler. I find it ironic that a fire burning had made it cooler, but one man’s loss is another man’s gain.

Fire does make rain too, so maybe in a few weeks we’ll reap some much needed benefits from this, but for now, no one is seeing it as a good thing.

People always say living on the West Coast is scary because of earthquakes, but the wildfires and arson every year are actually the biggest problem for us, way more than earthquakes.

Strange, my dad’s house was in danger a couple weeks back, but we prayed, and the wind actually changed direction just like we asked. So this time around, I didn’t even think about him being in danger of losing it.

When the ash starts falling down here in the valley, we know the fire is too close for comfort, even if we’re out of reach of it.

Falling Ash – Sam's Online Journal

I can’t explain why my dad’s house got spared once only to burn down two weeks later. Anymore than I can explain why Anne Frank made it to the allies winning the war, but still died in a Nazi prison camp.

In the fan fiction I write, I actually just had a fire happen in the story, literally af ew days before this, and was having the characters deal wtih the aftermath, asking some of the same questions that we’re aasking in real life now.

Why?

And what is the point?

When we get one miracle, sometimes it almost feels like mockery, especially if later we still lose the thing. Why get it longer at all? Why raise false hopes?

The Bible has examples of that too, the Israelites win one battle, lose the next. Get saved from their enemies, and years later, get taken captive. God warns them, but they probably were still confused, since when did they ever listen to the prophets, after all.

It could be that our idea that because we were saved once, we automatically will be saved the next time is actually foolish and not one God tells us to have.

God promises to always protect us, but not that it will look the way we want it to. Not that we will never lose anything.

Indeed, most of the Psalms is the author praying for emotional protection and protection from sinning, as well as physical protection.

There’s pretty much zero chance my dad will read this blog, (or listen to me, after all,) but I wonder if he’s thinking that all this just means he can’t win. He can’t be happy.

To be getting close to peace, and to have it wrenched away. Why does God allow this?

And me, personally, it’s a reminder that I may not be as far out of the woods as I think, in my own life.

Of course, safety is an illusion outside of God’s will. We never really know what will happen. We could walk out the door and get killed, or we could have an accident in our house. The only risk free thing to do it sit real still and never move…and then you die of starvation or lack of exercise.

God just doesn’t mean for us to do nothing dangerous our whole lives. Danger makes it worthwhile.

See, being better off from one minute to the next is something completely in our own heads, unless we measure it by how much we are trusting God. I am no safer this minute than I am on a mountain top in a lightning storm, it is just to me that it seems different.

It’s not wrong to think things are going well in our lives, or going poorly. The Bible certainly never tells us to throw out that standard, how else can we understand God’s goodness? But it cautions us to keep in mind that it is all a gift, not what we are owed.

I believe God does want each of us to be happy, in the right time and right context for happiness. But not a isngle one of us ahs a correct idea of happiness when we first walk with God.

My ideal of happiness as a new Christian was not to have trouble, not to have relationship problems, and to have a good career, husband, children, and be able to do what I loved doing.

To be honest, I still prefer all those things.

But I’ve had a series of rude awakenings that none of that gurantees happiness. To my amazement, I can be sad even if nothing is going wrong in my life at the moment, and I can be happy even if everything is going wrong.

Stasi Eldredge recently wrote a book titled “Defiant Joy” and I think that’s appropiate, the deepest Joy is usually defying the circumstances.

Suffering has a way of making us understand better whyt his world just cannot satisfy us, and our Joy is clearer when we see it depends on heavenly things, not earthly things.

I don’t just meant hat as a cliche, I mean that the ability to think about how heaven is, how God is over all, how we will live forever in that Reality, is the key to feeling true Joy.

You know, if I could give a pieve of advice to any new Christain, or curious seeker reading this, I’d tell them “Pay attaention to the cliches, the cliches are true.”

There’s hardly one Christian saying or teaching, which people usually roll their eyes at, that I have not found to be ultimately a profound truth.

“Just have Faith”

“You have to trust God”

“Don’t focus too much on earhtly things”

“God is in control”

We like to say that those just aren’t comforitng, that they make us feel liek no one is listening to our pain.

But I’ve come to see those sayings came form genrations of Christians going through trials, and finding that those really were the simple turhts they had to hold on to, in the end the simplest things are the most Comforitng. Like

“You’re not alone”

“God is in this.”

We say it because it’s true. Cliche or not.

I still think that God will “give me the desires of my heart” as the Word says, but I now know better that those desires will sometiems feel like a chore too.

I’m not married yet, but I do realzie once I am, there will be tiems my husband seems like more of an annoyance than a blessing. Same with children. Even if I live out my dream of adopting, I’ll certainly be tired of it at times.

I love teaching, but I don’t love it when I have a headache or didn’t sleep the night before.

Nothing mortal is always fun. Even worshipping God can be a struggle at times.

But, even so, it doesn’t make those things not worthwhile.

And losing them doesn’t mean you give up.

If I gave up every time I was disappointed, I’d not have anything left, that’s the honest truth.

I mean on everything, too. Deliverance from my personal problems, getting a job, getting a boyfriend, writing a successful book, getting a car, teaching.

All of it I got let down on a lot of times before I got any of those things, and I still am waiting on some.

I’ve learned the hard way that if you get knocked down, you really do have to get back up. Even if it’s not fair, even if it’s tragic, even if it’s tearing your heart out to keep going, you have to, or you’ll shrivel into nothing.

I think the Karate Kid remake actually summed that up in a beautiful way. (I liked the new one better than the old simply because I thought it had some deeper themes than just overcoming a bully problem, not that that’s bad, but of overcoming loss itself.)

The Bible says “For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.” {Proverbs 24:16}

I guess you know you’re the righteous by seeing if you got up again. It doesn’t take much to defeat someone who has no character.

They say the best way to heal from losing a pet is to get a new one soon. I think that is true. It’s easier to dare to love again if you don’t let the memory of your love fade away, along with the pain, by not loving anything else again.

Rebounding is not always healthy, but it can be far worse to close off forever. No, it is far worse.

All this to say, whatever you lose, you need to rebound. Wisely, but do it. It’s the only way to heal.

I believe that is why at the end of Job, God gives him all he had, doubled, save for his children, since God seems to count the ones who died as still being part of the number, a note of respect most people miss reading that story (I got it pointed out by someone else).

God’s message is not that the loss didn’t matter, but that Job, having lost everything, had to start again if he would be restored. That is the only way to heal.

Job is one of the only Old Testament men mentioned to have given his daughters an inheritance, treating them as equals to his sons. We aren’t told why he did this, but perhaps he realized that in life, you should bless people as much as you can while you can, because you really have nothing certain, and gender and age just don’t matter as much as we think.

Job loved harder after losing everything, and that is how I want to be. I want my loss to mean that in the future, I’ll give more to people I wouldn’t have before.

Well, that is all for now, until next time, stay honest–Natasha.

Where I’m at.

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What a month last month was for me. Crazy.

It’s not usually a good idea to list the bad things that happen to you, but sometimes you have to in order to just appreciate that you got through it.

So, in the course of a month, I:

  1. Got rejected from at least 3 job applications after an interview.
  2. Got a mouth infection (not fun) and had to be on antibiotics that made me feel nauseous.
  3. Had a huge attack of intrusive thoughts.
  4. Had a huge attack of anxiety about all of the above
  5. Then got what we think was mild food poisoning, along with my sister, and had a 2nd period in one month, a weird phenomenon that happens sometimes and made me feel even sicker.

Still recovering from that last one, but I am feeling better. Still I felt so sick I barely ate anything for 3 days and just managed to eat a little better yesterday. Don’t know if it was hormones, allergies, bad food, or some unholy combination of all three.

Somehow, even after all that, I still have felt closer to God than before.

I don’t think God gave me all those problems directly, and with prayer, thankfully, some of them are going away, but God didn’t just lift them off immediately either.

It’s ironic that a lot of my problems are self-inflicted after the intial issue that wasn’t in my control.

I eat less when I’m stressed, so the more worried I get about feeling unwell, the less I want to eat, and the worse I feel as I get hungrier.

I worry so much about making it worse by eating, I forget that not eating makes it far worse.

My sister asked me why it bothers me so much to think of throwing up, and I didn’t really have an answer. It just always has. Even if arguably that’s not the worst thing ever ( I hate it), what I hate most is how ill I feel before and afterwards. It gets to where I’m more afraid of the idea than of the reality.

It goes back to when I was a kid and felt sick a lot because of anxiety. I would try to figure out what kind of sick I felt, and obsess over it, but I’d think “as long as I don’t throw up it’s not the worst.” I’d pray, begging for that. When I’d feel better a few hours later, it was relief.

The thing is, it’d ruin my time, whatever I was doing. All I wanted was to be at home, curled up with a book, or by the toilet, even if I knew nothing was going to happen.

I guess I never questioned if I could be any different. After I got older and my faith got stronger, this problem went away for the most part, but it rears up every now and then with my allergies, or stress, or PMS. I rarely ever actually get sick, even colds, but I freak out any time I think I might be.

So, getting sick twice in one month has me tripping, you can imagine.

At least, it would, if I let it.

But in another way, God used both these experiences to show me how deeply I worry about health. And let it steal my peace and joy any time I have a glimmer of sickness, real or false.

When I get worried, it’s hard for my body to heal anyway, or to even want to. I almost don’t want to try, for fear it won’t work, because then…then what? I guess I feel I couldn’t handle it.

The reality is that’s not true. As with most things, this fear is mostly just shadowy illusions, not based in what’s likely.

I can’t even say if having physical symptoms is worse than emotional. Some of you who have mental illnesses probably think you’d trade for a physical one in a heartbeat, or it might be the other way around. Every problem seems easier to deal with then our own.

Well, our struggles are tailor made for us, I think, in more ways than one. I inherited this struggle with my health from my Grandparents, like with so many other fun things I deal with. I had two who were obsessed with their health constantly.

My dad also constantly felt bad, and just lived with it, never feeling he deserved any better.

Now, me, I’m trying to kick all this. Not that I beleive I will never get sick, but that the same constnat problems I’ve had my whole life can go away.

I know that not every problem goes away, but so many of mine are stress related, and being stressed isn’t a state of mind I want to stay in.

I doubt most people think of me as a stressed person, who know me. I don’t come off that way, because external things rarely upset me as much as other people, my battle is always inward with my own issues. It’s hard to explain that to people.

God showed me how much I think of this stuff. And I am getting a glimmer too of how often I pity myself.

My dad always pitied himself, but he wasn’t compassionate to himself, and I can act the same way. I will feel sorry for myself for going through all this, and beg sympathy of people, but I will be hard on myself at the same time, with a frustration toward my body for not cooperating with what I want and not letting me do what I want.

As if what I want is always best. It seems better than doing what I used to and embracing it as an excuse to hide, but perhaps the pride of thinking I know best is not really better, just different.

Yet, after the first day of feeling really sick, to the point where I dry heaved and gagged, but nothing came up, my sisters and I prayed, and then I got up and danced around my living room, feeling better, but not completely, and I did manage to eat a little after that.

I didn’t get that bad the other days.

But I thought, I would have never done that in the past. Somehow, I felt fine, even though I didn’t feel fine. How is that possible?

God is weird sometimes.

I don’t know how all this will end, I’m learning as I go. I don’t even know how applicable it is for anyone but me, the reasons people struggle are so different.

But my thought it, maybe all this is happening now so I don’t spend decades of my life with the same problems as my dad had. Always thinking I couldn’t do anything about them.

Maybe it’s necessary to learn this now, to prepare for my calling. Certainly it’s interesting how much God can teach you just from living everyday life. Some of us go on big soul searching journerys, some of us stay home and live ordinary lives for 20 years till one day God tells us to move, like Abraham.

Whichever it is, I guess I’m learning, like Paul, to be content with where I am at, to believe it’s where I need to be, and God is growing me through this. Even if it seems painfully small at times.

Though, G. K. Chesterton thought that the ordinary things in life were the most enchanted.

I guess I’ll end with that thought, until next time, stay honest–Natasha.

More than Normal

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I don’t love the many days of Recovery that aren’t exactly good, aren’t exactly bad, just… repetitive.

But on days where you don’t always expect it, you can learn things.

I find the harder my mental, emotional, and physical symptoms push at me, the harder I push back, like that one Skillet Song puts it (Not Gonna Die.)

Why shouldn’t I do what I want? Even if I have issues.

And you know, I’m finding there’s a lot of people like me out there.

Before starting Therpay and ending an abusive situation, I never heard people talk about struggling with mental health problems all that much, I knew one or two people maybe, but I didn’t talk to them at length about it.

Since coming out about all this, I keep discovering people who seem otherwise happy are secretly hiding tormenting anxiety, depression, and mood swings.

Then again, people might have thought my Dad seemed happy too.

See, I’m not like that. When I’m going through something, it’s pretty obvious I don’t smile or talk as much, I’ve always been frustrated with myself for this, but now I am wondering if it’s a good thing. I wear my heart on my sleeve in many ways. When I’m happy I show it, when I’m down I show it. But people notice and can help me.

I’m surprised by how many people who seem cheerful are covering up pain. It kind of makes sense, you have to overcompensate for how you feel. I’m noticing there is a fragility to it, and those people tend to make dark jokes. They joke about their negative feelings too.

I guess it’s a way to ask for help, but knowing that others may not really be able to help you, it’s hard.

Sometimes there’s a solace in knowing others are going through it, but for me, it’s actually discouraging to know they haven’t conquoered it either, I was hoping there was just something I’m missing.

That’s why I was blessed, quite literally, to talk to a lady at my church who’s actually been through the whole intrusive thoughts/depression ordeal, and been free for 10 years now. Which was very encouraging to hear.

My struggle isn’t over, but it is better. I got some good prayer.

It’s got to sound so weird, treating my issues with prayer and worship. Not the most accepted method.

Still, it’s Biblical.

Not that I’m saying professional help is bad, I did seek it out, but it just doesn’t work as well as the other things did.

There’s a song by Rachael Lampa “My Remedy” that I have a new apprecaition for since all this started.

I know where to go, to heal my heart to soothe my soul…

Every time I cry, and I want to hide, feeling like I’m damaged on the inside, I come running to You..

(You know what I need, you’re the Remedy, that’s why I’m keeping you close.

You know what’s bad for me, my only therapy, Jesus your love is my hope.)

On point, off track, one step forward, two steps back. Some days are gonna be just like that.

You’re my medicine, relieve my pain again and again, you always take me back no matter where I’ve been.

Every time I’m hurt, and it doesn’t work, feeling like it never could get any worse, you know just what to do.

It can feel like everyday is simply the struggle to feel normal again. Whatever normal is. I don’t even remember, what I am at now may actually have been my normal beofre, I just didn’t notice what was lacking from it.

If I were to have been really honest, even before the emotional backlash to my Dad moving out started to surface, my life didn’t feel complete.

I spent years in that abusive cycle, feeling afraid, rejected, used. All of which I was. Of course I didn’t feel normal.

Like those stupid pot commercials that played after it got legalized. “Helps me feel normal.” If being high is normal, all I can say is you need a new normal.

And so did I. If that situation was normal, normal is overrated.

Of course for many people, a bad situation is normal. It’s all they’ve ever been in, they’re used to it, they know how to “handle” it, so to speak. Some people are addicted to constantly being hurt, and riding on the Drama high.

One reason I was able to break the abuse was because I had slowly stopped needing the drama. There was a time I fought with my dad on purpose, but after awhile, God showed me how stupid it was to keep doing that when it never worked and only made us both upset. My dad himself had to have drama, if we had a good day, he’d start a fight or give me a verbally scarring lecture in order to restore balance. It was horrid. But he was addicted to the chaos.

My normal was still not perfect though, my normal was not a thriving family dynamic, but simply “coping” until I could get out of it. And I’ve come to see that’s how I treat every problem in my life. I try to cope until an escape presents itself.

It usualy works, gritting your teeth and clenching your hands, up till a certain point. Most painful events only last a few days at most.

But when it goes on for months, and you start to wonder if an end is in sight, then coping becomes a death trap. It leaves you feeling hopeless.

It’s okay to cope, if you have no choice, but in many cases what we are coping with may be something imaginary. Our real problem may be we can’t let go of our perception of ourselves as the victim, or the only one who’s suffering, or worse, we can’t stop seeing ourselves as a failure, a worthless piece of crap, lazy or difficult, or impossible to love.

You can cope with being told that over and over again, like Cinderella in that old story does… but what happens if that situation ends, and you still only see those things around you.

The fairy tales have it right, you do need to be rescued from it by someone else, no one can get out of that place themselves. If they thought they had, that would actually be a terrible sign.

My mom said this to me yesterday, that I don’t need to get back to “normal”. I want to get “better“, to move on into a better situation.

Normal is the status quo, but Jesus promised us an abundant life. Not a normal life.

Normal really is overrated.

Now, if better becomes the new normal, then that’s good. But my mom reminded me of something I already believed, that state of being that is permanent is not possible for a Christian, not a healthy one. The Word says we go from glory to glory.

Stagnation is death, in the Spiritual. God never changes because He is a complete entity, and needs no growth, He already has it all. But all created things, at least in this world, have to grow to be alive.

Anyway, so my new attitude needs to become that at the end of this, I will not have my old state of mind back, but a better one. I will not be as happy as I was, but happier. More joyful.

Until next time, stay honest–Natasha.

Not Gonna Die https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njJ7NZMH70M

My Remedy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXgcwHvsqTc

Hanging in There.

/ toseealife / 2 Comments

Time to get serious.

Stuff happens. It’s been a rough mental time for me.

I both got and lost a job recently, and am now looking at another one. My sisters and I went to the beach to get out of the house. And I went to a women’s group at my church.

We just spent the whole time talking, and then praying. It was really good.

image (41)

You know what I found out? Age is just a number.

All us ladies, from the youngest (me) to the oldest (a lady in her 70s or 80s) have similar struggles.

The Lock-down has given many of us anxiety, some have not gotten to see their children or grandchildren in months. Some are still out of work. More than one of us are in therapy or counseling.

I was surprised to hear a lady much older than me, who has a daughter my age, say she has some of the same problems as me with feeling guilty about relying on people.

It reminded me that there are things you don’t grow out of with age.

Of course, I had proof of that. In my own family. It can be weird knowing I was more mature than some of my much older relatives.

One other thing that I got reminded of was the importance of sharing our story.

I’ve heard that “the degree to which you are able to tell your story is the degree to which you are able to heal.” I think that’s true.image (28)

Maybe that’s why anime characters always get redeemed after the whole tragic backstory comes out.

You know the most shocking thing about sharing is that you find out how your experiences are not really rare. It takes a very uniquely messed up person to have a story that doesn’t ring true for thousands of other people.

Good experiences tend to be our own, they would only have been special to us in the way they happened, what sounds nice to us sounds boring or weird to someone else, but everyone understands humiliation, betrayal, heartbreak, depression, etc.

The reason I write about my unpleasant experiences on this blog is because I know people need to hear about them, they need to hear what I learn along the way. and it also serves to remind me that I am going through a process.

Lately, my biggest struggle has been intrusive thoughts about killing myself.

Now, when I say that, people think I mean contemplating suicide. But that isn’t what I’m doing.

It’s more like a suggestion “kill yourself” or “I want to kill myself” comes into my head, uninvited, and I am horrified by it.

Thoughts of harming myself also come often. Like an image in my mind’s eye.

The suggestion is more like “I could do this” then ” I want to” usually.

I wonder if anyone reading this knows what I’m talking about.

I have had intrusive thoughts most of my life, sometimes they are about hurting other people, sometimes they are about hurting myself, those ones dated back to my preteen years.

I never once acted on these thoughts, and I still haven’t to this day. I assumed they came from depression, but they happen when I don’t feel depressed.

The real trigger seems to be anxiety, I think that’s common with people who have these thoughts. I have anxiety about my ability to deal with life, and with people, and with myself, the thoughts center around making me feel even more insecure about that. If what you think about is a reflection of who you are, the logic goes, than I must be a terrible person.

Some people do give into these thoughts and become terrible. Others never do, and the thoughts get better.

They come most when someone feels bad about who they are. These thoughts are like your mind’s bully. Telling you you are all the things you fear you truly are, deep down. And it’s hard to get away from them when it’s in your own head.

I got so afraid of these thoughts, I didn’t want to write anything about it for fear of focusing on it more.

But I believe in sharing my struggles. So here goes.image (31)

I’ll admit, I do not yet have the solution. But I can give you somethings that have helped me find some relief and even victory in this area.

A big thing: I had a breakthrough when my mom helped me realize that if killing myself was something I wanted to do (it’s not, but the thoughts raise the question) I would not do it, because I believe God has given me a life, and I should let Him be in charge of it. I would choose God over taking an easy way out. (At no point did I plan to go through with such a thing, the whole power was in the suggestion of it.)

While my confidence in my own resolve varies, it’s good to know what I really want.

Another thing that helps, trying not to follow these thoughts, it’s like a trap, you end up treading a well worn path that never gives you any answers about anything, or makes you feel better. But it’s addictive. You end up feeling kind of wrong without it.

One day when I tried to go the whole day not worrying, I felt empty. The noise in my head was what filled me up and took up my energy.

Something else that really helped, getting prayer and encouragement from those ladies. They encouraged me not to feel like such a failure, or so weak. To remember who I am. And to believe there’s an end to this.

A thought that often bothers me, and I’m sure you can relate, is “Will this ever end?” I’ve had the problem for so many years, and even though it’s gotten better at times, it has come back again and again.

This is the first time I learned anything about why it happens though. Or what works on it, other than distraction.

On record, I don’t know if intrusive thoughts end or not, at least for the average person. God can fix any problem.

And believe me, I get frustrated that He hasn’t yet. I hate it so much.

But hating it only makes me hate myself, and that only makes it worse. And being afraid only makes it worse for it adds to the anxiety that probably causes it to begin with.

There are people who fought something for 20 years before God healed it. Healing happens, but not always in the time we want it to.

Sometimes I feel I can’t take it anymore, but by then I’ve usually worried more about having the problem then the problem itself makes me miserable.

It’s true, struggling with a sin like fear and doubt is humiliating for a Christian. We’re supposed to have Faith, Hope, Joy, and Love.

Yet, somehow, even in this process, I haven’t lost those things. I think I love my family more for how supportive they’ve been, and for friends who’ve also helped.

I have Hope in that I am still in this and haven’t give up, and God promise “he who endures to the end shall be saved”

Sometimes I have Joy, despite this suffering, when I remember the Goodness of God and how He has helped me through many, many difficult days when I thought I couldn’t go any further.

All that has built up my Faith.

I have moments of doubt, every day sometimes, but overall, I have stayed true to what I believe.

And I have done what my Dad, who has the same problem, never did. I have asked for help, I have sought answers, I have prayed and praised God and not lost my connection with Him throughout this.

So, I believe I will survive it. I will go on, and I’ll recover from how emotionally draining this experience has been.

I guess I could close with some advice to anyone who has dealt with or knows someone who has dealt with this problem.

  1. If they told you about it that took courage, don’t act afraid of them.

Believe me, anyone who owns up to this is in enough shame and guilt, don’t add to it. They don’t like these thoughts, so you don’t need to worry about that, unless they start acting on them, but that is no longer intrusive thoughts.

2. Be encouraging.

Everyone has good and bad days with this problem. Encourage them to believe in the good, and that the bad day will always pass. And at least they stuck it out.

3. Tell them the truth.

What helps you when you’re down? What gives you strength? What typically helps the person in question? Try to help them focus on that.

4. Remind people it’s not permanent.

5. Listen.

People who feel guilty may need to talk it out before they can let go of that.

6. Know that it is never just about the thoughts. It’s about the fear and dread and self hatred.

Someone with this problem needs lots of love, constantly. Sometimes it helps me to just get a hug. When I feel disgusted with myself, I need a reminder other people still want to be close to me and help me, and they like who I am.

People tend to become who they think you see them as.

7. Don’t take it personally.

The thoughts aren’t because you did something wrong. Especially if it’s about hurting you. That means the person loves you, and they don’t trust themselves. If anything, you must be on the right track.

The fear of these thoughts led me to isolate myself in the past, and this time around I am purposefully not doing that, which is helping me deal with it.

Honestly, I think once it stops working, it starts going away, because what’s the point anymore?

And I think that will be all for now. Until next time, stay honest–Natasha.

BPD, it’s not an excuse.

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According to my therapist’s recommendation, I am reading a book about BPD, or Borderline Personality Disorder. Which my Dad clearly has.

My dad was once diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, and ADD. But there’s now some clear differences between BD an BPD. With BD, mood swings last for days on end, and often come with manic bursts of energy.

I never saw my dad have bursts of energy, he was always tired, often depressed. His mood swings were by the day or hour, generally.

The rage, lashing out, and splitting (diving people into black and white sides of a question, with no room for nuance) are all part of BPD, but not BD.

ADD is part of it, or can be.

Perhaps this was all supposed to come as a shock to me, but I am not really astonished.

I figured he’d fit some category. Borderline is the borderline between neurotic and psychotic. A person who had really never grown up.

The book I’m reading “Talking to a Loved One with Borderline Personality Disorder ” is about learning to live with someone like that, and there’s another book “Stop Walking on Eggshells”. They might be helpful in the future.

But the book makes no mention so far of how someone with BPD could easily be abusive, usually they come from abusive backgrounds. With the outbursts of wrath, and manipulation, why not?

The books have almost a cavalier attitude toward the people stuck living with a child or parent like this (though, if the child id like this, it is usually is the parent’s fault, unless they’re adopted, it’s a learned behavior). Like “you can learn to manage this person.”

I could see some use for this in a day of arrange marriages, marrying for status, etc. In other countries where that’s still the case.

But if you have a choice, what self respecting person signs on for that kind of crazy. BPD people cannot maintain relationships, and should not be in romantic ones, the most intimate, challenging kind.

BPD, giving it a name, is kind of a self defeating thing to do. The Silence, by Bastille, describes it pretty well:

“Tell me a piece of your history that you’re proud to call your own Speak in words you picked up as you walked through life alone.

We used to swim in your stories and be pulled down by their tide, choking on the words and drowning with no air inside.

Now you’ve hit a wall and it’s not your fault my dear, my dear, my dear. Now you’ve hit a wall and you’ve hit it hard, my dear, my dear, oh dear.

“If you give it a name, then it’s already won. What you good for, what you good for? If you give it a name, then it’s already won.”

 

Bastille is right in a way, often when we give these personality traits a name, they win. Because it’s a human failing, to think once we compartmentalize and label something, it’s less powerful.

When really, we just take it less seriously.

That’s the power of stereotypes. You call someone a  hick, a diva, a geek, a nerd, a jock, and they lose some of their dignity. Between friends, being undignified is okay, even necessary, but when we do it in general, it’s to avoid thinking about the person, really, truly thinking about them. Understanding them.

You might argue, if we give it a label, people might be kinder. Like ASD, ADD, ADHD.

It seems kinder at first, but then people assume you have no choice, you become something less than human, if you have no control over the type of person you are.

I know that there are some things someone on the ASD spectrum cannot control, but those things are actually very limited. Almost all aspects of a condition can be temporary with enough years and effort. It depends on the severity.

Likewise, BPD is a condition people can grow out of, with or without therapy.

But if the person can grow out of it, could recognize it as immature, then they knew what they were doing was wrong. They might lack the self control to stop, but they knew.

I don’t like it when experts deny the obvious. That anyone with mental illness that they are somewhat conscious of has a choice. Good experts don’t deny it.

In my dad’s case, he did things the book hasn’t described so far. Threatening me physically. Being mean, on purpose, even when he was in a good mood, sometimes more so then.

My dad’s abusive nature colored most of his interactions. He had to be in control, even if things were good. So if he was having fun, he’d make you miserable so that it was in his power, he’d sometimes try to make you have fun, if he was in the mood.

Not everyone with BPD is like this. They are not all abusers. I actually have a few of the traits myself, but since I was raised in an abusive house, that makes sense, I don’t have it to the excess I’d be diagnosed with a condition.

But the temptation to always feel like the victim, to think every one hates you, and to desperately want them to love you, is part of my life. Also, the emptiness I sometimes feel.

Victims feels empty because we were neglected, and our expressions of love were usually tainted by manipulation so as to not be satisfying.

One thing that was interesting was the book said the BPD people with hug too tight and too long because they feel empty. My dad always hugged both too tight and too long…and oddly, both me and my youngest sibling hated being hugged and kissed by him, and even by anyone, as young kids. To this day both of us are hesitant to allow people to hug us, and I still don’t like kisses (I wish I did). We always wondered what made us dislike it, but the way he did felt off. My dad blamed us for not wanting to snuggle, thinking it wasn’t normal, but preditcatbly, he was the one who made it abnormal.

My aunt has excused my dad on the basis of being on the ASD spectrum, and having ADD, and BD. But I believe BPD is the correct diagnosis. The others all had holes in the theory, and he grew out of the ADD. He is still BPD.

Which brings me to my real point, my dad’s abuse is not explained away by BPD. It gave him issues relating, but it did not make him mean and controlling in the way that he was. It’s a choice to do those things.

Anyone who tries to say I should have stuck it out has not appreciated the danger of doing so on my mental, emotional, and physical health. My dad didn’t want to be helped anyway.

The bible has a passage about the same behaviors as BPD. Galatians 5:19-21 reads “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders…”

Heresies, my dad believes some weird stuff about God due to his inability to let go.

The Bible does not complicate things. Theses things are from the flesh.

Does that mean these people are all evil? No… but some are.

It’s strong language to say my dad is evil, but his delight in doing these things seems like wickedness to me. I don’t see the point of sugarcoating it.

I think we are too wimpy now. We won’t say certain people are evil. But calling it that was helpful. Because evil can be repented from, how do you repent of a personality disorder?

The bible makes no mention of personality disorders. That is not because it was behind the times, written before psychology, the Bible has many verse about psychology, stuff modern studies are just starting to catch up to. The Bible knew the power of positive thinking, laughter, and power thoughts long before we officially proved the brain and body respond to those things.

Think about it, if the Bible was right about all that, way, way before we could even measure brain patterns, then isn’t it just possible that it’s right when it makes no excuses for evil based on personality.

True Mental Illness in the Bible exists in the form of either demonic oppression, or strong delusion. Otherwise, we are held responsible for our mental health.

Jesus told his disciples “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

Meaning, we can choose to be troubled.

David said “Why so downcast oh my soul? Hope in the Lord” indicating he could turn his soul to hope, not despair.

There’s lots of others verses. I recommend “The Utter Relief of Holiness” or “Free to Live” by John Eldredge, for more on this subject.

In cases like mine, a lot of what we feel isn’t caused by our choices. But everyone has that problem. People can just be jerks.

Our culture encourages us to blame everyone else for how we feel, and not do a thing about it. Just to sit in it.

But while we can’t blame ourselves for being mistreated, we can’t just let those people control our lives. Think about it, you want the person who hurt you the most to be the one calling the shots in your life? Not me.

Maybe you can be classified with a disorder. Maybe some of it never goes away. It’s possible that we never forget what it was like to be abused. But that doesn’t mean we have to act like victims the rest of our lives.

If God gives me the time one day I will have lived longer not being abused than I did being abused. But even if I don’t, I’ll have an eternity of better than I can imagine.

One thing abuse forces you to learn, if you would be free, is that you can’t let people shape your idea of a good life. God is the only one who can give you that image. You will settle for less than you could have otherwise.

It’s not just optimism, people. I have to believe that if I want to ever move on.

A lot of trouble would be saved if people told each other one thing: You can believe what you want… but only believing in the right things will lead you to freedom.

And there are things that will free you if you believe them. The Bible calls them the right steps.

So, BPD or not, we decide what we will be.

Until next time, stay honest–Natasha.

 

A difficult conversation.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Part of Recovery is facing your fears, and figuring out a new way to live.

I watched a movie about being in rehab, rehab for addiction and recovery from abuse have some striking similariaties, I guess abuse eats away at your life the same way addiction does, just one is self inflcited and the other is inflicted on you.

One of the reasons I’ve chosen not to drink for this period of my life is that I have alchoholism on one side of my family, maybe both, and drugs on both, and I don’t want to start making that my go-to during a rough period.

The Holy Spirit is the only coping thing I want to be addicted to, event hough it’s hard. It can feel like taking a pill or a drink would make it so much easier because physical symptoms suck, and make emotional symptoms worse.

I’ve had stress symptoms all this week, which seem to have been triggered by a difficult conversation with my aunt.

See, as part of not letting my dad control our lives anymore, my sisters and I have discussed telling our extended family about what happened.

The trouble is my dad cannot keep his mouth shut about any drama in his life, and he has already told half the family his version of the story. Which no doubt paints him as either the victim, or the person struggling to get over his difficulties (still the victim).

My aunt is the main person who informs everyone in the family what’s going on with anyone else, so all our uncles and grandparents are calling her asking about us…calling us directly would never cross their minds.

I don’t really mind it so much, except that a slanted version of our story is getting spread.

I called my aunt over the weekend, she’s my dad’s sister, grew up with the same crap as he did, and has a handle on many of his flaws.

She said she was wondering about it and would like to hear more, so I told her. I gave her the highlights.

The word that seemed to surprise her most was ABUSE.

She couldn’t seem to grasp that her brother could really have abused us.

I gave her the physical, verbal, and emotional examples. She actually witnessed when my dad punched me, and she said she would have probably done the same if her kid had hit her first. I explained why I did it and his history of barging into my room without knocking, etc, bu it didn’t sway her.

Though I told her that he’d threatened my several times before that point, and had threatened me afterward. When I said that it was over me not doing something he asked/told me to do, she said in her house she’d expect her kid to do chores too.

The crowning injury for me was when she said that she thinks there is no good guy, there is no bad guy, that there were things I could have done differently, things that caused incidents.

??????????

I really hope you are horrified right now, and that this doesn’t sound familiar, if it does, you have my sympathy.

Let me define some things:

After a certain age, I don’t think a kid should be physically forced to do things like chores. There’s other consequences.

Which is moot anyway, because I was a grown adult when my dad threatened that, capable of making my own decisions. It had nothing to do with teaching me to be a good kid, it was about power. That’s all it was.

And if you are threatening your child with violence to get them to do something, you are acting like a tyrant.

I believe you can punish children for disobeying, then it’s a consequence, I do not think violence should be a motivation for the action to begin with.

But it doesn’t matter, since I was not a child. My aunt seems to not understand the obvious difference there.

My mom didn’t threaten to slap me out of temper, that I remember, but my dad did. He flung me out of stuff when I had done nothing wrong save for being there first.

I told my aunt this, I told her how he would tell us things he shouldn’t, like he considered suicide a lot. I told her how he verbally abused me with criticism, blame, and just horrible mocking that no one should ever say to or about their kids.

I told her about the manipulation.

She said some of it seemed like him trying to be a better dad than his father, by playing games with us. Though I said that wasn’t for us, it was for him. If we refused he’d whine about no one wanting to play with him, sometimes he got angry and yelled about it. Blaming us for making him unhappy.

Also, when he was trying to get over his gaming addiction, he’d blame us for not giving him a distraction by playing with him. Like that made it okay to play video games all night long and yell obscenities at the computer while we were trying to sleep.

Sure, our fault.

My aunt did admit some stuff, like how he makes everything about him, how he embarrasses people when they most want him not to, how he exaggerates what others do to him.

She puts it down to him having Aspergers (which I doubt after being in a program that talked about it) and not being able to get a sense of what other people feel.

But I know that is not true, I lived with my dad, he could tell what everyone felt as long as he wasn’t the cause. I’ve heard him explain exactly what people were feeling, and sympathize or use it against them.

He knew I had self worth issues, he knew I struggled with anger over what people do to me, but he would blank completely that he was the cause of that.

He could explain why my aunt was bothered by the behavior of everyone else but him, he’d own up to it if my mom pointed it out, and he’d laugh at it. He laughed at my hurt when I didn’t like his mocking and exposing me. He laughed at everyone’s hurt.

My dad liked punishing people. He liked bullying people who were weaker than him, who would let him. He hated me for getting stronger than that, but as long as he could get a reaction from my mom or sisters over what he said, he’d keep doing it.

He treated everyone like his parent, not his responsibility, and he still does.

My aunt told me he’s talked to her a lot about it, and owned up to some of what he did that she herself pointed out, but she focused on what bothered her the most, not what bothered us.

My dad told her apparently that he always thought we’d put up with him no matter what, that he wouldn’t be made to leave.

So, did he get married and have kids to ensure an audience for his bad behavior? A well of unconditional love? That he could withdraw from his whole life?

I guess so, he always did say he’d move in with me once he got too old to work (that’s not happening.)

Dad could never be accepted by his family, so he made one where he though he’d always have to be accepted. I heard him brag to people that my mom loved him despite all the bad things he did that she didn’t know about before they got married, so she was the best woman in the world.

I heard him yell at her for how disrespectful she was too, if she ever dared to question his treatment of me, or anyone else.

My dad wouldn’t always snap right away, but he’d snap eventually and make a whole thing of it, so you wouldn’t try it again.

I grant that our family was different from his, my mom made it so, but it wasn’t necessarily because he was a better parent.

My aunt knows the truth now, but she still encouraged me to think of what I could have done to cause all this, and to try talking to him. That I won’t know if he’s changed or not until I do.

Like I need to talk to him to know that 3 months of self reflection and 8 months of blaming us, are not going to undo 20 years of an abuser’s mentality.

if it could be changed, it would take years. Humility begins with realizing what you did, but you’ll realize a whole lot more once you start that process.

My aunt also told me that she feels we are in the phase of being angry right now, but when we are over it, and have kids of our own, we’ll understand why our dad was that way. We’ll see it was because of his upbringing.

My sister’s response? “I hope not.”

Mine too, I hope I never start justifying myself to my kids because of my past. I hope my husband never gives me leeway to be abusive, even if I sometimes act like a victim because I was one.

I want to adopt, for crying out loud. A lot of orphaned or foster kids were abused, do I want to add my name to that list? Heck no!

What my aunt is doing by saying this was my fault, is saying it’s not abuse. Because you never, ever tell a victim they did something to deserve that. Their abuser might, but you shouldn’t.

Believe me, we deal with that thought enough.

I don’t generally ask myself if I did something to deserve it.

I did about the hitting, but most of the time I knew he was overreacting, and had no right to treat me like garbage.

You know what’s sad?

If I had turned it on for my aunt, if I had cried and told her all my hurt feelings, Maybe I could have gotten more sympathy. My very calm, mature way of discussing it can work against me.

I’ve seen it with other people too, they get put off by me not crumbling, crying, acting like my life sucks.

I get it in a way, if this really happened to you, how can you be calm? It’s horrible, people in movies cry, other girls cry so easily, why don’t you cry? We can do the hug thing and say it’ll all be better.

Two reasons:

  1. When I did cry, people didn’t ease up on me, they doubled down. They told me not to cry, that I wasn’t being attacked, that this was because they loved me… crying was blood in the water to the people in my life.
  2. I did cry, I spent years sobbing alone in my bedroom, at night, trying to get past it. Trying not to be miserable. I was less depressed then than I am now when I can’t cry and let it out because I’ve become so “mature.”

 

I can’t beg for pity anymore, I once did. I got it twisted around and shoved in my face, by the one person who begs for more pity than anyone else I know.

He’s doing it now. He just can’t understand why we won’t talk to him, he’s changed! he realizes he was a jerk now.

Like he realized it scores of times as I grew up, and did nothing.

Any excuse will do for him, I’m sick of listening to them.

But I know why my aunt told me all this and won’t call it abuse.

She’s lived through the same thing with her parents, she’s heard terrible things from them. She broke the most out of the cycle of words and actions, I think she got resented for that the same way I did. No siblings to cheer her on either.

She finally accepted the excuses her parents made, and accepted her place in it. She blames herself for causing some problems because that is easier than seeing it as senseless.

Abuse, cruelty, neglect, they are all senseless. I’ve said this before.

My aunt’s view is too cotton candy for me. It assumes people cannot just deliberately do wrong because they refuse to do right.

That’ just not true. I believe the bible, it says people are wicked. On purpose, and on accident. And all of us will do both. A good person might just be one who does the least on purpose.

But that’s a human standard.

A good person is one who can own up to dong all they did, and doing it knowing it was wrong, even if they didn’t see how wrong it was, they knew it wasn’t right, and then, they try to change. Failing to change, they admit they can’t, and fall back on God. That’s what the Bible calls being righteous.

The sacrificial system in the Bible is an acknowledgment that we will sin, we cannot stop, but God’s grace makes us right with Him, if we confess our sins. We can stop sinning when God gives us that ability.

I have not stopped getting angry, but I have stopped bullying my sisters over it.  I haven’t stopped feeling insecure, but I’ve stopped blaming the wrong people. I’ve stopped demanding my parents fix that for me.

There are days I hate being an abused kid. I hate the stress of it, and how my body breaks down under it after awhile. I hate how people misunderstand, and still think it’s my fault

As if you blame the slave for trying to run away from a cruel master, and say it was their fault when the master whipped them almost to death for it. Sure, they caused it by running, but would they have run if the master was kind?

I loathe many things about this process.

But I don’t hate my aunt. I feel sorry for her. She still thinks it was somehow her fault. She couldn’t tell me that if she didn’t believe it.

I’ll admit to all of you, I find the whole thing depressing and hard to accept.

But I’ll get through it, because I am doing something about it. In the end, the survivor is still the lucky one.

Until next time, stay honest–Natasha.