React.

I wonder how you react to bad news. Are you someone who immediately worries about others, or how you will be affected, or the sadness of the situation? Maybe you are quick to empathise, or quick to try to solve?

Me? I tend to internalise everything I hear. I often need a while to process news before I can begin to unpack how I really feel about it. It’s like I have an internal carousel, and every time something happens the news jumps on the carousel, except I have no idea when it’s going to get off again. And while it’s going round and round in my head, I make assumptions about the world and the people in it. So certain things will set off an internal chain-reaction that make me appear to over-react to something others think is insignificant. It’s a massive part of my illness and it’s only recently that I’ve realised how much I do it.

So, I have to apologise if in the past I’ve over-reacted (or under-reacted) to some news. Perhaps I wasn’t quite ready to process. Perhaps I was over-processing something that spilled out when I heard what you were saying. Perhaps there were just too many things on the carousel, and lots got off at the same time. I’m sorry. There is so much going on inside my head that you will never see. I hope you can be patient with me.

Choice.

I made a choice yesterday to take some practical steps towards recovery. It wasn’t easy - it had been a long and stressful day and my mind was working on overload. But I knew that I had to take control. I had to choose well-being in the midst of agonising anxiety and uncertainty. Because I didn’t choose to get ill. I didn’t choose to experience some of the things that I have had to experience. And I know that a lot of my friends who also suffer with mental illness have also been through horrible situations that were neither their choosing nor their fault.

But today, this moment, we have a choice. Some choose to let anxiety and worry and pain take over. And there is no shame in that. Sometimes you feel like you don’t have the strength to fight against it. But if you can, if you can find within yourself the strength to choose life over death, joy over pain, hope over despair, then you can make it. Choose to take steps, however small, walking or perhaps even crawling, on that road of recovery. You do not walk that road alone. There is hope ahead, my friend. Be kind to yourself. Believe that no matter what you’ve been through, it is not your fault and you can choose to get well again. We’ve got this. 💚

Not Giving Up.

Being totally honest:

Life is hard right now.

Having a mental illness is hard.

Making decisions is hard.

Dealing with difficult situations is hard.

Supporting friends and loving them right is hard.

Not having the time or energy to see my beloved family is hard.

Not having a job or the ability to do a job is hard.

Not having enough money in the bank or food in the cupboards is hard.

Waiting for therapy and dreading it at the same time is hard.

Not getting enough sleep at night and being too tired each day is hard.

Knowing people who were once my friend but now don’t know how to talk to me is hard.

Missing out on events because I just can’t face being there is hard.

Wanting to do things, then freaking out last minute and staying in bed is hard.

Dealing with my emotions and thoughts and feelings and anxieties is hard.

Knowing there are very few people who understand how I feel right now is hard.

That’s the truth. But you know what? This time, I’m not gonna give up. I’m not going to become a statistic of mental illness. Cause you know what? It might be hard but I’m strong. And my God is stronger. So no matter how hard life gets, or how much I struggle, I may not be standing but I will lay face down on the Rock that never breaks or falters. And one day, I will stand.

Pours.

The weather has finally aligned with my mood of the week.
I’m never ‘a little bit’ of anything.
Whatever emotion I feel, I feel it completely.
Overwhelmingly.
Like a tidal wave.
Drowning me.
Drowning out everything else.
I can’t stop it.
Can’t fight it.
It’s so much easier,
To just accept it.
So it never really rains.
It pours.

Truth.

This is a truth that I am fighting with at the moment. In all honesty, I think the hardest thing for people to understand about EUPD (or BPD as it is more commonly known) is that I “feel” every emotion on a deeper and more excruciating level than others might. Especially with regards to real or imagined abandonment. This means that at times, when I am not in a good place mentally, I will experience and overreact to the smallest thing, because my illness causes me to believe things are a certain way, when perhaps they’re not. (But I can’t see that.)

The trouble is being able to recognise when my reaction is BPD based, and not truth based. I’m not trying to be cryptic, an example might be, when in a friendship with someone, if they don’t text in the nature they normally do, or perhaps don’t reply to a text, I will astronomically overread into the situation, believing myself to have annoyed/angered them, and therefore berate myself for my own incompetence and stupidity when actually, perhaps they were texting in a rush or were preoccupied or some other reason I don’t think of at the time.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that (sometimes) friendships can be really hard for those with BPD. And I guess it can be hard for the ones on the other side as well. When the darkness of mental illness closes in around someone, it can be difficult to know what to say or do for those who are suffering. Sometimes it can be really uncomfortable. So, I just want to say, it’s okay to not have all the answers. It’s okay if you don’t know what to do. But please, I’m begging you, please don’t let your discomfort or awkwardness stop you reaching out to someone. Just a text to say, I’m thinking of you. You’re not forgotten. Comment a 💜 or a *hug* on a post. Let them know you hear them. You see them. It doesn’t have to be big. They may not reply themselves. But sometimes the smallest things can make the biggest difference. In a time when mental illness is all over social media, don’t make things over complicated. A hug or a smile can shine a bright light into someone who can only see the darkness.

Thanks for listening folks. 🙂