It has been four days since my former fiance broke off our relationship and moved out of the house we shared with our two kids (my son, his daughter), and I'm still here, and though I've had a few relatively small stumbles, I still haven't had a full blown borderline crisis - you know, the kind that have routinely landed me in the hospital in the past because the only way I could see out of my pain was suicide.
Today, I woke up and went to my son's basketball game, alone, and paid close attention to the kids on the court, mindful of the Now. I drove to Santa Fe from Albuquerque and worked for a couple of hours on a TV series pitch with a wonderful screenwriter who flew to New Mexico from LA in part for this meeting with me, and I did not talk at all about my personal problems, cry or otherwise flip out, as I would have in the past.
I owe all of this to Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which I really only began studying in earnest two months ago, after my ex first tried to leave me and I wound up in the hospital because I was intent upon dying but rational enough to call 911 for help. DBT is now aiding me to combat my lifelong but only recently diagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder. I'm learning at the speed of light, and so much is making sense that never did before. I am determined to exorcise this curse from my mind, body, heart and soul; thankfully, BPD is one of the few personality disorders that can be effectively treated and even cured though hard work, discipline and DBT.
I'm using the opportunity of my misery during this extremely painful and overwhelming breakup to chronicle my journey through a situation that, in the past, would have been pure hell and perhaps fatal for me (it is the worst breakup I've ever faced) but which now feels more like a deep, dark purgatory that, with enough hard work, I will transcend someday.
I'm using this blog to document how I'm doing things differently in the face of unbearable emotional pain, for the first time in my life. I hope that by being completely open about my disorder, and by chronicling my successes - and my failures - I will perhaps provide some hope for healing and improved mental health for others who suffer from debilitating emotional dysregulation issues.
That said, I must confess that last night was by far the worst I've done so far. I"m not proud. My son, who is 13, came home from his time with his dad yesterday, and it was the first time he had faced the fact that the man he thought would be his stepdad, and whom he loves a lot and had come to depend upon and trust (not easy for him to do after the divorce between his dad and me), was just...gone, without saying goodbye to him. He was crushed.
While it has been excruciating to accept this man's absence in my own life, having to watch my son deal with it just escalated the anguish for me, because I felt my pain AND my son's pain both, deeply. Borderlines have an overactive limbic region in their brains, which makes emotions bigger than they ought to be, and more difficult to control when they come. This, compounded with the fact that loving mothers hurt more for our children than for ourselves, posed a monumental challenge for me, and I regressed a bit. I want to talk about this because I think it's important for anyone in therapy and seeking to better their lives and behaviors to understand that it isn't a straight line upward; it's a craggy line, always moving upward, but with sharp fangs stabbing down from time to time.
That's all a fancy way of saying I ended up sobbing in front of my son when he reacted by fighting back his own tears, growing angry, and, when I suggested he talk about his feelings he said, "I don't cry. It's my job to take care of you now. You are sad, and you don't have anyone else."
I balked. "No, it's not time for you to take care of me," I told him. "I'm sad, yes, but you will never have to take care of me. I am here to take care of you, that is my job. and while it might look scary to see me crying I want you to know that this is just the way some people get their feelings out. When you love someone very much, it takes time to stop missing them. Think of it like an hour glass, except that instead of an hour the sand will take months, maybe years, to move from the top chamber to the bottom, going so slowly that some days it doesn't seem like there's been any motion at all. Then, one day, I promise you this, you wake up, and you realize there's no sand left in the top chamber, that it's all clear again. Time heals us, son. You are not responsible for me, for my mistakes, or for the fact that this man left."
Hearing all of this come out of my mouth empowered me a little, and I composed myself again. In the past - say, two months ago when the ex first tried to leave - I would have collapsed on the floor, wailed and cried and hung on to my son for support and thanked him for caring so much about me to want to help me. No more. Now more than ever I understand the importance of modeling healthy loss management for my son. I don't want him to grow up to think he has to rescue women from their own messes, as my ex fiance apparently did, thanks in large part to not one, but TWO dads who walked out on him when he was a boy. I want my son to gravitate toward healthy women. Women like the one I am trying to become, rather than the one I have been.
We watched comedies on TV - four episodes of Parks and Rec, my favorite. I found myself actually laughing out loud with my son. This was new. In the language of DBT, this simple act of watching comedy is called DISTRACTION. When a person with BPD is facing a massive emotional crisis that cannot be immediately fixed, Dr. Marsha Linehan, DBT's founder, says we must DISTRACT ourselves with things that capture our full attention. If those things make us happy, even better. Peppy music, fun, commercial novels (which she calls "trash fiction," but I'll let that one slide for now), comedies. Things NOT to distract yourself with? Sad songs, romantic movies, alcohol, anything that augments the current painful emotion. This in mind, we stuck to comedy. Kept it light.
Then, the boy went to bed. And I went to my room, alone. I slept sideways on the mattress, to avoid feeling like I was in the same bed the ex and I had shared for so long. And then, despair came back because I haven't washed the linens, and his side of the bed still smells like him and, just like that, I went from the sturdy mom laughing with Leslie Knope to the needy child thrown out of her house with nowhere to go and no one to turn to, terrified, rejected, loathsome to myself, convinced everything was my fault, my fault, my fault, and no no no no no this can't be happening I love him I love him I love him why is this happening make it stop please dear God, I can't breathe, I can't swallow, I can't take it, any of it, make it stop, it has to end, and, yes, thinking thinking thinking, imagining, maybe a gun, maybe pills, maybe driving my car off the top of the mountain, maybe a warm gash to each arm, the long way, in the tub, because he's gone and who am I without him who am I who am I where has he gone why does he hate me.
Etc.
It rolls in, in waves, this smothering pain stuff, triggered by little reminders, and before you know it, the brain is lighting up like a nighttime construction site. The panic sets in. I cannot overemphasize that I'm not exaggerating when I say panic. I felt little different than I might have if I were being mauled by a bear. I couldn't do this, I couldn't do this, I couldn't do this. That's what it felt like. Drowning. Facing a firing squad. I can't do it, can't can't can't...I just...wanted out. My life, for a long, horrible moment, had no meaning without him.
I slipped.
Instead of writing down what I wanted to text to my ex on a pad of paper and throwing it away, as Carol the therapist had advised, I texted him. I shouldn't have, but I did - a bunch of times. Asked him to please stay in touch with my son if he could, asked if we could be friends, asked if we could just hang out and do fun stuff together sometimes.
No response.
The ex appears to be taking a "no contact" approach, probably healthy for him and merciful for me. But it sent me into even worse panic. Why didn't he love me anymore, what was wrong with me, why did this always happen to me, why was I so unlovable...these were the manic, irrational thoughts going round and round in my head. I retained enough self control not to send them to him, not the worst of it. No begging. That was an improvement. But I still screwed up. I sent one last text, written as I inhaled his intoxicating scent upon his pillowcase, saying how much I was going to miss our physical intimacy, a statement as true as it was inappropriate to send to a man who had asked me to let him go.
No reply.
I stopped myself then, angry I'd slipped up and gone back to useless old patterns in my despair. I did the exercises. Meditated, breathed, thought of all the reasons I was lovable, reminded myself of my good qualities, all the things I'd done right, how I was getting a handle on this stuff. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I FORCED myself to stop being impulsive and self-destructive. I remembered God. I remembered faith. I remembered how life is a long road, that we don't know what is ahead of us, that many times when I had thought everything was lost, the loss had only made room for something better. I handed my pain over to God to carry, and regained my balance, my faith, my peace. I was still in pain, but I was no longer helpless or hopeless or in a panic. My overheated brain began to cool down and become rational again.
I fell asleep in a pool of my own tears, upon his pillow.
I woke this morning with a tiny, idiotic glimmer of hope, and checked my phone immediately to see if he had perhaps written back. Something. Anything. Even telling me to go jump in a lake would be better than radio silence static.
He had not responded, other than to cancel the recurring Tuesday date night with me that we both had on our shared google calendars. That was his response. To distance himself further.
The anguish from this was so monumental I thought I would throw up. I dry heaved. Grief, anxiety, panic, and pain consumed me once more.
This is when I remembered another core DBT skill, which is OPPOSITE ACTION. We who have emotional dysregulation, overwhelmed by our out of control emotions, tend to act on them impulsively, in the moment. We want an instant fix to our pain and discomfort, so we engage in the action associated with the emotion, immediately. If we are angry, we attack, because that's the action of anger. If we are sad, we collapse and hide, because that is the action of sorrow. When we miss someone, we try to get close to them by forcing ourselves into their world, because that is the action of missing someone. This is where we destroy ourselves the most.
DBT tells us that acting impulsively on intense emotions always fails to get the result we desire; in fact, it is perhaps the single most self-destructive thing we can do. If you want to effectively survive your crisis emotions, DBT says, you must force yourself into an OPPOSITE action from the one you impulsively want to do. Not easy, but imperative.
This in mind, I put the phone down this morning, without contacting him. Lord, I miss him, madly, horribly, terribly, yes. I love that man to my marrow. But he's decided to go. There is nothing I can do about that. People who suffer with BPD need to realize, and realize loud and clear: You cannot force anyone to want to be with you. That is their choice, not yours. And even if you do succeed in temporarily forcing someone to be with you, they will not stay, because the very act of forcing them makes them resent you even more than they did before. The old adage is true: If you love somethng, set it free; if it comes back, it's yours, if not, it was never meant to be.
By begging, forcing, texting, calling, complaining, telling him how hurt I am or how much I miss him - all any of that will do, for a person who has decided to leave you, is confirm for them how right their choice was to run away from your craziness. Your insistence upon sharing your emotional state with them, and childishly demanding they fix it, only demonstrates your complete lack of boundaries when it comes to honoring their wishes, needs, choices and selves. You trying to force them to love you just so that you can fix your wacky, painful emotions is the most selfish thing you can do. You are not loving anyone in that moment but yourself. To love him, I realized, I had to do what HE needed and wanted for a change.
I did not text today. My goal is to continue to engage in no contact with him, just as he has done with me. This makes me jittery, but it must be done. And you know what? Once I do it, it's not as bad as I thought. And each time I pick the phone up, and put it down again without acting, I feel a little more triumphany. I'm doing this. I'm dealing with it. I'm not perfect, but I'm improving. And isn't that the point?
So, remember this, my borderline friends. Control your impulses; they are NOT your friends. These intense emotions and impulses are ancient patterns, coping mechanisms you developed a long time ago that helped you survive for a time, but which do nothing but tear you down now. Control yourself. DISTRACT yourself with something fun and happy. Then do the OPPOSITE of what you "want" to do to "solve" the problem of your pain and sorrow. In the topsy-turvy world of BPD, it is often only by hanging upside down that we can learn to see things the way everyone else does.