I can't find my words...

If you don’t already know much about me I suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder.  When I feel sadness, grief, loss, threatened, vulnerable, or any other feeling where most would cry and move on with it, I get angry and defend against feeling the hurt.  If I allow even the smallest amount of pain out expressing it to someone I love and trust, almost immediately I will lash out in anger because I feel exposed.  Rage takes over to prevent me from feeling more pain or being hurt by my expression of it.  I was once a very happy little girl then life happened, as it often does.  But I changed.  I developed these personality trait(s) as a cover up to hurt.  They weren’t helpful traits. 

I am in the middle of figuring all this out in intensive Dialectual Behaviour Therapy.  I am very raw.  All this hurt and pain I never let come out in 45 years is right there at the surface, wanting to come out, so I can be done with it.  And it’s there, all the time.  I am either about to explode into tears or into a rage to stop the tears.  I never stop thinking about whether what I am feeling is legit, or a cover up.  Am I being reasonable, or not? Is this genuine and authentic or bullshit?  Often I cannot even identify that until I sit down and do a chain analysis to see what happened and where that might have triggered something I couldn’t handle feeling or expressing. 

I can’t find my words. 

Every time I go to say anything I struggle, especially in a public forum like social media, I freeze and the following happens in my head:

Is this right?

Is this going to hurt anyone?

Will anyone think I am stupid?

Is this stupid?

Does this make sense?

Do I really need to say this?

What is the purpose of this?

Who does it serve?

Could I word this differently?

Is this offensive?

Is this funny or not funny?

What if they think I am stupid?

What if this hurts someone?

What if I am wrong?

What if I am not liked for these words?

9 times out of 10 I end up feeling very anxious and I don’t say anything. 

Sometimes I say things and then I sit and wait, praying it is okay, and that I won’t be judged negatively.  I can sit and obsess over a single sentence for hours.  You are probably thinking, “Then, keep busier”.  Just don’t go on social media.  Well this happens in public too.  With any interpersonal exchange.  I am often silent because I am worried about what I am going to say and what people will think.  I can spend hours after talking to someone wondering if I offended them, hurt them, or if they like me.  It’s agonizingly painful.  I can have a beautifully full and busy day and once I am alone for five minutes I start second guessing everything I did, said, or thought. 

I used to just say shit.  I didn’t care what you thought.  Then this stupid mental illness crept up on me. 

I used to have a pretty high end career.  People knew me.  I was productive.  I think I always struggled with interpersonal relationships.  I was often referred to as a “bitch”.  I was strong willed, opinionated, and aggressive.  Bitch is often what we are called when we are strong women.  People came to me to get shit done back in the day.  Then gradually I started struggling more and more with interpersonal relationships.  Work was becoming an emotional, not intellectual, battle.  I was stressing over things at work I couldn’t understand.  I was constantly wondering in meetings:

Is this right?

Is this going to hurt anyone’s feelings?

Will anyone think I am stupid?

Is this stupid?

Does this make sense?

Do I really need to say this?

What is the purpose of this?

Who does it serve?

Could I word this differently?

Is this offensive?

Is this funny or not funny?

What if they think I am stupid?

What if this hurts someone?

What if I am wrong?

What if I am not liked for these words?

It was the end of my career.  When I started arguing with people irrationally I knew it was time to go.  I knew when I started basing my decisions on how I felt and not what I knew intellectually, it was time to go.  I didn’t fit in there anymore.  I was full of emotion.  To go from that high functioning to where I am at today, over 8 years, is hard to explain.  I spent the first two years after leaving work trying to figure out how to be Nicolle and not Nicolle from Bay Street.  Then I spent the next three years trying to identify what was wrong with me.  I fell entirely into the abyss of depression.  I was misdiagnosed and had to go through endless medication changes until last year I ended up in the hospital for 60 days.  I was finally diagnosed properly and given a plan of action to get my life back.  Since then I have been working my ass off to accept who I am, what this means, and how to go about being the best new me I can. 

I know this is going to get better as I get more emotionally regulated and find more confidence in myself and my reactions.  And that takes work.  Every day I need to evaluate my reactions, my feelings, my emotions.  I have to rate them, and keep track of them.  I have homework each week from a skills class in DBT that teaches people like me how to feel what we feel and let it go.  Not to ride the train of emotions until it takes over every fibre of our being for great lengths of time.  And to be honest in our emotional exchanges.  If it hurts, it hurts.  Hurt is no reason to be angry.  Just feel the hurt.  To say this is an exhausting process is an understatement.  My mind rarely settled before all this started.  And now it’s busier. 

I am so volatile right now it takes every fibre of my being just to keep a lid on my reactions.  When I drive to the city for example and get around other people, some of whom are not very intelligent I become a different person.  I am all hyped up like I snorted cocaine for hours, I appear confident, funny, and aggressive.  But I feel anxiety building so fast and furious it’s like I am going to explode.  When someone pisses me off the rage that comes across me can be overwhelming.  But I keep it in check.  I have to.  You don’t let that loose.  So I lose my words.  My mind is too over stimulated and I can’t find my words.  Or conversely there are so many words that I can’t see straight.

By the time I get back home to my isolation, I could sleep for days I am so emotionally exhausted.   And then I can’t find my words. 

Lately I have been having these attacks, almost like seizures.  Where I feel like I am losing control of the electrical wiring in my brain.  Like I have no control of what’s happening up there.  This can be very common with this type of therapy if you go at it like I often do with things, FULL THROTTLE.  I am being monitored quite closely but you can see how this all might be a little, well, a lot. 

This is why I don’t talk much or write much anymore.  For right now, handling my thoughts and emotions is all the energy I have.  The balance goes to my dog, my step kids (teenagers, they'd suck the blood dry of a vampire I tell ya'), and my husband (an man sized child).  They get what’s left of me, in that order of importance.  Dogs first, humans second.  My motto in life as well. 

I have tons of things I want to say trust me, I usually do.  I just can’t find my words easily right now.  I will be back.  I have a few posts almost ready to go.  I just have to find that right moment in time where I have my words at hand.  

 

Thanks for the patience, support, and reading.