It Sucks To Be Borderline!!

Did you know that your therapist is human? Humans make mistakes.  Humans can hurt your feelings. Humans can totally miss what you are saying. Humans also can think about what isn't working and look at themselves.  They can also apologize and take responsibility for their part of the interaction...Thank God!!  My therapist is human!!!

Since my birthday, I was becoming increasingly depressed and hopeless about therapy.  Part of it was that there were many abandonment issues surrounding my aunt not acknowledging my birthday at all.  As expected, my suicidal thoughts and self-injury urges became stronger due to what I was working through in therapy.  I was also becoming more fragmented and hopeless about continuing therapy.

I did not realize it while it was happening because most of it was subtle, but my therapist was cutting me off, invalidating or not validating my feelings and also expecting me to be able to provide myself with validation and comfort which at this point I am unable to do.  These were also extremely subtle and neither of us were aware what was happening, but I was really depress and hopeless.  I won't go into detail of what he said or did that was not helpful or hurtful.

Last week was the worst of all of it as it really kicked up my abandonment issues which my therapist pointed out.  ***Warning Borderline Behavior*** On Wednesday, I was so angry and hopeless after session that I left a nasty message stating that "my suicidal thoughts and self injury urges are way up and I'm angry, thinking that I'm bad and hopeless. Therapy is not working, so I'm terminating. I keep ending up in the same place and like you said I won't meet my life's goals if I continue what I am doing. So, you agree with my friend about my friend just saying get over it was not realistic because today it seemed like that was what you were telling me to do. I'm never going to be able to go back to school.  Yes, I know that I'm fragmenting, but I'm still not coming back. I don't care anymore, don't care, don't care."

The next day, I left another message that saying that I was sorry for the message that I left.  I know that I am making myself miserable and probably taking my anger out on you instead of my aunt and trying to get you to call me.  I'd like to see you this evening if you have time.

Later, I left another message saying that I was terminating and don't bother to call. [I also was aware that he had a class all day from 8 am to 3 pm.]  When he called me back and asked if I wanted to see him, I said, "no."  He said okay, but if you change your mind call me. Then, I asked if we could have a telephone session which we scheduled for that evening.

Then, I left a message cancelling the appointment saying that it was hopeless anyway and that I was going to feel worse afterward, so it was a waste of time and that I was terminating therapy.  Then, I asked if I could see him instead of a telephone session.  He called back and said that we could have a face to face session.

[I was one borderline out of control, being manipulative, ambivalent, pushing away and trying to draw close, etc... It wasn't pretty.  I was a mess.]

Once there, I didn't feel so angry.  He had me say what I wanted to and then gave me an explanation of what he thought was going on.  He validated my feelings and listed several things that he said or did that led me to be more depressed, hopeless, abandoned, angry and hurt.  He took responsibility for it and apologized.  He indicated that if he could he would take it back.

However, when these things happen once I'm thinking, I am always able to see how those types of "therapeutic misses" tell something or are helpful, no matter how painful.  I thought about how during such a short period that not having validation and feeling abandoned by him cause me to feel more depressed and hopeless.  I realized that this is how I lived my life, so no wonder I have issues with validation and abandonment and have been depressed all of my life.  I also realized that my feelings developed because I didn't get what I needed.  I felt sad about it.

One other lesson or aha moment was when I realized that although I was angry when each "incident" happened that I couldn't have said anything because it seemed I went from hearing what was said directly to shutting down.  There was no cognitive or emotional awareness of feeling angry.  It is like that mechanism is missing from me when it comes to anger.  Need to work on this.  I can advocate and become angry when it has to do with someone else especially when working, but when it comes to me I'm lost. 

I felt so good and relieved that I saw my therapist in person and that he was able to explain what he thought happened.  But, it also sucks to be borderline!!!