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Thank you for visiting. Content MAY BE TRIGGERING ESPECIALLY FOR THOSE WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED ABUSE, STRUGGLE WITH SELF-INJURY, SUICIDE, DEPRESSION OR AN EATING DISORDER. Contains graphic descriptions of suicidal thoughts, self-injury and emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Do not read further if you are not in a safe place. If you are triggered, please reach out to your support system, a mental health professional or call 911.

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A key word that you will see:

Fragmentation: a mental process where a person becomes intensely emotionally focused on one aspect of themselves, such as “I am angry” or “no one loves me,” to the point where all thoughts, feelings and behavior demonstrate this emotional state, in which, the person does not or is unable to take into account the reality of their environment, others or themselves and their resources. This is a term that my therapist and I use and is on the continuum of dissociation.
Showing posts with label self-loathing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-loathing. Show all posts

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Hospitalization ~ "A-ha" moments

This hospitalization was a bit different from the others as I was not really sure what was the underlying purpose. I know that I needed hospitalization due to my suicidality and self-harm. Beyond that I thought that it was trying to get through my anger about my mother. But, that didn’t seem to fit.

I did talk about some of that and my abuse. I actually made friends with the ping-pong table, which was a place that most of the sadistic sexual abuse took place. The first time, I went through some major unexpected flashback and panic. I spoke with the Social Service person who accompanied us on the outing. I played ping-pong on two more occasions with less intense flashbacks and a bit of compassion and reality of how young and horrendous things were.

I was able to tell my psychiatrist and psychologist about some of the abuse and received unexpected validation that my abuse was outside of what most people experience. My psychologist, who also teaches, kept encouraging me to go back to school. Which is something that I plan to do when I’m feeling better and able to manage the stress. Both of them basically told me that the academic part would be easy. Without prompting, my psychologist, offered to write me a letter of recommendation. Wow! I really am motivated to return to school maybe in a year and a half or two. The validation from not only them, but from other staff and patients was encouraging.

I know that I’ve written about having an eating disorder for 30 years with varying degrees of recovery. I am diagnosed with Eating Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified, which means I don’t meet the criteria for one of the categories, but my internal life with food and eating and my weight effects impacts my physical and mental health significantly.

However, during my hospitalization my diagnosis became, once again, a point of contention with Geoffrey. Although I tend toward anorexia, I am not diagnosable as such, but my therapist really pushed the point. He basically said that he didn't care what the DSM said, but that I have anorexia. I made a feeble attempt at saying that my weight was normal and maybe a little overweight. Then, I just had to laugh because I know that has nothing to do with it because my thought patterns and behavior are the same. Also, if it weren't for the medications, I would be underweight. He really pushed the issue.

In the end, what I discovered and it doesn’t follow what I’ve written, is that this hospitalization was about my depression, suicidality and self-harm. However, the underlying reason for all of this is really the issue that I don’t want to talk about and that is my self-hatred. The “all roads lead to bad” is really, “all road are rooted in self-hatred.” Since I’ve returned, I haven’t fragmented in session. Hooray for me.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Self-hatred and Borderline Personality Disorder

I want to give you some background of what was going on in therapy prior to Christmas. My therapist and I started to talk about my self-hatred and self-loathing. Previously, we had talked about how my whole world is filtered through “I am bad.”
However, the truer statement is that everything in my world gets filtered through my self-hatred. I am beginning to see how so much I do is rooted in that from my perfectionism, self-injury, eating disorder, “I am bad,” suicidal thoughts and the list goes on.

In trying to work with this issue, all of my defenses have been really active. I am ultra sensitive to anything that I can perceive as a criticism which is everything. I can turn everything into “I am bad.” My fragmenting, dissociation, suicidal thoughts and self-injury urges have all increased.

My sense of grounding seems elusive. It is like I can only hold on to it for a very short period of time. I am also really wanting to withdraw from everything and everyone for fear that I will say or do the wrong thing.
This is a very painful place to be in and the only way to feel better is to work through this. Not my idea of fun. My self-hatred is also impacted by my major depression and post traumatic stress disorder. They are actually all intertwined, but my self-hatred has its roots in my borderline personality disorder which was established in infancy. The following are some excerpts that are helpful in explaining how self-hatred and borderline personality disorder interact and why healing takes so long.
Lost in the Mirror: An Inside Look at Borderline Personality Disorder by Richard Moskovitz

"When you are bad, you may feel entitled to nothing. You may feel responsible for all that is evil and expect punishment. If punishment does not come, you may invite it from others or inflict it on yourself".
Borderline Personality Disorder Articles by A.J. Mahari, BPD and self-hate, BPD from the inside out
"Borderlines are well known for self-hate. The irony is they often don't know who they really are. The question is who is his "self-hate" really directed at? Working through this self-hate is the only way to find your true self and to stop living such a life of pain and angst.

The "self" that most borderlines hate is really not who they are. It is an over-identification with who they think they are based upon having taken over the role of their past abusers or of those who neglected them and/or could not/did not meet their needs as young children.

It is not possible to get the real you without first going through the pain of why you have created more of your identity from someone else than from within. This is usually the result of buse, neglect, unmet needs, denial and having your feelings repeatedly invalidated. The process to find your real self can be long and difficult. It is a worth-while process though because it will free you from hating the self that you think you are. The self that is really modeled more on someone else from your past.

Healing from BPD, in large part, means maturing emotionally in ways that you were not able to due to unmet needs and or abuse when you were younger. It also involves changing thought patterns which will lead to changes in behaviour and then changes in how you feel which will lead to a re-newed sense of who you really are.

Self-hate is a waste of precious time. Life will pass you by if you
stay there. You will not be happy. You will not be fulfilled. Truthfully, if you hate yourself, whatever aspect of identity that means for you, you will not be able to be open and present enough for others to truly love you. Self-hate for many borderlines is not as much about actual hate of "self" as it is about actual hate of not knowing who one's "self" really is.

This tranistional place can very much resemble classic borderline NO-WIN and is therefore very hard to push through. You need to push through it to change your self-hatred for your false self to a burgeoning like of the real self that will begin to emerge with a choice to change. And having been through it I can attest to the fact that it is not a NO-WIN situation at all. It is the most wonderful thing that you can do for your real 'self'!"
I hope this helps explain a bit about what has been going on and why it is so difficult for me to post, leave comments and respond to comments on the blog. I am really trying to push through, but sometimes my brain is foggy, I don’t have the energy or I can’t fight through all the negative stuff in my head. However, I am thinking that Monday, I will be able to write about Christmas.

Isaiah 49 :15 -16

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