frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (Criterion 1). The perception of impending separation or rejection, or the loss of external structure, can lead to profound changes in self-image, affect, cognition, and behavior. These individuals are very sensitive to environmental circumstances. They experience intense abandonment fears and inappropriate anger even when faced with a realistic time-limited separation or when there are unavoidable changes in plans
Individuals with this disorder display impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (Criterion 4)... drive recklessly (or other forms of willingly endangering self. attempts to react against responsible behaviour)
self-harming behavior (Criterion 5). (No longer present, although the thoughts recur)
marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days) (Criterion 6).
These episodes occur most frequently in response to a real or imagined abandonment. Symptoms tend to be transient, lasting minutes or hours.
The real or perceived return of the caregiver’s nurturance may result in a remission of symptoms.
DSM IV - Criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder
http://www.fortunecity.com/campus/psychology/781/bpd-dsm.htm
I am not at all suggesting that I have BPD. But when you're looking to understand defective behaviour, our society, and the melodramatic quality of the internet in particular, seems only to provide resources in the manner of diagnostic fact sheets.
All other environments - self-help books, inspirational stories, Happy Happy Joy Joy/Be Happy, Don't Worry seminars - are invalidating, and that's the problem in the first place. A basic self-invalidating spiral which seems to be the predominant relic of my former self-destructive self. And i want to fix it, and the empowered modern woman of today speaks in such a rhetoric that I should be able to fix it, and the Christian perspective mandates that I can't fix it, not by myself, I have to rely on God, and so by not having it fixed, that means I'm not relying enough on God and so the cycle continues.
There is one problem, which I shall call a trigger. That is the first one, for some reason i have some form of separation anxiety, that causes me a brief, sharp, and irrational emotional response to very small , realistic, time-restricted separation. This is threatening as one of the main issues in my otherwise wonderful relationship, and i don't want it to destroy the relationship.
It is irrational, and i knwo that it is irrational, which sets up a self-invalidating environment. And it is here that the problem is probably seated. I shouldn't feel like this, I should be a better person, I should understand, I should give him more space, he knows I'm like this - why didn't he think?, how can i expect so much of him, but i said yesterday to message, don't be so demanding - he'll leave you because "I know I love you but i just can't take this", and so on and so forth.
Which brings me to:
Firstly, they show evidence of 'emotional vulnerability' as already described. They are aware of their difficulty coping with stress and may blame others for having unrealistic expectations and making unreasonable demands.
On the other hand they have internalised the characteristics of the Invalidating Environment and tend to show 'self-invalidation'. They invalidate their own responses and have unrealistic goals and expectations, feeling ashamed and angry with themselves when they experience difficulty or fail to achieve their goals.
These two features constitute the first pair of so-called 'dialectical dilemmas', the patient's position tending to swing between the opposing poles since each extreme is experienced as being distressing.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
http://www.priory.com/dbt.htm
This is the other problem, except that I don't pendulum swing after the manner of BPD. Instead, I freeze or spiral and self-invalidate both sides of the argument, so that I know that my own expectations and demands are unreasonable and so there can never be any blame, and i feel upset and angry that I cannot give John what he needs (space) when he doesnt even ask for much, and why i can't i do the one thing he wants, just some of the time, and instead i have to react irrationally and make such a big deal of it, and when he is wonderful as he always is, then i feel as though i've manipulated him, and so all the invalidating voices are my own, but it just means that it leads to a situation where I just want to take some sleeping pills and a short break from the world, so that when i wake up these thoughts will no longer viciously circle, chasing each other's tails and biting off my head.
and then of course, there's the "you're just feeling sorry for yourself", "why cant you be happy?", "it's such a little thing, you can't deal with anything can you?", and the fear that there is some manipulative monster inside of me that i can't control and that the more wonderful john is, the more horrible i am, and the monster inside that will grow and grow out of control until it consumes us both, and why am i sitting here on the phone, silent, don't i know that's the worse thing to do? if i'm going to be upset i shouldn't on the phone, because that just means i want him to relent and see me or something, and hold me, but you can't manipulate people like that, and oh look, you're crying now are you, are you crying noisily enough for him to hear you? are you just putting on a show? you should go, you should take your leave and have a good cry and call him later when you feel better, that would be the considerate thing to do, although, you have no reason to be upset anyway, and are you sure you're not just pretending to be upset to get his attention?
but of course, all these thoughts are thought and before they're voiced, they're banished and invalidated and told they shouldn't be thought because they're destructive thoughts in themselves, and John, that's what i mean about not allowing myself to think those things that i know are bad... because i know all these things are bad reactions, and bad conclusions, and voices which yell cruelly at me, and i don't let them yell, i really don't, but i know what they say anyway, and then i feel bad because even by not letting myself think them i've still thought them, just not verbally, and that's why i end up in deadlock, not being able to go in any direction or think anything, because anything i do think ends up being destructive or impermissible.
John, I'm so sorry. I owe it to you to be happy and to react well and love you and give you what you need. That's why it's even harder sometimes, because you always react to me so well and you always comfort me and you never judge me or tell me that's it's stupid to feel like that... in short, you never become one of those horrible voices inside my head who tell me everything i'm doing wrong. And I do love you, and i dont understand why i react the way i do, but you see why it's something i do need to work on? The whole not getting upset? It's not your responsibility, and even the little bit that oculd be your responsibility, the so-called not upsetting me, that's just a tiny trigger and the other stuff needs coping with, and working out, and fixing.
