Sometimes Life Seems to Hard.

This is gonna be a rather serious post. I'm not even going to attempt intentional humor. You don't have to read any further if you don't want to. 

I just feel that if I am going to be open about my BPD, I need occasionally disclose the struggles I face. This is hard, because I don't want to paint my husband or the rest of my family in a bad light. They may honestly live up to the negative I see, but having BPD, I don't always have a clear picture. I do what they call idealization/devaluation. I do it often. I do it a lot with my husband. I do it a lot with myself.

Lately I'm really struggling with my own self-image. I go from a high point, seeing myself as awesome and amazing and strong, to so completely low that I can't see how I am possibly excelling at anything. Right now, I can't believe I am even an adequate wife. I see myself as a complete failure of a wife. If I'm a horrible wife, then it follows that I am not a fit mother.  If I can't keep my house clean and the laundry done, I obviously am not providing a safe or healthy environment for my kids. (This may or may not be accurate, I really and honestly cannot see beyond my own sense of worthlessness.) Black and white thinking is not unusual for someone with BPD. In fact, it's one of the symptoms used for diagnostic purposes. 

I am also much more irritable, according to my husband. According to me, I am just defending myself against things he says. He may or may not be saying them in an accusatory, angry, or frustrated tone. I perceive his tone as such, but I may be deluded. He really is a good man. He's put up with my crazy for 5 years. I know that he has no intention of leaving me or the kids. We are both committed to the marriage. But I cannot help but feel like I should be worried that one of us is going to leave. Somewhere, I know this isn't true, but I can't shake the thought.

I have, for the first time in my life, found myself intentionally causing physical harm to myself. I'm not in anyway attempting to end my own life. The physical pain makes the emotional pain more bearable. I don't know why and I don't like it. In fact, I hate it. I always swear I will not do it again. And then, Larch and I get into a fight, and no matter who is right, or what it was about, I feel like I am not good enough for anybody. I remove myself to the bedroom and I try to calm down. I do calm down, but I dissociate. I totally check out from reality. I know this is not good and so I try to bring myself out of it. The problem is, I don't want to color, I can't focus on reading, my make-up and hair stuff hold no interest for me, and normally I can't think of anything to write that won't air dirty laundry to the world. This is when I start to scratch myself. It pulls me out of nowhere and it make me hurt less. The next day it stings like a mother and I can't believe I was that stupid. 

Today, I am writing. Maybe now I won't feel the need to hurt myself. But really I just want everything to be better and stay better. I want to like myself. I want to be good enough. I want to not fight with my husband, and myself and whoever else. I want to spend the hours after dinner enjoying my family, not worrying about who is gonna make the first explosive comment that drives me to my room to try and put the shattered pieces of myself back together. 

I want to make it very clear, that Larch does not in anyway verbal, emotionally, or physically abuse me. Any damage done to my confidence and self image is not so much a result of his words as it is a byproduct of my disorder. I can twist the most harmless word or phrase into a judgement on me. Larch is an amazingly supportive husband, and all of his complaints about my housewife skills are legitimate and called for. I am lazy and unmotivated and do not preform to my fullest capability. This is why when he comments it cuts so deep. My inability to see in anything other than black and white is where my self deprecation comes from. If I'm not excellent I must be horrid. This is not true, but it is what my brain tells me. If I am not full, I must be starving. If it is not hot, it must be cold. If my husband is upset with me, it is not possible for him to love me, he must hate me. Again, not true but that's how my brain works. I want to be healthy, but I have to walk the road to health and it is long and hard and painful. I will do it though. It just hurts right now.