Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder
wandering through a desolate wasteland of your own making
I guess I have suffered from untreated Borderline Personality Disorder, (BPD), for most of my life. I shouldn’t feel so bad because BPD is mostly incurable, and all many of we sufferers can do is learn how to minimise how the symptoms and traits that blight our lives.
As far as possible treatments go…..
Many suffers of this terrible illness self-medicate with copious quantities of alcohol, marijuana, and other street drugs ~ and then they become addicts. I’ve tried the booze thing, over and over again, just to escape the pain and suffering. It works for a while, because a boozer will eventually just pass out. However, the cure soon becomes worse than the disease. Too much booze can kill you in so very many ways, and anyone suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder will always drink far too much strong liquor. Eventually one has to stop drinking for a while, and for a while after you stop drinking you might feel so physically ill that you believe you are going to die.
If you are in crisis your doctor might give you a sleeping pill or tranquilizer, but should not ever prescribe more than a week’s supply ~ there is too much danger that someone suffering from BPD will take an overdose, possibly in an attempt to kill themselves.
Your doctor may prescribe Prozac, (fluoxetine), which is an SSRI, (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor), an antidepressant used to safely treat depression, anxiety, OCD, (obsessive compulsive disorder), maybe Bipolar Disorder, and eating disorders. Prozac makes you want to commit suicide. When you stop taking Prozac you will have some unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.
In a tiny study, (of 12 patients suffering from BPD), all showed some improvement after taking Prozac over an extended period, but none in the trial had suffered from terrible depression. Nowhere is Prozac said to be an effective treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder.
Of the talking therapies, current thinking is that Dialectical Behavior Therapy, (DBT), is most effective at treating BPD. The thing about DBT is that it focuses on honestly accepting who we are, and that is the real key to living a good life if you have fucking Borderline Personality Disorder.
Good luck in finding a counselor skilled in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or getting the funding for the long and intensive course of treatment you really need. The best you might get is some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is where Dialectical Behavior Therapy came from in the first place.
Personally, I have found a great deal of benefit just watching and listening appropriate podcasts on internet sites like YouTube. What I have learned is that no matter how fucking chaotic, evil, and negative my feelings are, I DO NOT NEED TO LET MY NEGATIVE FEELINGS AFFECT MY BEHAVIOUR.
Some say that they never realised that they were acting like a jerk, or a bitch. And that they thought that everyone had distressing feelings all the time. All I know is that I can be a cool guy, living a really great life ~ even though I have an incurable personality disorder.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
even in the short term drinking will not help people with a problem
Giving up Booze
alcohol is the world’s most addictive and most dangerous drug
Alcohol kills more people each year than all the other drugs combined ~ world-wide some three-million people a year will die from alcohol related causes. Cocaine, heroin, marijuana, meth, prescription drugs, tobacco…. all added together don’t kill as many people as booze. One third of all traffic fatalities involve alcohol. Booze will cause alcoholic poisoning, malnutrition, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, cancers, a fatal coma, liver failure, pancreatitis, pneumonia, multiple organ failure, fatal accidents, suicides….. And when you end up in the emergency room the doctors and nurses will treat you like shit.
Yet drinking booze is socially acceptable, in fact if you don’t drink most people will think you are rather strange. And, if you used to be a boozer, and stop, and then go out with your old circle of friends, they will pressure you to take a drink and indulge all of your other addictions. And these are supposed to be your friends?
If you drink, then over time your drinking will get worse and worse until it kills you. Before the booze kills you, you will know physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual suffering.
Of all those people who try to stop drinking, only 2.5% will make it to 90 days sober. Of that 2.5%, only 2.5% will make it to 2 years, that’s 2.5 people out of every 1,000 who will be sober 2 years after they made the decision to stop drinking. Be one of the 0.25% who succeed. You have a better chance of success if you get help.
Those who tell themselves that they want to control their drinking, or stop all together, may try some futile and self-destructive strategies;
- lying to themselves about how much they are drinking ~ denial is dangerous
- switching from spirits to wine to beer, drinking only organic booze
- limiting the number of drinks they have ~ that never, ever works
- resigning their job and moving from where they are to somewhere different ~ this is called doing a geographical
- religion, counselling, hypnosis, psychotherapy, doctors, taking anti-drinking medication ~ I have seen people on antibuse drink a hell of a lot in a session
- drinking in different bars where nobody knows them
- switching to a different addiction; smoking, gambling, unsafe casual sex, using other drugs, stealing, impulsive spending ~ although the chances are that real boozers were doing all those things at the same time they were drinking
- joining a gym, sports club, walking club, doing yoga, meditation classes…..
None of the above really works because most boozers are liars and cheats. You will drink again if you don’t do something radically different. Take a long hard look at yourself and accept that nobody and nothing is responsible for your drinking except you, and what’s going on with you. And if you are brutally honest with yourself, then you will probably be confused because you have no idea why you drink. The brutal honesty is good ~ stay with that
Don’t worry about the confusion for now ~ for now, just stay away from that next first drink. Next, stay away from everywhere you used to drink, and all those toxic false friends you used to drink with. Give up on all your other addictions. Now find yourself some support; Alcoholics Anonymous, counselling, hypnosis, psychotherapy, doctors, the church, sober friends, YouTube…..
And over the next 90 days find out the truth of why you drink, and deal with that. In my case I was drinking because I have Borderline Personality Disorder, and now I am dealing with that.
Some say that you are just a worthless alcoholic, and will never think that you are anything else. And some say that they never want to see you again. All I know is that everyone has the angel of recovery inside them.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
single malt scotch was my drug of choice
Living with Borderline Personality Disorder
even when I feel nothing, I feel it totally and intensely
Beautiful Nothingness
Personality disorders are a type of mental health problem where attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours cause longstanding difficulties in your life. Borderline Personality Disorder, (BPD), is a serious mental illness characterised by extreme emotional instability, rapid and violent mood swings, and a terrible fear of abandonment.
There is no shortage of deception, abandonment, and betrayal out there. The world is full of lying, uncaring, unstable people. We may give our hearts, time, and spend our money to and for those who do not care for us as much as we would like them to, our expectations are not met, and this causes us much pain. For those who have Borderline Personality Disorder any failure to meet their expectations creates immense suffering because it magnifies their extreme behavioral traits.
Sufferers of Borderline Personality Disorder, (BPD), can exhibit 9 extreme behavioral traits or symptoms;
- Chronic and morbid fear of abandonment. You would do anything to stop people from leaving you, yet you will make it happen.
- Intense, chaotic, and unstable interpersonal relationships; from intimate, to family members, to coworkers….. People around suffers of BPD often feel as though they are on an extreme rollercoaster.
- Unstable or no self-image, or sense of self. Who am I? Why am I here?
- Damaging impulsivity, self-destructive behaviour, behaving without thinking, taking risks; such as reckless driving, drink driving, problem drinking, casual sex, gambling, impulsive spending.
- Melancholia and depression leading towards self harm, thoughts of suicide, threats of suicide, attempted suicide. Sometimes the attempted suicide works and people die.
- Inappropriate, rapid, intense, and extreme mood swings; anxiety and depression, anger, euphoria…..
- A feeling of emptiness, pointlessness, ennui.
- Intense, immediate, inappropriate explosive anger that is difficult to control, followed by almost immediate remorse. People walk on eggshells around someone with BPD.
- Severe paranoia, suspicion, disassociation, feeling spaced-out, out of body experiences.
to be diagnosed with BPD you suffer from 5 or more of the nasty things listed above.
People who have BPD do not handle stress or unexpected events well ~ the extreme behavioural traits listed above will get worse if the sufferer is under external or internal stress, or if something unexpected happens, or if they are told something they don’t expect.
I suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder, and from time to time I have exhibited all 9 of the traits listed above. Like most people with BPD I cope very badly with stress and the unexpected. I am also very prone to what is called Splitting, which is black and white thinking, complete focus; which means that people, places, and things are either all good, or all bad ~ but this judgement can change very rapidly.
Some say that I am too sensitive, that I feel too much. And, that I always seem to destroy everything. All I know is that I’m so happy that I can’t stop crying.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
sometimes pain is good
the thorns are as beautiful as the rose
Reinventing Yourself
Reinventing yourself is an essential process if you want to flourish
I came to a point in my life where I knew that I had to change, it was time to make a fresh start. As we mature, as we learn and gain greater wisdom, it is inevitable that our goals, dreams plans, and expectations change. And for some of us, struggling with difficult emotional, mental, and psychological problems, we know that we need to let go of that which doesn’t work any more, never really worked, and was never going to work as far as our personal life and relationships are concerned.
It’s first of all about letting go of expectations, resentments, and hard-wired negative emotions. It’s about exploring and educating ourselves in new ways of living, it’s about finding ways to cope with those hard-wired negative emotions, it’s about discovering new ways of being, doing, thinking, and feeling.
Invent yourself and then reinvent yourself….. and reinvent your life because you must; it is your life and its history and the present belong only to you. ~ Charles Bukowski
However, I kid you not, unless you are reinventing yourself as an even worse version of the person you are today, (and I have seen many do that), then making a fundamental change to who and what you are, is fucking very difficult.
You can become a new, different, and better person very easily using your conscious mind ~ but know this, your conscious mind is only in control of your actions for about 5% of the time, the other 95% of the time your subconscious mind is in charge. And you can’t talk to your subconscious and tell it that you’ve changed because there is nobody in there. Your subconscious is made up of a set of programs that just run in response to stimuli and rewriting those programs is next to impossible.
One proven way to do it is called Habituation or Act As If. It’s like learning to drive a car, you practice and you practice until a new set of ‘driving programs’ is stored in your subconscious. So if you want to stop drinking, smoking, taking drugs, gambling, having endless casual sexual relationships, being a jerk, being a thief….. then you need to practice and practice not doing those negative things and instead be a better person until those new and better programs are stored in your subconscious. It will take a year or two.
The snag is that your family, ‘friends’, coworkers, partners in crime, et al., will sabotage you at every turn. If you’re trying to stop drinking / smoking / taking drugs and you go out with your old circle of friends they will encourage you to drink / smoke / use ~ and the chances are you will give in. They will continue to label you as alcoholic, addict, slut, jerk, thief, chain-smoker….. in casual conversation and when describing you ~ and that is how they will always think of you. And none of that is helpful.
The lesson is, if you are reinventing yourself you have to leave behind your old life ~ including all those unsupportive family members, false friends, and toxic relationships because they will do their utmost to drag you down into the past.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
your false friends would like to see you stay there in the gutter with a bottle
Unhappiness Doesn’t Work
Some don’t even ask for happiness, just a little less pain.
I’ve spent a lot of my life being miserable, angry, jealous, paranoid, depressed, in mental and spiritual pain. From time to time I’ve shared my pain with others, especially those close to me. In that I don’t mean that I’ve sat down and had a quiet and reasoned discussion. On the contrary, I’ve shared my pain by attacking people close to me verbally and in writing, or by just disappearing, or by getting drunk on the very spurious grounds that it would make others worry about me.
Just what part of my subconscious mind was hard-wired to think that being unhappy would do anything for me? Except to exist in a state of unhappiness and pain being unhappy achieves very little. To a sane mind, being unhappy should act as a spur to change whatever it is about one’s life that is making you unhappy ~ except it almost never does, because very few people have that degree of grounded and mindful sanity.
For many people being unhappy, miserable, angry, jealous, paranoid, depressed, in mental and spiritual pain becomes their normal state of being, it becomes their comfort zone. And how utterly sad that one’s comfort zone is a place of utter and total negativity.
For some others those negative feelings act as a spur to find an escape ~ in alcohol, drugs, binge eating, gambling, pornography, inappropriate casual sex, self-harm, attempted suicide, making a big geographical change….. For me, the escape from being in a bad dark place was always alcohol ~ and that worked for a while, just as all those other addictive behaviours may work for a while. However, very quickly the cure becomes far worse than the problem of unhappiness, mental, emotional, and spiritual pain.
Addictive behaviours are not a cure, they are just another facet of the kaleidoscope of some serious underlying issue deep in the subconscious mind of the sufferer ~ it’s like throwing a drowning man a concrete lifebelt, or trying to put out a fire by throwing petrol, (gasoline), on it. Giving someone with depression a bottle of booze and encouraging them to go out and fuck the first person they meet in a bar is just as bad ~ all it will do is destroy any feelings of self-worth they had left.
So why are so many people seriously unhappy, to the point that it can be classified as a mental illness?
Because we learned to be unhappy before we were old enough to know any better. Before we were seven years of age, deep and undying unhappiness was inculcated into our subconscious mind by our parents, carers, older siblings, teachers, et al., and now it’s hard-wired into our subconsciousness. And it doesn’t work.
How we break out of the downward spiral of misery will have to be the topic of another post. This post is too long already.
Some say that they are unhappy because the world is a bad place. And it’s all going to be OK because their doctor has given them some happy pills. All I know is that unhappiness and misery doesn’t work.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
booze is a bad way to try to find escape from mental, emotional, and spiritual unhappiness
Dialectics
wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two
opposition between two interacting forces
Just as infinity exists in two opposing states which are both impossible to measure or calculate, so ultimate truth exists in two opposing states which are impossible to measure or calculate.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy is an evidence-based psychotherapy that began with efforts to treat Borderline Personality Disorder ~ which is one reason I’m interested in Dialectics. I continue to suffer from many of the dangerous symptoms of BPD.
- Intense fear of abandonment
- Unstable and dysfunctional relationships
- Unstable self-image
- Impulsive and self-destructive behaviours
- Self-harm, in my case through alcohol abuse
- Extreme emotional swings
- Chronic feelings of emptiness, anxiety, depression…..
- Explosive anger
It’s worth trying almost anything to be free of these life-destroying scenario.
In classical Greek philosophy, as expounded by Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato dialectic signifies the logic of falsehoods and illusions which yet gives the outward appearance of Truth. Dialectic also means the process of discussion through which ultimate truth may be found, and there it can get quite complex depending upon which philosopher one is reading. But in simplistic terms the process is always;
Problem ——–> Reaction ——-> Solution
and the Solution will give the outward appearance of Truth.
This outward appearance of Truth will usually be accepted by the subconscious mind because it comes about as the result of opposites and that a solution occurs when one of the opposites is stronger than the other.
There are three basic assumptions in dialectics;
- All things are interconnected.
- Change is constant and inevitable.
- Opposites can be integrated to form a closer approximation of Truth.
I’m fully alongside the first two assumptions. I have long believed in the interconnectedness of all things. And, although I would prefer not to believe in the inevitability of change, I’m afraid that we have to. The third point goes to the heart of self-belief, self-confidence, and self-awareness.
The individual becomes for himself what he is in himself through what he manifests for others. ~ Lev S. Vygotsky
The practical upshot of all this is that it is perfectly possible and perfectly acceptable to hold two completely opposing views, which do not have ever to be reconciled, merely accepted. As in; I HATE you. Please don’t leave me.
The cool song I posted earlier today I’ll Find My Way Home perfectly expresses Dialectics.
Some say that they have firm opinions which are never wrong. And that they always tell the truth. All I know is that everybody lies.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Dialectics; investigating or discussing the truth of opinions
Tits Tuesday ~ Monochrome
Breasts are erotic because they cross the border between motherhood and sexuality.
~
~
~
~
~~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
maybe this qualifies for Tits Tuesday
or maybe not
The Reality of Belief
The great task in life is to find reality.
We make most mistakes, we suffer the most, and we do the most harm when our thoughts and beliefs differ from reality. It’s when we create stories and assumptions in our own mind which are untrue that we begin on a journey of falsehoods. And, those falsehoods lead to; alcohol abuse, drugs, eating disorders, gambling, heavy smoking, self-harm, casual sex ~ just to find temporary comfort and the illusion that our falsehoods are true. When our beliefs are untrue we can suffer from anxiety and depression, together with a host of other serious mental illnesses such as; Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. The stress of having beliefs which differ from reality causes a raft of physical illnesses, including cardiovascular problems, cancers, diabetes, dementia, and early death.
Yet, there is no such thing as reality.
Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. ~ Albert Einstein
It seems that in quantum physics and interpersonal relationships there is no such thing as cause and effect ~ no straight line between the past, through the present, and into the future. Even in very close relationships there are often merely shared perceptions of the world ~ and two people may both share perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs which are untrue. If alcohol, drugs, or mental illness is added into the mix then we get dangerous situations such as physical, verbal, mental abuse and co-dependency.
If your life is going down the shitter, if you are prey to addictions, if you suffer from a mental illness ~ then the chances are that your thoughts and beliefs have seriously differed from reality.
Einstein and other serious thinkers may tell us that reality is merely an illusion, BUT on a day to day basis we have to live in whatever reality surrounds us. That means seeing and accepting reality as it is, and not as we wish it to be. Reality is neutral and impersonal. Reality has no expectations and no beliefs. Reality is the true state of things. There is only one past, present, and future reality ~ it is our own perceptions and beliefs which create an infinity of different versions of the past, the present, and the possible futures.
To find true reality is both very easy and very difficult;
- be totally honest with yourself and others ~ reality is truth
- never take things personally ~ reality is impersonal
- do not make assumptions nor create expectations
Some say that reality is an illusion. And that we are all just simulations living in a matrix. All I know is that when my beliefs differed from reality I got myself into some serious trouble.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
to discover your ultimate reality requires a lot of deep thought
Monochrome Monday ~ Guys
It astounds me that women like soft pornography ~ M. Scott Peck
~
~
~
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
there is nothing like a cute ass
to encourage casual sex
My Aphrodisiac Was She
once we were lovers, but somehow things have changed
~
doesn’t take a genius
to know
that it’s all in the past
and you know
it wasn’t supposed to last
but one more throw
of loaded dice wasn’t to suffice
to tell me although
I should never have even asked
if she had felt love’s glow
and the answer was always no
she was just a stimulating aphrodisiac
~
jack collier
jackcollier@talktalk.net
the aphrodisia
goddess of sexual love
