Personality Disorders and Trust
trusting her is my decision, proving me right is her choice
~
Everybody lies ~ that’s one of life’s great truths. So, why would I ever want or need to place my trust in another person? I can put things more bluntly; I suffer from a serious mental health problem called Borderline Personality Disorder, (BPD), which makes it extremely difficult for me to ever trust anyone, particularly someone that I care for. It’s common for someone with BPD to find it very difficult to trust, even though I may have a deep need for validation from other people. That means I will lash out when I think someone has betrayed me, is betraying me, or might desert me.
Anyone with any personality disorder, especially with BPD, will have a history of very rocky relationships, especially romantic relationships. Borderline Personality Disorder causes constant and extreme mood swings and changes in emotional states, from doting and affectionate one minute, to abusive and pushing your partner away within just a few hours. If you either suffer from that horrible personality disorder, or if you are close to someone who does, you will find that trust comes very hard.
And, why should we trust at all? Why should we ever give another the chance to betray and hurt us? Why should we risk being lied to and deceived?
Things come apart so easily when they have only been held together with lies. ~ Dorothy Allison.
All those with a personality disorder are compulsive liars and deceivers, and most of their relationships end in chaotic and traumatic breakups. This is true until they begin to recover. In recovering from a personality disorder the ‘former sufferer’ will become desperate to create and build trust in all of their relationships ~ and this takes a lot of time.
There are some things that I know I can do;
- Keep to my word and follow through with my actions.
- Learn how to communicate truthfully, openly, and effectively.
- Stop speaking and acting impulsively.
- If I’m wrong, or I’ve made a mistake, then admit it.
- Stop lying and deceiving ~ always be honest with myself and everyone else.
- Do what I believe is right ~ not what is easy or might get me what I want.
- Stop taking people for granted.
Those things kind of look and sound easy ~ they’re not. Earning trust and learning how to trust is one of the most difficult things someone recovering from a personality disorder or an addiction can ever do. But, if life is going to be worth living it’s something I know I have to give of my very best.
Some say deceive me once then shame on you. And, deceive me twice then shame on me. All I know is that you can’t build a good life based on a tissue of lies.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
never trust a woman in a mask
Coping With Retroactive Jealousy
the jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves
~
Retroactive Jealousy is being jealous of your partner’s sexual past. Sufferers of this sickening disorder can be jealous of things their partner did long before you even met them ~ maybe jealous of things their partner did years ago. It’s completely insane. It’s a monster which will grow and grow if you feed it, and it will utterly destroy relationships. Jealousy of any kind is incredibly destructive, retroactive jealousy even more so.
Jealousy ~ that sickening combination of possessiveness, suspicion, rage, and humiliation ~ can overtake your mind and threaten your very core. ~ Helen Fisher.
Generally, sufferers of retroactive jealousy also suffer from some serious underlying mental health problem such as Borderline Personality Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or Bipolar Disorder. Mostly it’s men who suffer from this insane kind of dysfunctional jealousy.
Now it may be that their are things in your partner’s sexual past that you just can’t live with ~ in which case you should just walk away. However, if you believe that you want to keep seeing your partner, there are some basic tools you can use to cope with your problem;
- Acknowledge that this is your problem, and not your partner’s. You need to deal with it on your own.
- Stop obsessively talking with your partner about their past. Do not stalk them by looking at their social media.
- Get clear about your own morals, ethics, and values. What are you fearful of, and what don’t you understand?
- Realise that it’s a new world out there, and some of the things which may have been totally unacceptable twenty years ago are commonplace now.
- Accept that nobody is perfect, and don’t be a hypocrite.
- Don’t be utterly judgemental and avoid black and white thinking.
- Realise that you are never, ever, going to be totally happy about your girlfriend’s past, but get yourself into a place where you can live with it.
- Do not compare yourself with your partner’s past lovers.
- Don’t go out and get drunk in the mistaken belief that will make you feel better.
The surest route to breeding jealousy is to compare. Since jealousy comes from feeling less than another, comparisons only fan the fires. ~ Dorothy Corkille Briggs
Some say that being jealous of your partner’s sexual past is just being hypocritical. And that if you love someone you should be accepting and understanding of their sexual past. All I know is that jealousy is a deceptive, tricky, and pernicious emotion ~ it’s all an ego game.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
don’t throw away a good relationship
over things that happened in the past
Dire Straits
lately I haven’t been doing so much of walking the walk
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
that’s just about how I feel today
I had a girl
the fundamental interconnectedness of all things
~
darkness unfolds into morning
the moonlight shines though
what am I to you?
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Once I knew her
then she knew me
Assertiveness
to be passive is to let others decide for you
Some of you may know that I have been emotionally, mentally, and spiritually sick for quite a while, but that over the last few days I have been recovering from the personality disorder that ails me. I had another sign of that recovery today when I had a couple of very unpleasant situations to deal with, and I dealt with them effectively and assertively.
What I’m going to tell you isn’t something I’ve picked up off the web, or read in a book ~ I guess it harks back to when I operated at the highest levels in the fields of international banking and finance. Today I used that accumulated knowledge, with a little something extra added from my recent life experiences. In short I was extremely assertive and sorted things out without being aggressive.
To be assertive you must first of all make damn certain there is something wrong. To be assertive when there’s nothing actually wrong, or about to go wrong, is just to make yourself look like a jerk.
Then figure out exactly what is is that went wrong, is wrong, is about to go wrong, or just isn’t happening at all.
Find the most senior appropriate person you have access to who might just be able to do something about your issue.
Tell that person succinctly, but with enough detail for them to fully understand, exactly what the problem is.
Tell them exactly what you want them to do about it; just saying ‘I want you to do something about it…..’ is being passive aggressive and not assertive.
Tell them when you expect the appropriate action to have been taken and the results you want to see. Give them a time limit.
Tell them what will happen if they don’t do what you want them to do ~ but don’t threaten violence, that’s just being aggressive.
Tell them again what you’ve just told them, but this time summarise the whole thing in as few words as possible.
To be assertive requires intelligence, energy, determination, and a willingness to go out on a limb. Being assertive does not require aggression, machismo, raised voices, or female seductiveness. Maybe a little charm helps in the right situations.
Assertiveness works to help you get what you want, need, and desire in every single situation you can think of.
I also know how to utterly and completely deflect assertiveness when it’s used on me, but maybe I’ll tell you that another day.
Some say that assertiveness means carrying a big stick. And that assertive people say no to almost everything. All I know is that if I want it enough, true assertiveness will get me everything I desire.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
this is not assertiveness
just violence and aggression
ILLNESS
only in the darkness can you see the moon and stars
~
when I was ill and I didn’t want to be
I didn’t know what was wrong with me
yet there was a Iight I just couldn’t see
for when I walked down near the sea
the moon and stars were shining on me
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
when you’re going through the darkness
keep on going
When There Is No Cure
there is no in-between, it is either all or nothing
sometimes you just explode
Our personalities stem from deep within our subconscious and are everything about the way we feel, react, and act. A personality disorder is when parts of our personality cause problems in our lives. A personality disorder will adversely affect how you cope with life, deal with relationships, how you behave every second of every day, and how you feel. There is no cure.
The symptoms of a personality disorder may be treatable, but the underlying damage to your personality is not. Because there is no cure, any treatment has to be long-term and specific to the individual concerned. For example, some personality disorders respond well to medication, (Bi-Polar Disorder), while for others medication is both useless and probably dangerous, (Borderline Personality Disorder).
The men in white coats now believe that personality disorders are hard-wired into whoever is unfortunate enough to suffer one of the 10 different disorders, and they say that’s about one in twenty of the population. (Personally I believe that far more than 5% of people are living with a serious personality disorder.) The theory is that is you have a personality disorder you will never be able to shake off its symptoms. This is not true.
Personality Disorders are most likely incurable, but the symptoms can be managed.
- Crisis management. Self-harm and suicide is common among sufferers of a personality disorder. I have Borderline Personality Disorder, (BPD), and about 10% of all those who suffer from BPD kill themselves. At times you may be hospitalised for your own safety and because you are a danger to others.
- Medication. There are some drugs to help sufferers of depression, anxiety, mood-swings, and psychosis. Medication does not treat the underlying personality disorder, merely the symptoms. Mostly antipsychotic medication is no more effective than a placebo, and has horrible side-effects.
- Talking Therapy. Depending on where you live there may be a few talking treatments that just might help suffers of a personality disorder. These include art therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive analytic therapy, and dialectical behaviour therapy.
- Sheltered living. Some suffers of personality disorders have such difficulty in dealing with everyday life that spending a long period in a therapeutic community is the only way they are able to cope at all.
- Learning about your illness. The likelihood is that anyone suffering from a personality disorder spends a lot of time in the confusion of not knowing WTF is happening to them. If you learn, then you know, you may understand, and then you may be able to recover.
- Self-Directed therapy. The chances of me receiving any suitable treatment in my lifetime are just about zero. Therefore my only recourse is to use self-help. Luckily self-help treatment for personality disorders does work ~ if you do the hard work, every single
fuckingday of your life. - Avoidance behaviours. Most sufferers of a personality disorder are / or have been into alcohol abuse, drug misuse, gambling, compulsive shopping, unsafe casual sex, never leaving home…..
Some say that if you have a personality disorder you may as well just curl up and die. And that extreme avoidance behaviour is the way to go. All I know is that if you do the hard work you can get over the sh*t and be happier.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
never leaving home is one solution
it is NOT a viable long-term solution
Demons and Doubletalk
there are some thoughts you can’t avoid,
and some feelings you can’t deny
When you have a personality disorder your mind will lie to you. Your subconscious mind will take a grain of truth and build it into a dark castle in the clouds with lightning all around. When that happens you will struggle to stay grounded. Your demons will create dismal feelings and negative thoughts that your conscious mind will need to react to and act upon. The anger, jealousy, paranoia, and resentments will overwhelm you. You will plan and scheme and in an instant come up with a way to hit back, to get even, to relieve the pain in your soul.
The saner part of you will know that it’s all twisted logic and internal doubletalk, but right there and then the saner part is no friend of yours. The very last thing you need when you are in that dark space is reasonable self-awareness and self-control, because you know that everybody lies to you and everyone betrays you. No one and nothing is to be trusted nor relied upon. The only things you can trust are the voices in your own mind. You will truly be all alone in Heartbreak Hotel.
The demons with their doubletalk are insidious, persistent, and pernicious ~ your demons are always there and they will never let up. Your demons will give you insane feelings and nightmares, driving you down to another rock bottom where the mental anguish will torture and torment you.
You may try to escape into booze, drugs, gambling, casual sex with strangers, isolating yourself, just disappearing, violence….. or you may attempt suicide, and you might just succeed. I suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder, (BPD), and about 10% of all those with this mental malady commit suicide. Or , you may just threaten suicide. BPD is the only personality disorder where attempted suicide and threats of suicide are among the diagnostic criteria.
How then do you escape from your demons and their destructive doubletalk? Sad thing is you can’t. There is no cure for most personality disorders, (and the majority of other mental illnesses). There isn’t even any effective medication if you have Borderline Personality Disorder, and no responsible doctor would give drugs to anyone with BPD.
All you can do is try to recover from the worst effects of your mental malady. The demons will never go away completely, but you can stop listening to them. Act as if you know what love is. Act as if you have only good feelings. Act as if you are not being torn apart inside.
All I know is that if you keep doing what you did, you’ll keep on getting what you got.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
the truth will always find you out
but lies are more powerful
Defeating Dark Emotions
the heart is a strange beast and not ruled by logic
if all you have is a lonely beach…..
Nobody is rational about emotions ~ that’s why they’re called emotions. And yet, I am handling my extreme and chaotic emotions quite rationally.
Feelings cannot be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem. ~ Anne Frank
Feelings cannot be ignored, and yet I am ignoring some incredibly powerful feelings that boil like black lava with in me.
I suffer from a very serious mental malady which creates wild, extreme, and powerful mood swings, and yet outwardly I am calm and grounded.
I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in-between. ~ Sylvia Path.
The Borderline Personality Disorder, (BPD), that torments me creates extreme and instant feelings; anger, bitterness, disconnectedness, fear, guilt, insecurity, jealousy, loneliness, lust, paranoia, rejection, resentment….. and a kaleidoscope of all of those and more. Yet, through putting in the hard work I do not now often react to these negative feelings, nor act upon my intricately-constructed negative thoughts.
Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness. ~ James Thurber
In the very recent past I would oft give my negative feelings and darkest thoughts free rein, and that never ever made things better, reacting to negative feelings and acting upon my darkest thoughts always, always, made everything in my life much worse. About 10% of everyone who has suffered from BPD commits suicide, and a greater number die from the near-suicides of such things as alcoholism, drug addiction, and risky, impulsive behaviors like promiscuous casual sex with strangers and insane driving. Those with personality disorders also have a higher than average risk of ‘lifestyle illnesses’ such as cancers, pancreatitis, cirrhosis, strokes, and heart attacks.
For me, when the inner emotional pain got bad I would retreat into the self-destructive oblivion of alcohol ~ which is very akin to temporary suicide.
In my lowest moments, the only reason I didn’t commit suicide was that I knew I wouldn’t be able to drink any more if I was dead. ~ Eric Clapton
Three very simple stratagems have relieved me of the torture and torment I have suffered for as long as I can remember.
- Learning and understanding everything I could about my personal personality disorder.
- Delaying my reaction to negative feelings, and delaying taking any action following my darkest and most evil nightmare thoughts. If I delay long enough the darkness passes.
- Keeping busy and avoiding idleness, even if doing something was outside of my comfort-zones.
To recover from Borderline Personality Disorder I have had to embrace change.
We have to be honest about what we want and take risks rather than lie to ourselves and make excuses to stay in our comfort zone. ~ Roy T. Bennett.
Some say that the emotion that can break your heart is the one that heals it. And that there is nothing they can do but to follow their heart. All I know is that it’s a good thing that I’ve finally found a way to control myself.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
eventually the night comes
and with the night come the nightmares
Stop Being a Jerk
there is a big difference between being cool and being a jerk
Please forgive me because I have some problems, as in; confidence, creativity, ethics, honesty, integrity, intelligence, loyalty, manners, morals, self-awareness, standards….. I really belong to a bygone age of gentlemen, or perhaps at heart I am a knight errant who craves no more than chivalric courtly love. Perhaps my heart is a little vulnerable, and mayhap I can be bruised too easily by a woman ~ especially a Lady I care for.
Being brave and bold tends to go along with being idealistic and moral ~ and those character traits don’t seem to fit well in a society based on deceit and instant gratification. Casual sex, drug taking, smoking pot, gambling, lying, cheating, slutting, and promiscuity all seem utterly wrong to me. A dedication to truth, honesty, and openness may seem hopelessly outdated and stuffy to most younger people. A strong sense of right and wrong doesn’t seem necessary to many people today. Most will just do just what they want when they want, no matter who they hurt and no matter what other people may think. Many people seem unreliable, selfish, and crass to me.
Where all this becomes a real problem is that I suffer from something called psychological splitting, which is easier understood as black and white thinking. To me life is simple; people are either good, or they are bad, and there are no grey areas in-between. If you want to show off you could say that I have a personality disorder called Dichotomous Thinking.
All of these character traits of mine can create some very powerful emotions, ranging from jealousy to protectiveness, and from anger to remorse ~ utterly opposite sets of feelings. These can best be resolved by something called Dialectical Thinking, which means balancing between opposite sets of thoughts and emotions. And as far as I am concerned, right now, there is no chance of that happening ~ not without me putting in a lot of hard work.
I may not be able to think dialectically, but what I can do is to act dialectically; I may be fucking angry due to retroactive jealousy, but I will act in a completely opposite way and only show a laid-back, mellow, and charming face to the world. This is not lying, either to myself or others, I am merely not doing anything permanently stupidly destructive just because I am temporarily extremely upset.
Basically, I am not acting like a jerk.
Some say that honesty, integrity, and openness are outdated. And that it’s OK to cheat, lie, steal, get drunk, smoke pot, and fuck anyone you want. All I know is that I’d rather have morals, even if I’m often temporarily upset.
~
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
I will try hard to forget her
I might die trying
