Painful times

I haven’t updated as much lately because I’m finding things tough and to examine them seems even tougher.

I continue to restrict my food and to lose weight.

Group was hard this week, I had a disagreement with someone because they were making assumptions about people who aren’t parents. I desperately would like to have children at some point and felt very excluded by the way they were talking so I said so. This openness is new territory for me and I feel vulnerable and uncertain as a result.

Other things in my life aren’t going smoothly. I’m hitting bumps in every road just when I feel like I have very little resilience. I just feel like packing everything in and saying fuck you to the world right now.

Having said that, I’m still going to volunteering this afternoon and plan to see my occupational therapist tomorrow. I feel like I’ve stalled on looking for new volunteering work so I don’t have much to bring to the session and that worries me. She’s very supportive though so I’m hoping something good will come from our meeting anyway.

Concern over weight loss

Today my therapist commented that she is concerned about my visible weight loss and proceeded to quiz me about it. I’ll admit that I was defensive as I really didn’t want to discuss it. As I’ve mentioned on my Twitter, I am struggling with eating issues at the moment and losing weight quite rapidly. I suppose I should’ve expected her comments but I didn’t think it was that obvious.

There was no group this week, which I thought would be a welcome relief but I sort of oscillated between forgetting it was cancelled (and worrying as though it was still happening) and sort of missing it in a weird way. As I said to my therapist, I’m worried I’ll become dependent on it and it’ll finish. As she pointed out, we’ve still got a year left though. Still, I’m afraid to get too attached. Probably to do with abandonment issues, but by holding back I am missing out on the attachments altogether.

She wants me to talk more about the sexual abuse. I touched on how it has affected my sex life (ie, I don’t have one now!) and she says she thinks it affects me in lots of other ways as well and we should talk about it more. This terrifies me because of how bad the flashbacks got when I talked about it just a little before, and I told her so. I know shoving it back down and not addressing it isn’t a good option either.

Back in Individual Therapy

It wasn’t as awkward seeing my therapist today as I’d feared it would be. She’s been away for three weeks over Christmas and it has been tough trying to deal with things on my own. I’m so glad she’s back.

I told her about the small overdose I took on Christmas Eve, and about how seeing my family at Christmas was a monumental effort as usual in the category of Acting Like Everything is OK.

What really got us talking was when I brought up what my sister said on the way over to my parents’ house on Christmas Day. Basically, she admitted that our dad used to get very drunk each year on Christmas Eve (he drank a lot the rest of the time too), and that this was upsetting. She even gave the example of the time he started crying and wandered off (I had to go after him) and we were all really worried.

This may not seem like much, so let me explain the significance for me. My family never admit that anything has ever been wrong or difficult except for my behaviour. There is an unspoken agreement that I was the cause of conflict as a child and that other than that things were fine. My sister saying this is an admission that not only were things not always fine, but also that my dad’s drinking was an issue and that his behaviour had a negative effect on us.

This has brought up a lot of confusing thoughts for me. There is a battle going on inside me about who I am and what happened when I was a kid. What feels true is what I’ve been told all my life: that I am bad and worthless and the cause of anything bad that befell me. What I am thinking now though is starting to question those feelings and beliefs of badness. My sister saying the above is the first evidence from someone else in my family that things were not right, and not just because of me. That’s huge.

My therapist said there was a shift today in the way that I spoke about my childhood and my family. I spoke more from a personal perspective and was more emotionally engaged. She was more able to understand what things were like for me growing up. It hurt very much to speak about things that way, but it is reassuring to hear that she feels I am making progress.

The Job Centre

I always leave the job centre feeling like shit about myself. I haven’t had to go there much in the last year or so thank goodness but they’re changing things and they say I have to go there three times a year now. They said the actions I’m taking towards work (volunteering, therapy) are fine for now though.

My social worker thinks I should be in the support group of ESA and not work-related activity. Now that they are saying I have to go to the job centre more, which has been a great source of stress for me, she says it’s the right time to apply.

You’ve probably heard about how ATOS, the company that do the fitness for work assessments, are terrible at what they do and are basically meeting government targets on throwing people off benefits. It is especially hard to be found “unfit for work” if you have a mental health condition, and even harder if that condition fluctuates in severity the way BPD does.

I just don’t know if I can survive that process again. I feel like I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. Al I want is some fucking stability to try to recover, instead of this constant fear that I will be left with nothing to live on and for that matter, no where to live (as housing benefits are contingent on other benefits).

My social worker says we can discuss my options next time we meet. Until then I’m trying not to think about it too much – obviously that’s easier said than done.

An OD and new year eating problems

I just about survived Christmas. I became full of dread of Christmas Eve and ended up taking a small overdose. Of course, I still had to deal with seeing my family the next day, and acted as if everything was fine. I put on that mask again. A lady in group cried a little when I mentioned the OD. I feel guilty.

As I posted on Twitter lately, my issues with food are well and truly back. I have been losing weight since I started therapy back in April last year. I am as fixated on food and weight loss as I was in the past. My family commented that I am thinner. I’ve lost over a stone all together, so far.

It is helping me to feel in control, though I know this is a lie, and that the obsessive thoughts about my body and food are what control me. I am giving myself up to it right now though, because I don’t know how else to survive.

I have a stressful appointment coming up next week that I am very anxious about. The results could have a hugely negative impact on my current situation. I feel like there’s never any stability in my life for long.