No therapy this week, but I had a bad night last night, and thought I would jot down a few notes. We have always had cats, since before we got married, but the six-month-old brother & sister pair who showed up on our porch 15 months ago are unusual in how loving they are. The … Continue reading Anxiety & Catastrophic Thinking – Therapy Diary, March 4, 2021
Category: BPD Life
Negative Benefits; One-Way Portals; Everything is Transitory: Therapy Diary, Feb. 11-13
I don't think I've ever asked for advice on the blog before, but I could use some this week. If you can help me understand what this mood/mode/mental state is that I've been locked in for a month, I'd appreciate your insight. -=- This week's therapy session was as chaotic as most of them have … Continue reading Negative Benefits; One-Way Portals; Everything is Transitory: Therapy Diary, Feb. 11-13
Why I’m taking a break from martial arts
Note: I've been training at a martial arts dojo several times a week for the last six years. After seven months or so of remote learning via video feed, I realized that I was getting very tense and resistant to attending training. After thinking about it for a couple of months, I decided to take … Continue reading Why I’m taking a break from martial arts
118 Hours
"...the invitation of zen practice is to see everything as important. But to do so we have to have a basic capacity to hold difficult experience without pushing it away. That is why it is so important to sit on a daily basis. To learn to hold tension, or impatience, or anger, or sadness, or … Continue reading 118 Hours
The Fearful Dog and the Happy Dog
I was thinking yesterday about the story I see online every couple years, the one that talks about how the wolf you feed is the one that wins. It occurred to me that my brain is like two dogs, not two wolves. If you've ever met a dog that was mistreated when it was younger, … Continue reading The Fearful Dog and the Happy Dog
Colors (a SF story which in no way is meant to be an allegory*)
Roxxy woke up one morning to discover that all of the paint in the world had gone mad. Really, it wasn't even just paint. Every color had shifted a few degrees to the left, so to speak. She first noticed the walls of her room, though, where the slightly off-white had changed to a light … Continue reading Colors (a SF story which in no way is meant to be an allegory*)
The Buddha was a Borderline
I mean... seriously. "Life is suffering." "Suffering can be overcome." That using tools like... the right understanding, the correct thoughts, the right speech, correct action, the right livelihood, correct effort, mindfulness, and concentration helps you overcome suffering. The idea that the word 'suffering' can also be translated as 'disordered thinking.' That the self is an … Continue reading The Buddha was a Borderline
I think there’s a frightened kid living in my head.
After last week's therapy session, I found myself stuck on an idea: That I don't, in fact, have BPD, but am just a self-indulgent, overgrown child. The 'evidence' that I compiled in support of this hypothesis includes: When I'm feeling down I will do things like eating sweets to the point of being ill. I … Continue reading I think there’s a frightened kid living in my head.
From Minus Five to Plus Five
My therapist asked me how severe a particular depressive episode had been, and I started thinking about those pain scales they use in hospitals, and how I could adapt one to be useful for our conversations. This is mostly/kinda/sorta in jest, but who knows. Here's my first draft. The Moss Depression/Hypomania Scale -5: I'm in … Continue reading From Minus Five to Plus Five
I hate my brain (Life and the Fine Art of Learning Perspective)
Trigger warnings: Discussion of suicidal thinking and splitting. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I only got my diagnosis (DX) late last year, so I'm still learning about what Borderline Personality Disorder is. I'm very much aware that a person is not their diagnosis. I treat my DX as a chance to learn ways to … Continue reading I hate my brain (Life and the Fine Art of Learning Perspective)