Warning - long note on what I've noticed and am trying to figure out in my own life... Please excuse me if it belongs somewhere else, I'm trying to figure something out and this topic slapped at home for me in a big way.
JohnnyBlaze wrote:In retrospect, the research shouldn't surprise me all that much, but definitely makes sense. My family has a history of PD's, including bi-polar, as well as a strong history of thyroid problems. Add those factors up and you get me, who has recently been diagnosed with borderline. A+B...
Ahhhh, every female in my mom's family--grandmother, two aunt's, great aunt... Have or had extreme thyroid problems. My mom has never been diagnosed, but summarily never tested either. I was diagnosed with a thyroid disorder at age 18, earliest in my family.
Haven't been formally diagnosed either way, scared a teence, but can understand BPD so well. Someone said the sound of their kids laughter made them so happy, at the same time their whining made them want to hit their head on the wall... Etc. I identify with that post on such a deep level that it made me so stinkin' excited. Really? Being able to "go off" my husband with no foreshadow.(In retrospect, much foreshadow, just shelved the hurt/fear of abanondment/mental abuse until I got mad enough for it to hit me en total and I react like mad.)
I too was raised in a home with much love, a very strong matriarchiarical family, a family where males died (my maternal grandfather, during WWII) thereby abandoning my grandmother and two young daughters (my mom was 18 months old and doesn't remember him,)) my grandfather's brother who got my grandmother pregnant, married her and was a rampant alcoholic, my father who abandoned my mom, brother and I, was a recovering alcoholic and then died when I was 21 .. finally when I was figuring out a decent relationship with... My mom's boyfriend who she got pregnant with his child, I was told was coming home to be my little sister and never came home... Boyfriend and baby disappeared. No one thought to tell me WHY! I was eight. Of COURSE I couldn't understand. (I just understood that everyone left.))
I feel both insanely protective and crazily pissed at my mom. She is my rock AND my enabler in retrospect. She has helped me through the craziest times of my life, albeit sometimes in such a way as to leave me saying, "Please just get pissed at me and be done!" because of course, anger is BAD and Mom is GOOD... We can never be too mad at mom to show anger... And if mom gets pissed enough at me she will leave.
Faulty reasoning (Thank You God) I see in the whole anger/mom paragraph, but my mom can be the most passive/aggressive being on this planet.
I feel some disassociation with religion some days, though my faith has been solidified through my life through the years in such a way that I dont question it heavily during manic or depressive times as once I did and my husband definitely does. I'm pretty mainstream that praising God is easy in the good, hard in the bad.
I am separated from a definitely bipolar spouse who I always claimed never saw the grey. I am beginning to see so many BPD characteristics in his behavior as I read and so many bipolar traits in myself. I feel like the mirror in a mirror sometimes.
I have been treated for anxiety for twelve years, I think because I saw the irritability associated with it mirrored in my actions as a mom and was concerned enough to seek help. On the other hand I've never been to therapy because I come from a well-reared (hah!!!!) pretense-hiding (much more appropriate) good-ole southern family ... We don't have a disorder (my mom told me at Sunday dinner a week ago), we are just each different. I shouldn't tie myself to something so messed up as a diagnosis.
Between my husband, who wants a drug abuser label on my head like he is, plus I must be bipolar because we have some similarities in our screwed-up-ness and he doesn't want to be alone in his unhappiness...
Aaahhhhhh! I just see myself as I used to be happy, I used to be successful, I used to be vibrant and have tons of friends (yeah, a bit of Narccisist there.) and now? I am a graphic designer who overthinks EVERY decision made to the good of my clients, completely over judges my work and now takes too dang long to finish a simple project because of over thinking every line.... So I must have "lost it" somewhere, or maybe just hit a lucky streak earlier in my career that took care of my family. I now hate design but love the feeling when it all clicks together... Finishing a project feels monumental and beautiful if I get there... Though finished projects are the bane of my existence.
I grew up hardcore academic. It was the easiest way to get attention. I am conscious of the first abandonment fears as early as age four. This was also the year I leaned to read voraciously, my dad left my mom and I remember being pulled into different classes in pre-k for "gifted" children. School was super easy for me. Every class except English could be figured out in a formula (down to physics my senior year). I was extremely good with words and writing, always trying to be seen and heard more (performance dancer and theatre throughout highschool... ) The only kid in my graduating class to get a national merit scholarship... Seeking attention! I wanted love! Seeking? My dad?
Seriously, am I down to being another girl, Southern at that, with damn daddy issues?
I'm kinda screaming.
My bipolar husband, of whom I am separated, controlled me so deftly as to talk me into dropping my anxiety meds CT because he talked me into being an addict. I am not an addict.
What the HELL?!? Am I just downgraded from being labeled a very strong woman who has it all together in her 20's (heavens I faked the heck out of someone!!!) to being a victim who wrote a bunch of bad checks as a perhaps mid-life crisis in my 30's!?!?
Ok - long and longer. Someone slap me out of my own head!!!!