That's your BPD...

That's your BPD talking? Can we dissociate ourselves from our illness when we get the intrusive thoughts and paranoia?

"Everyone hates you and you're disposable," says the voice in my head. Can I tell myself that that is just my illness talking and separate myself from the BPD? Almost as if I were pretending that I had schizophrenia(it isn't all that different). Would this be counterproductive because its label is Personality Disorder and is more ingrained?

I don't quite know what to say about that...
I feel like my BPD IS me talking.
Like it just knows who I really am.
It knows me inside out.
It's the truthful voice in my head...

...and that tortures me.

Have you been in treatment for your eating disorder? They try to get you to tell yourself that the extreme thoughts are "just your eating disorder talking". I'm wondering if that can be done for BPD because some aspects are similar to schizo. I was looking up schizophrenia recovery without meds.

I just don't know how to work it into the "so anxious that my brain is going to explode and I am making this illness up in my head" moments. Any suggestions? The voices are easier to quell but the fog is hard.

It does sound good. The only thing that prevents the thoughts in the first place is booze. any suggestions?

DBT teaches a similar concept.

It teaches about being aware of your thoughts and feelings. A helpful thing you can do then is to decide if what you are thinking/saying/feeling fits into emotion mind, rational mind, or wise mind.

I'll take my recent missing yoga class melt down as an example.

I was thinking "I'm so stupid, I should have just checked the schedule before I came. The owner didn't recognize me, that means that I mean absolutely nothing, I'm a worthless human being" and on and on

At this point I could stop and say, "OK this is my emotion mind talking." I could take it from there and then say, "What would my wise mind say?"

Yes, I've done this. Now I'm split in two. I have the me, the thinking, talking, rational me, and then I have the moving, emotional, reactive, communication-less me, which I describe as the dog.

I explained my theory about how I think everyone has this duality in this thread. Here's a snippet:

There's two parts of all of us -- every human being. Our "bodies"/"subconscious" and our "selves"/"consciousness"/ "the thinking self", the one that talks in your head. The body is what does all of your behaviors, emotions, reactions, everything, and you can merely give it suggestions of what to do, and it can choose to do it or not to do it. You can beg it, and sometimes begging can convince it. You also try to interpret your body and provide communication for your body. But, you can interpret it incorrectly, or under/overestimate the intensity.

In addition to the body's needs and wants, you, the thinking self, have your own needs, wants and assumptions that go beyond the body's understanding of existence. These are things like career aspirations, and opinions on what life is supposed to be like based on observation with their own family growing up, watching their friends, books, movies, prior imaginations, religion, ethics and morals.

So, after acknowledging that many of my actions and thinking processes are incorrect and improper, I set about correcting it. Over the course of many years, I ended up creating an extremely strong divide between these two entities. I, the thinking talking one, feel as though I'm being jerked around by the other, the moving emotional one. And of course I am, the other is the one that has control of the body and only does things it feels like doing of whatever I request of it.

I have to try to communicate with this being that has no way of interpreting verbal communication. I can't just tell it something and reason with it because it has no way to understand -- just like a dog. I have to somehow talk to it non-verbally, sort of like how I'm talking to it to type out his post. Either that, or I have to set up the environment so it can learn the information for itself.

I really need to figure this $#%^ out. Its getting exhausting.

littlearcher wrote:i was trying to explain this to my friend last night

i have a theory but, i have yet to be skillful enough to put it into practice...

i think the first step is to get yourself out of that super intense emotion because, i don't know about you, but i can't access any rational thought when i am in that state....

"The sense of self as coherent and continuous across time is also interrupted by dissociative experiences. Dissociation refers most broadly to a divided psychological awareness, in which experience is compartmentalized and the person’s connection to his or her own thoughts, feelings, body, or perceptions are diminished (Spiegel & Cardena, 1991; van der Kolk, van der Hart, & Marmar, 1996). Dissociation is often understood as a defensive flight from overwhelming and intolerable experiences and their attendant affect states."

littlearcher wrote:so once i do something to distract myself out of the emotion and get myself into the moment THEN i think i am capable of assessing my thoughts/feelings and figuring out where they are coming from.

does that sound like it may work?

I know a couple of dozens of reputable sources confirming that your intuitive approach, littlearcher, may work and does work in many cases.

I find that I can do that for my other MH problems, but not BPD. It's like it is so entwined with who I am that I genuinely don't know which is which.

I'm finding this thread to be particularly helpful and informative. I wanted to say thanks
Also, does anyone else feel like or have wondered if they have multiple personalities? My ex suggested this to me. I considered it, before I learned I had a BP
It does feel that way often..
I can look back at something I said or wrote to someone a day after I said it and don't even feel like that at all
I'm always changing my mind.,my attitude, my appearance, etc
It is exhausting and definetly confusing to others.