Some things that have helped me living with BPD

Hey Guys,

I'm newbie here. and gosh I am soo frustrated with myself. I can't seem to get it right no matter what I do.

Though if I look at it it's not entirely true. Yesterday I gave my kids Christmas, I was in mental health unit for Christmas. It was an awesome day. I recreated an attempted traditional German Christmas. I had a few people in my home, and there were about a dozen kids here.

I taught the kids how to seperate eggs, each child had a turn at seperating an egg, and the egg whites were beaten, and each child had a turn at beeating the egg whites, adding the icing sugar, which each child then had turns at piping the egg white onto a ginger bread house and we constructed a ginger bread house and decorated it with sugar lollies.

After that the children and I made christmas lanterns with cardboard and cellophane, once the lanterns were made I put them all in a room that that morning had been a floordrobe, I somehow managed to completely clear it out, and decorated it wtih balloons and stars and had a christmas tree and lots and lots of glow sticks.

When I played the "oh come little children" song which is what my grandmother used to sing for us on christmas eve, I opened the door to the special room, and all the children were invited in, and only my children recieved one present each.

The day was amazing. I actually feel proud of myself for on this occasion I created beautiful memories for my children to take into adult hood, perhaps one day, this day will be one of there special happy memories that they will take themselves to when they are adults.

All this was possible simple because this year I made the decision that I was not going to try and clean any more.
Whenever I clean I get overwhelmed, I am indecisive with where to put things. I'll be holding a pink teddy and I think it could go on the book case, or on the bed, or in the toy box, or lined up against the wall. The process of trying to decide where to put the teddy is overwhelming, I get the shits toss the teddy whereever it lands and create more crap on my floordrobes.

Instead I now call this horrible cleaning thing which is soo overwhelming and frustrating

"The art and science of activities of daily living"

Now I recognise that if I'm moving about, dancing to music, and putting things away, creating homes for things is excercise. Physical excersice. so that means my brain is recieving more oxygen, is better able to cope. The environment I'm in is almost organised, so my brain can see things more clearly, and is more capable of functioning than ever before. Because I am respecting it as an art and science, I find it fascinating. I'm becoming more and more aware of my body, and the environment around me is becoming a calming and relaxing place to be in.

I've still got a long way to go with my interactions with people. I find that my emotional response to certain situations create intense physical pain, and I lash out verbally and cause soo much hurt to the people around me. Naturally I loose a lot of what I thought were friends. Yet today I give my children memories which shape them into their adult hoods. Most days, those memories are fairly ###$ up, but christmas on the 17th of January was a definate achievment and they are going to have some beautiful memories.

I am just starting my journey of ridding myself of this BPD thing, apparently it's combined iwth depression, and PTSD. If only I didn't have BPD, then perhaps I wouldn't have gotten myself into the traumatic relationships that caused the PTSD.

I can't afford the Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, but I have the confidence that I will rid myself of all this #######4. At lest I have that confidence some days. Today I've wanted to die many times, But I've written this here to try and focus on all the good things that I am capable of doign. I just need to convince myself that it is possible.

Serenity
Rai

Rai, welcome to the BPD forum. What a wonderful, detailed first post you gave us. Thanks for sharing with us the experiences with your children (and neighbors' children?) as you celebrated a delayed Christmas on Jan 17. Yes, that is exactly the type of memory they will have has adults of their childhood. You therefore gave them a lasting gift yesterday -- the time that they and their friends learned how to separate the yokes from the whites.

Your egg experience reminds me of a memory I still hold very dear. My mother let me invite my 6th grade class over for an Easter egg-dying party. My mother bought so many colored dye pills that, after the party, I had a hundred left over. So I carried them to school in a cigar box so I could sell them to my classmates. At school, I showed them how they could drop them into the toilets and urinals and, by cramming pills into the water fountain spouts, could shock other kids with colored drinking water. Of course, I ended up in the principal's office later that same day -- but not before I had sold every one of the dye pills.

The folks posting in this BPD forum, as best I can determine, consist of about one-third BPD members, a third who are Nons like me (Non-Personality Disorder) who have been in a BPD relationship, and a third who are PDs (but non-BPD) that come here when things get slow in other forums (e.g., NPD, HPD, AvPD).

While you are waiting for others to post in response to your introductory thread, please take a look around. You likely will find some threads that have already been started on issues of interest to you. You will find that Alphabet (aka, ABGDEFG), for example, has recommended several books and workbooks that she believes will be especially helpful for BPD members who are unable to take DBT therapy (due either to finances or location). She gives links in several of her posts. Alphabet has been working hard in a DBT therapy group for several years.

Incidentally, if you want to see all of her posts -- or those of another member -- simply click on the name and then, at the member's profile page, select "Search Member's Posts." That brings up a full list with the most recent post shown first. Take care.

Thank you