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Depressed But Functional
Borderline, seems like I'm going to lose my mind....... It's hard to be your authentic self when you've spent years being someone you're not just to cover up the glitches in your brain. I'm sitting at the computer, staring at the monitor and feeling my fingers flying across the keyboard. I'm rambling. I always ramble internally. It's as if I'm in fear of someone looking over my shoulder and reading this. But I know my husband and children are sleeping. But I speed up anyway as if it would be easier that I'm unloading everything I'm feeling to complete strangers. After two hours of writing this stuff on Word and trying to edit it to make it have some rational form I start feeling dark again. I'm now worrying that I've said too much. So I start hitting the delete button trying to clean it up before someone recognizes me and knows that I'm a basket case.
You have to understand that this is my internal talk. This is that monster that keeps me trapped. How to be me without any discovery of my craziness. I know that once I leave this computer I will put on the act of a lifetime. It has gotten me perks you know. I'm part of several women's clubs in town and I'm always invited to various parties at various social clubs. I've made many friends as well. However, they don't know the real secrets I hide from them. But they all know about my dad. In some ways its therapy to see them laughing at my stories about him. I never could.
Thanks to mom I rarely found few things funny unless it was sarcastic and dark humored--albeit South Park and The Simpsons.
That's a subject for another day.....
I was the Unsinkable Molly Brown. Nothing could waver me. But hey as long as I wasn't arrested for drug possession or became a prostitute, she considered me a sure fire winner. The odds were always on my side she assumed. Seeing me go crazy would do her more damage than seeing her son nuts. My brother was the oldest, and I was the baby. He got the worst of all of it so she rather expected him to go crazy. As for me, I mostly watched as my father maniacally destroyed whatever was left of our souls. I didn’t get the worst of it until my brother ran away from home and right into the military. I was stuck there in that house experiencing everything that he did. Anyway she didn’t think I was the most damaged because in her mind I only watched violence and when I was old enough she got out of the marriage before any real damage was done. Somehow she figured that watching my father beating them wasn’t as bad as experiencing it. That’s how she felt. Now I know that she was on vacation from reality. Only someone on vacation would think that watching abuse was better than being abused. I put them in the same category. But I stopped arguing with mom on that subject because I had bigger fish to fry. I hated that she always pegged me as the strong one.
That’s the important thing.
I guess I felt that I didn't have a choice after sixteen years (my parents divorced) of not only witnessing domestic violence by my father but experiencing it first hand for myself. She always asked me for advice. I don't mean as an adult either. She didn't mind leaning on me even if I was eight, nine, or ten. I was the advice giver which had been my role until she remarried and forgot that I had that role.
This life I was raised in was enough for me to go crazy back then. But I believed that stuff you know? I believed that I was the one who had risen above my abusive childhood and could now look back on it and laugh. I think that's where my problems began. I could tell funny stories about my father and have the entire room in stitches. If I was a comedian I could make money off my uncanny ability to take these bad situations and make them humorous. It felt good to laugh about how crazy my father was (the time he went totally nuts about a can of Chicken Rice soup) or (when he threw a tantrum because I wore my eyeglasses while I ate dinner). And although I laughed at these things, on the inside I was depressed and quite bitter. See I never told everything. I only selected the situations that didn't involve him behaving violently towards us. The violent parts of him I separated in one file in my brain and the funny crazy ways he had I put into another. The great part was that people believed that my life wasn't so bad since I was able to tell them what they thought were all the juicy details.
Mom never could look at the overall picture. She has witnessed my brother fall off the deep end-depressed, drinking, drugs, and one failed relationship after another so of course she felt a little guilty that she hadn't done a thing to keep him from danger. On the other hand she viewed me as level headed, focused, and strong. So if I said to her, "I just feel depressed mom," she'd say, "you know you were always the strong one." I guess I thought I was strong until those cracks in my veneer started showing. But I've managed to patch those cracks with humor. That's all I had-that's all I have.
I learned to hide and suppress everything that hurt me. It became my suit of armor that shielded me from losing my mind. It kept me from committing suicide and living recklessly.
I had been seeing this therapist who used to sit across from me in stunned silence as I went through every facet of my life and put everything into comedic form. Sometimes he laughed at me (I could see the corners of his mouth turned upwards and his bottom lip trembling. Sometimes he would cough to disguise laughing. And every time he said to me, "How is it you're able to do this?" Maybe he didn't understand how I could be so depressed and angry although from what I said and was doing he couldn't read that.
So I said to him, "It's my way of dealing."
I just wanted to talk to him. Have a real truthful talk with the him. I always waited for him to check me and say, "Look enough of the jokes already. Tell me how you really feel. Tell me what's really going on." He wouldn't do that. I think my entertainment value was worthwhile for him. It broke up the boring days he had to listen to the other patients. But I only had an hour which meant I could bs the entire hour away. I wasn't getting anything off my chest except for those comedy routines (cymbals anyone)? And all the while I just wanted to talk to him about my childhood. Just talk. After a while he was just sitting back, sipping coffee and waiting to hear the next funny story. Each time I delivered. I don't know I guess I grew tired of entertaining him and everyone who knew me. Sadly my husband also thought that my childhood was more entertaining than traumatic well that was until I just sat him down and told him the real version. My therapy sessions were supposed to make me feel better but instead it just made me more depressed. After my therapy sessions my doctor always said this, "Well we could try you on some meds that would help with your depression." Operative word was always "try." He didn't know what the was wrong with me. I also believe that he didn't care just as long as I came back with another new episode of "How my dad Dan punched the ATM machine because he didn't know how to use it or How my dad Dan got mad at mom because her sister came over unannounced."
I needed a new therapist and fast. One who would listen to me talk and check me when he saw that I was making everything into a big fucking joke.
But I don't blame the first doctor I had. I blamed myself. I mean I set the stage for coveting the truth so I could only expect that he didn't know exactly why I was sitting in his office chewing the fat for an hour. So now I have a different therapist. Instead of saying that I was depressed he said that I had borderline personality disorder. I didn't know what it is and never heard of anything like it. But he said all of my symptoms closely match these:
Miscellaneous attributes of people with BPD:
People with BPD are often bright, witty, funny, life of the party.
They may have problems with object constancy. When a person leaves (even temporarily), they may have a problem recreating or remembering feelings of love that were present between themselves and the other. Often, BPD patients want to keep something belonging to the loved one around during separations.
They frequently have difficulty tolerating aloneness, even for short periods of time.
Their lives may be a chaotic landscape of job losses, interrupted educational pursuits, broken engagements, hospitalizations.
Many have a background of childhood physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or physical/emotional neglect.......
_______________________________________________________
Okay some of these were true and some were completely false but I believed him nevertheless. I had dropped out of two colleges. I had constantly have a few of being alone. When my husband goes out of town for business meetings I often grabbed his shirts to smell or looked at his pictures. I was always a wreck when I was alone. I was always a wreck and couldn't stay focused to finish anything unless I put myself on four schedules and made threats to myself if I didn't finish.
I guess has a defense mechanism and mine is pushing depression and anger to the back of my mind. Sometimes I even put it under lock and key with barbed wire around it and sirens just in case it tries to escape.
I just don't have the time to be depressed!
It's amazing that I'm still able to consider myself functional after many years of being depressed. I'm still able to play with kids, listen to my husband's endless complaints, go to work, tidy up my small three bedroom home and care for the dog. That's saying a lot for someone who's falling apart. Most times I wonder if I can hold it together next year. I don't know how I've been able to do this without drinking, Prosac, or shock treatment is a wonder. On the inside I'm depressed and angry. On the outside I choose to present this life of the party persona, good nature and good humor to everyone around me. Although I've been pretty good at hiding just how bad I've felt over the years, I've had my share of breaks with normal.
In 2002 I spent nine months of my pregnancy only going to the doctor, eating, sleeping, using the bathroom, and the rest of the time lying in bed, and staring up at my bedroom ceiling. I really had to do some self talk just to keep it together. Every waking thought I had was how I was going to end my life. My husband didn't know how to pull me out of this, although he suggested that we go to the zoo, circus, and anything fun and could take my mind off how utterly useless I felt. Mostly he acted as if wasn't supposed to have a break down. It was as if me taking a break from acting normal was a problem for him. I didn't care. I thought that it would shake him up for a change. I was tired. And I'm not just saying that because at the time it was the tenth time he had forgotten to pick up our daughter soccer practice on Saturday mornings. Nor am I upset that my youngest daughter had to be picked up from afternoon kindergarten at three every day of week but he always seemed to forget to pick her up. Nor am I saying that I hated him because it stayed a disaster because he never pitches in to help me no matter how late I come home from work and cleaned. I never hated him because I was the only one who remembers all the dates and times for the kids whether its fucking doctors appointments, school projects, or some other activity added to our already busy schedules. I hated him because my home life, the pregnancy and everything surrounding it was making me feel like I was drowning.
There were times when I had the occasional emotional outbursts that came along with dealing with stressful situations (family problems, work problems, relationship troubles).
I've also made a couple of attempts at killing myself over the thirty years of my life. They were all half- xxxxx attempts.
For some reason I was able to wrangle it back in before all the craziness came flying out at one time.
For the most part I've been able to bounce back from all of these meltdowns with a little humor and maybe an entire truckload of stubbornness.
I think the craziest part of all of this is that these days I won't allow myself to stay depressed for longer than a few weeks. I'm still holding on to the belief that I'm doing this for the sake of those who either depend on my stability. Even saying that I won't allow myself is nuts because it's as if trying to stop something you can't control. I've self talked myself out of it so many times. The crazy part is that what really keeps it at bay is the knowledge that I can always A. Crack up or B. Commit suicide. I've entertained both options at different points of my thirty year old life. So why haven't I done either? I don't have time to do any of those options (that's where the stubbornness enters). I'm so bothered at the idea that I would get to take a permanent vacation (killing myself) or a not so permanent vacation (entering a mental hospital). I couldn't live with my family suffering because of my choices. The enemy and the one I believe started this psychological damage was dying.
My mother told me last week that my father was in the hospice and that I should go see him. She said he had throat cancer and it was in its final stages. I decided to go. I have to admit that some small part of me wanted to watch him die.
That was how bitter I was. When I went to see him I felt absolutely no grief-no pity. I was too angry to experience any of those emotions. He was a bad reminder of the past. I watched him feeling my hatred towards him building.
I approached his bed cautiously as if he was still the boogey man that scared me to death in my childhood. He was nothing more than a week a quite emaciated man. He was propped up by two white pillows and his large expressive blue eyes were vacant and staring upwards at nothing but the cracked paint on the ceiling (it somewhat reminded me of how I stared at the ceiling in the throws of my depression). He wore a white and light blue checked hospital gown that he tugged and pulled with his hands bent like bird claws. He was covered at the midsection by a white sheet and thin blue blanket. His skin was ashen and sprinkled with tiny freckles. His face was skeletal causing his cheekbones to collapse inwards.
I looked down at the drool dripping down the corner of his mouth which was twisted. My mouth was dry but I managed to utter a hoarse, "It's your daughter Camille." He didn't turn his head to look at me but I knew he knew that I was there because he returned a few grunts.
His vacant blue eyes continued to stare blankly at the ceiling, and his hands were curled on his chest.
I heard him mutter, "You are not my daughter."
It didn't move me in the way I thought this comment would. Instead it was confirmation that he wouldn't change even if he was in his final moments of life.
I stood only a few feet away from his bed watching him as he grimaced and stiffened his feet. He reached started moving them in chaotic sweeping motions underneath his bedding. He opened and closed his mouth as if a fish then made little gasping sounds as he flailed his thin arms around his head. Slowly almost like a toy he wound herself down and became still again. He stopped breathing seconds later.
I stood there for a few minutes more just to make sure he was dead.
I'll never forget it. Yet despite all of what he had done to our family I forced myself not to hate him. I decided to forgive him.
I didn't need the burden of my hatred towards him hanging over me. I had enough problems.
My thinking was crazy. It was as if I was keeping this big wild tiger and dark cloud in my mind at bay just so that I could continue to believe I was living a normal life.
I'm so afraid that at some point I won't be able to control my depression anymore and that I will be forced to take medication. At some point I knew I was going to need it but the thought of taking that medication is even more depressing for me as well.
Pretending is depressing too. So I guess I'm locked in a tug of war with trying to keep up appearances. Recently I read a blog on another site (I will not mention who or what site presented this case) that Borderline Personality Disorder wasn’t a real mental illness. The thing that I can’t understand is who sits back and rates which disorders are real. Mental illness isn’t some elite club that we BDP folks are trying to get into. I don’t think anyone with this disorder is plotting to bring down the establishment of people with these other maybe even more serious mental illnesses. No I don’t hear other voices (as long as you don’t include my own inner voices) no I don’t have delusions of grandeur (although slightly arrogant), and I don’t have in homicidal, sociopath or psychotic tendencies (but I have thought about . I haven’t counted the squares on my bathroom floor, nor have I banged my head on my bedroom door repeatedly. So if you’re rating our behaviors on any of those tendencies…well it would seem like we’re just faking all this because we’re big spoiled babies who can’t control our tempers, have separation anxiety, can’t finish anything we start, and are reckless.
I believe that the reason this is said is that most people with this disorder don’t know they have it. And if you don’t know you have it you just go on in life knowing something is wrong with you but have no way of explaining it to that friendly psychologist who’s staring at you as if you’re a cretin designed to waste his time. The irritation that I’ve read on most of these blogs is that the people who have this disorder can maintain rationality on some level and that most times their behavior goes unnoticed. I shouldn’t say unnoticed but I will say that the behavior seems like the behavior of any normal person with problems. |
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May, 2012
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