Dear Gaia:

“What I need is to hear is that I’m not in danger and that the best is yet to come“-

– I don’t think that you are in danger of death (that your extreme feelings will literally kill you).

I don’t remember if I shared this with you before, but at your age I was already deep into the suffering documented under Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). I suffered greatly from (Wikipedia): “A core characteristic of BPD is affective instability.. unusual intense emotional responses to  environmental triggers…cannot regulate (emotions).. especially prone to dysphoria (“a profound state of unease or dissatisfaction.. depression, and/or feelings of mental and emotional distress.. extreme emotions, destructiveness.. feeling fragmented or lacking identity.. have difficulty knowing what they value, believe, prefer, and enjoy.. unsure about their long-term goals for relationships and jobs”, and more.

All the suffering you described, I suffered no less than you, throughout my 20s, 30s and 40s. The condition didn’t get better with age. Or with psychiatric drugs (17 years of that). It didn’t get better because I left one country and moved  to another.. no matter what, I didn’t get better.

Finally, I attended my first quality, two year long psychotherapy (2011-2013) with the professional who diagnosed me with BPD, and based his therapy on this very diagnosis, combining Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (Specialized for BPD) and Mindfulness. Following the ending of therapy (I moved out of California where I had the therapy), I was still unwell, but I continued with my healing efforts daily, from 2013 and on, successfully withdrawing from all psychiatric drugs in Oct 2013. My participation here on this website May 2015- today, every day, for hours per day, is part of my ongoing healing process.

At this point, and for some time, I no longer fit the Borderline Personality Disorder category. My emotions are no longer extreme, I return to baseline (a state of not being distressed) relatively quickly after feeling distress. I no longer see people as either good or bad (called “splitting”). My anger is way down, and my anxiety has significantly improved. My very personal experience of life no longer includes the suffering of a lifetime.

– so when you tell me that you need me to tell you that you are “not in danger and that the best is yet to  come”, if you are referring to your emotional state, I cannot tell you that you are not in danger of remaining emotionally unwell for the rest of your life. I cannot tell you that you will spontaneously  get better with age, or that if you move away from your home, if you get into a relationship with a man, then you’ll get better- because none of these things made a difference for me (beyond a few weeks or a couple of months of feeling better).

What I can tell you is that if you work very hard, every day, being motivated to get better, doing what it takes to get better, persisting through the continuing suffering, then over a few years, you will get significantly better.

Over the many months with you, I did everything possible for you, in the context of your threads, as a fellow member to pass  on to you everything that I learned, to get you to notice this and that, and to encourage you to seek quality psychotherapy.

What I experienced with you is that at times you express progress, but then .. it is gone and you are back to where you were before I gave you my input, as if I didn’t give you anything. For example, you liked and agreed with the magnifying glass factor that I suggested to you, but before I knew it, it was gone from your posts, and no reference to  it made again, no indication that you integrated that factor into your thinking. Most recently, we discussed assertiveness, you wrote that you were looking forward to tell me about your practice of assertiveness.. and no more reference to it.

For me, it is like driving with you on the freeway, wanting to go  straight to a better place, but you insist on getting off the freeway and getting lost in one-way streets, going in circles and getting nowhere. This is a frustrating experience for me.

Back to my question: how can I help you?

I think that the way I helped you was simply by paying attention to you, reading your words, writing back to you, so you felt better at times, but I didn’t help you otherwise. I didn’t help you at all beyond you feeling better at times, for a little while, here and there. You didn’t express a desire to seek psychotherapy because of my  communication with you. And I believe that without serious, quality psychotherapy, you cannot heal.

Maybe if I don’t communicate with you anymore, maybe then, you will want psychotherapy.

You can, if you want, copy all of our communication into a Word document, so that you have it as your own (in case the website closes), there is a lot in it- all that I had to give you. If you do seek psychotherapy, you can use our communication in therapy.

I am now closing our communication. I ask you to not reply further to me. You are welcome to continue your thread, or start another- if it helps you to vent, please do. I  hope that other members reply to you. I will not.

Goodbye, Gaia. I hope you seek quality psychotherapy and get to experience a better and better life!

anita