Hi Gigi,

From what you have written, it seems like you have a lot of hurt and animosity towards yourself and the actions and decisions you have made in the past. The fact that you are writing here means that you are willing to make a change. It will be hard, not because of who you are, but because you need to accept the decisions you made. You outlined above the relationship issues you have had and I feel, like when I read it, that you don’t really love yourself. You seek others to day so, to support and love you because you don’t. If you don’t love yourself, if you are not the one who is singing your own praises then you really cannot expect someone else to do so. Don’t expect others to complete you, be surprised when they do.

In regards to losing friends and having people hate you. Well, feeling sorry for yourself, believing that nothing can be done, isn’t going to improve the situation. The first step towards healing is accepting and then apologizing. First apologize to yourself. Give yourself a big ass hug. Find comfort in yourself before others. Then consider apologizing to the ones you hurt or you feel you wronged. Whether they accept your apology is up to them, but you have taken the first step towards accepting the past. Now you can start to focus on the present. Spend too much time looking back, you won’t see what’s in front.

You mentioned that you have not given it your all. Well, start to now. You are limited and inhibited by yourself. No matter how much exercise, or how much you don’t drink, this can heal you, but it cannot solve the questions you have. Healing is great, it gives us energy to move forward, but until you have given it all, until you have accepted and looked inside yourself and smiled… the questions will remain. Nothing is stopping you. Dedicate yourself, from this point on just being better than the day before. Learn from your past to help enlighten your present, but don’t regret. What has happened has happened. You hear voices, but they aren’t others, their yours. When you hear such language, the reason it damages you is not necessarily because it’s true, its because you don’t believe in yourself enough to rebuke such accusations. Once you learn to love yourself, once you learn to accept the ‘real’ you, nothing will damage you. You will be bulletproof.

Gigi, life ain’t easy, living is hard work. Although you may wish, right now to be another person, in another place, time and space, this ain’t some fictional story, this is real. You are the hero of your own story… what type of hero do you want to be?

I hope this helps, if you have more to add please feel free to comment further!
Matty

Hi Gigi,

Eating right, exercising and refraining from drinking ~ they are all good in and of themselves, but it’s like you are Polishing Diamonds. Concentrating on the little things to somehow atone for all the bad things done by you and to you. You cry because you did good small things, but you feel like you don’t deserve to be proud of them or merit their effects. And that they’re paradoxically no big deal. Or that you’re acting as if you are perfect.

At least that’s how I feel when I concentrate on minutia. (Not that Wellness is minutia, but you know what I mean).

What you want and need is one big Do Over. Some people do this by accepting Jesus Christ. Others say, “NO! I DON’T accept that!” (concerning painful remarks and actions done to you in your past). You can also say, “I forgive myself for all the crappy things I did when I was twenty (or any age).” Then every day add on a year. This is very clearing and powerful.

You can literally wake up and say “LIFE DO OVER!” and start living, looking forward, and never back ~ today!

Hope that helps!

Inky

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Inky.

Gigi,

You wrote, ‘I guess that’s all I just needed to get that off my chest.’

The responses are evidence of the community’s care and understanding, and willingness to help.

Thank you for having the courage and vulnerability to write.

I trust you will find among the responses insights and suggestions that you can apply to make a difference, and see you already have.

Kind regards,

Gary

Dear Gigi:

If your symptoms fit the Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), then I understand how tough it is for you. I fit into the diagnosis thirty years before officially diagnosed in 2011.

You expressed that you are conflicted between feeling guilty about your past and feeling like a victim. I had that conflict and I started understanding what I was responsible for and what I was not responsible for only in 2014, my goodness, only two years ago.

I am willing to share all that I learned through my first good therapy onward, now over five years of healing. (I no longer fit into the BPD diagnosis while I am still healing from the core injuries that predated the combination of symptoms under BPD).

anita

Dear Gigi:

Thank you and hope you sleep well. Till your next post-

anita

Dear Gigi:

A few facts:

You were not born with a mental disorder, be it BPD or anything else. (Neither was I).

Most people are not mentally well. So you are normal (unfortunately). When you realize your participation in a dysfunctional relationship, it is only your participation. The friend/ boyfriend is responsible for their dysfunctional participation. When I was deeply troubled, I thought that one day I will heal and join the .. normal people. What a shock it was, that there was no Normal majority to join.

Diagnoses like BPD and hundreds of others, including all kinds of syndromes are artificially determined combination of symptoms. These are not based on root causes but of the artificial collection and organizing of the results (symptoms) of the root causes. This is why these diagnoses do not provide cures. They are simply ways of organizing information.

Black and white thinking is very common, as well as other distorted thinking such as emotional reasoning, inaccurate projection, fortune telling, etc. (detailed in Cognitive Behavioral Literature).

What is characteristic of the BPD diagnosis is instability. If a person manages to keep the same job and the same partner for years (no matter how miserable they are and what they do to cope with that misery) and to walk away when angry (even if it is to go to the corner and get heroine)- then these people are safe from the BPD diagnosis. But it doesn’t mean these people are normal.

The cause of dysfunction is what needs to be attended to when healing, and that is the hurt you experienced as a child, in relationship with your parents. That hurt is still there and it makes you scared and angry when triggered by this or that situation. Next you react to that fear and/ or anger by throwing angry fits, quitting a job, quitting a man, looking for a man, desperately looking for love and desperately running away from pain.

I don’t know if this is helpful to you, but we can correspond again and again until I am helpful.

anita