It’s been a while since I have written my thoughts on here. Of course I have written many other things. I have since finished therapy. I had in total 14 sessions. I didn’t find them very helpful. It was ironic in a way that I was there because I had stumbled into my doctor’s surgery one day to tell them I wanted to kill myself and it took so much inside to say what was at the root of that, my father, and yet, when I got to therapy, if I tried to mention my parents in anyway, my therapist would tell me that it doesn’t matter. It’s in the past. And while this is true, it is in the past. Most of the occurrences are years ago. They are still big to me. I have not got over them and the parts inside me struggle. 
Mt father is dying. He has cancer. He has had it a while and because he is older, it is taking a while. I do not imagine he will be here this time next year, maybe not in six months either. He is in the final stages now. I used to think I wouldn’t care if he died. Not because I hated him for what he had done, not because I had cut him off, but because I was sure that I wasn’t capable of loving anyone or anything. I don’t feel it inside for people, not until they leave. It was a terrible time when my children were growing up and I questioned continually my feelings for them. It feels like some part inside me doesn’t work.
My father at the moment was just awaiting tests to see if his cancer had spread even farther. He messaged me today to say that it hadn’t. I found myself disappointed with that and I have no idea why. It isn’t that I wish him anything bad. When he had a heart attack recently I found myself upset, but what I realised was that I wasn’t upset about him dying. I was upset that his chance to ever make things up to me was gone. The chance he would ever be my father was at risk.
I sometimes think that inside, I am a monster.
Author Archives: jdstockholm
Borderline Personality Disorder Book
So a couple of weeks ago I posted a blog post http://tinyurl.com/ms2q3x9 about a book I wish to write to help not just the BPD sufferer, but also the family, friend or just someone who cares as I feel there is nothing out there for the supporter and there should be. I am looking for people to help. Preferably people who have a diagnosis, but I will consider those who have the symptoms. Please note that I wont be able to use all of the material and so some of the things will be cut from the final version. This of course will be no reflection on the person who contributed. As a sufferer myself I know how we take things personal and I will do my utmost best to explain things as I go. Feel free to add yourself or simply message me. Thank you for reading.
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BPD – Help Wanted
Asking for help.
It isn’t a secret that I have borderline personality disorder (BPD). Anyone who reads my page often will see that it is something I suffer from. I find it is a much stigmatised illness too. So many think that sufferers are nasty and manipulative and that people with this illness should be avoided. I have even seen books advising family members to just carry on and that the BPD sufferer will get over it. It hurts inside to see those things.
On the contrary, many BPD sufferers are very kind and giving. They love nothing more than to make someone they care for happy. It is more of an imbalance of emotions that become very intense and the sufferer does not know how to deal with them. Simple things. I often liken episodes of someone cancelling a lunch date with me as having the same emotions as if they told me they are going to die tomorrow. That is how intense it feels inside. I feel helpless in a matter of seconds and I can’t control it. For me, this is where I take hold of my razor and cut into my skin just to get it out. 
My reason for blogging isn’t so much to write about my experience. There is a world of information on the web about BPD by sufferers. It is to talk about the silent sufferers – our friends, partners, wives and husbands, and so on. People who we care about deeply are the ones we lash out at the most. Afterwards, there is such guilt. I know for myself I can get so ashamed of my behaviour. I hurt someone who is very close to me often when I am upset. I make her feel helpless and she doesn’t know what to do to help me. It makes me very sad afterwards when I can think clearly and I have calmed, but it is too late. The marks are carved into my arms and she’s pointing at herself thinking they are her fault.
I have searched so many times, as has she, for something good that can help her to understand what it is I need in those moments, and there is nothing we have found yet. Not a word. All I can do after each episode is tell her what we should have done and maybe we can learn from it. Because of this, I want to write about my journey, but I want to write about hers too. I feel it is just as important. I know also that every BPD sufferer’s illness is different, so I am also asking for some help.
If you have BPD or are a supporter of someone with it, would you be interested in helping with this project? To get some real information out there as to what helps and what doesn’t. Tips and advice. Real stories from real people, not text books from someone who has never been on either end of the illness. You won’t have to have your name in the book if you don’t want to. It would be your choice, but as I write each little bit, I would be wishing for others to contribute what they can from their experience so that we, the BPD sufferers, can help those who support us.
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I Want to Show You Something
If you could zoom through space in the speed of light, what place would you go to right now?
I want to show you something. I want you to really see. I want you to understand. Not through your eyes, nor through mine, but through what I show you. I want you to look.
The room, it’s filled with shades of orange and yellow, warm sunlight filters through the curtain from the dusky autumn evening. The sunshine creeps in so much that the smell of the warmth permeates through the room. Evening motes dance idly across each ray that gets through, oblivious to what they are about to see. On the floor, leaning against the wooden box, just in front of a window, is a boy.
He’s sitting there, small and innocent. He’s almost silent, save for the small hiccups that make his body tremor from the crying he’s since pushed down. His tiny arms wrap around his legs, small hands and small fingers try to ease away the fear that’s inside. His head is down, he doesn’t want anyone to see him cry. He doesn’t want anyone to know that he is upset because he’s getting a new brother. He doesn’t want his mum and dad to be taken away. He’s five years old, his parents are his world.
He’s afraid.
Look at him. Look at his face, so small. Look how he bites his lip to keep it from quivering. He doesn’t blink to keep the tears in his young eyes. He’s trying so hard to make himself happy. His dad is happy, so he should be. His dad is happy; he’s going to have another son.
Watch the door. Watch it and see. Cruelty ascends from the darkness below. Hidden behind the face of an ordinary man. Covered in the mask of a love. He gets closer, the heavy footsteps approach, and his evil design in his mind.
Just watch.
Dark intent drips from him with every step. The walks over to the other side of the room first, he turns his back, but don’t look at the man. Look at the boy, look at his face as he swipes away his tears so the man doesn’t see. Did you see?
The man walks over to the boy, crouches down and enquires what’s wrong. He hasn’t been fooled, he sees the boy has been crying. The boy puts his head down, he doesn’t want to say. The man gives a loving sigh and smiles down at the boy. He reaches out and touches the boys hair, soothing him as he invites him to sit on his lap for reassuring comfort.
Maybe I could stop there. Leave it in a moment of care. I want to scream at the boy. I want him to put his arms down. Don’t fall for it. Don’t. Run away. I want to shout until my voice is hoarse and my breath is gone.
Do you see?
Does it not make your heart constrict?
The man had plans all along
Did he not care that it was wrong?
He lifts the boy, picks him up.
Turns him around, slams him down.
His hand over his mouth to stifle his screams
His clothes torn from him, to shatter his dreams.
Listen to the cries of stolen innocence. Listen to the screams as the man violates.
Listen to the sound. How can you stand it? The wail of agony. Pain so deep, it will stay forever. Listen to the sound of those falling tears, I can’t stand it. I cover my ears.
The boy is five
The man doesn’t stop
He doesn’t listen.
After, he stands victorious above the boy.
The boy, broken, bleeding and bewildered. Innocence never knew such evil.
I said I wanted to show you something. I want to show you the boy. Look at the child, curled in a ball. Look at him shaking. Look at his face. Look at his tears. Listen to the way he cries. Look at the way he tries to get up.
Watch as he looks at the man, not understanding.
Watch as the man leaves.
I wanted to show you a day, the say when the sunlight came through the window and evil came through the door. I wanted to show you when the man broke the boy and didn’t care anymore.
I wanted to show you the day a father killed his son, not the living and the breathing, but his soul that is within.
You dad, you are the man and I am the boy.
I wanted to show you.
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Twenty Minutes in My Head
Twenty minutes of the thoughts from my head.
I think that my father cannot bear to let me have anything in my life. It doesn’t matter if it is good or bad. He becomes like some petulant child jumping up and down, screaming what about me?
Well what about you?
It’ll take me a lot to write this and to not allow the anger that is bubbling inside to come out and pour onto this page. I feel the anger from it and him and his words and his … I don’t even know the word to use here right now. But I feel it. I want ti cut it out. Nothing would please me more than to go upstairs to my bathroom and take out the blade I have specifically for my self-harm. 
He did it again. Like always he comes in and lays waste to my already shaky foundations. He comes along and destroys what is there. It doesn’t matter how much building I do. How much protection I try to put between us, he knows how to shoot for my heart and he does it every time. He doesn’t miss.
I passed my first year of university not so long ago. I got a first too. I was very proud of myself. Of course my father felt he had to come along and claim his prize. Hold me up like some trophy and proclaim to everyone how hard it had been to bring me up. He bowed down graciously and received applaud for his efforts as a father.
I said nothing. It is terrible to say that I hope he has died by the time I graduate. The day I get my doctorate I don’t want him to be here. I don’t want him to take any credit. Even if it is fake. He had nothing to do with my education. I will have done it in spite of him.
He struck again a couple of days ago. Those who have me on facebook will know that there was a new addition to my family. A grandson. He is a little poorly at the moment. He was born early and his bowels were outside of his body, but he is recovering and coming along just great.
Naturally this meant that my attention was focused on my family and on this little guy and his recovery. My father thought or perhaps felt a little left out and along he came once more with his patheticness.
I had just come out of NICU when I received my father’s message. He wanted to know what he was to this baby. If he would have a part in his life. I want to ask him if he is joking. I know what he does with little boys. Does he really expect me to hand over something so innocent to him? He went on to tell me things about someone important in my life – things that I know are untrue. They still hurt to read, though. Not because I believed them, but because this is my father and this is how low he has to go to get my attention.
The closing part of his email was one of pleading. Asking me to end his pain, because apparently that is what I do. I cause him pain with how I am. He’s asked me to say goodbye to him. For him to be able to disown me. He won’t. I get this threat a lot, but it still hurts me every time I hear it. It still tears me apart to know that my father ever wants to hurt me. I don’t know why. I don’t know what I ever did other than be his child.
It all hurts inside and I am not sure how to get it out.
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Loud Noises
I keep seeing many posts around the social media that seems to me to be so narrow minded. Of course Robin Williams is still big in the news. I wish people would look at both sides.
I see people say that suicide is selfish. This is people who don’t understand. Imagine being hungry for a week, a month, or as with depression, years. Being so hungry that you would eat absolutely anything. The someone gave you a sandwich and put it in front of you, you could smell it, touch it, and you don’t even have to close your eyes to imagine how delicious it will taste and how much it’s going to take away the hunger pains. Your brain in the moment does not consider anything else but that sandwich. What if someone else wanted that sandwich? Are you going to tell the starving person that if they eat it, they are selfish for ending their pain?
I know that people say suicide is selfish and that the person committing it is not thinking of their loved ones, but isn’t it also selfish for those loved ones to want the suicidal person to stay? They want them to stay because of the hole that they would leave, so that they don’t feel grief, loss – a form of pain that is on the same unbearable level as the one wishing to leave this world? Isn’t that also selfish?
I am not condoning suicide here. Not at all, but don’t hate someone because they did it or attempted it. Don’t tell someone who is suicidal that it’s selfish, because it isn’t. Most suicidal people don’t actually want to die, what they want is the pain to stop. Not to end life. Not to cause more harm. Not to make others suffer, but to put an end to what feels so unbearable inside their minds.
I saw another post today also by someone with terminal cancer. Of course they ranted about how someone with everything, money, fame, family etc could wish away their lives and in Robin Williams case, take it. How could they do that when people like this cancer sufferer fought every day to live?
It’s a valid point. However, depression and any other mental health issue is a killer. Robin Williams didn’t kill himself, as nor did anyone else, their illness did. And if you don’t believe me, think back to the sandwich.
While I can never understand the fight and the fear and everything else that happens with some who is terminally ill, I do understand what it is like to want it to stop. I know what it is like to feel a pain so much in my mind that I have begged God or whoever to please not let me wake up again.
There was another status I saw after that too. Someone had posted that they would understand why he took his life he had been suffering a deadly debilitating illness and they were pleased that actually he might have been because he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, so they understood that. Why do they not understand that depression and everything like it is a deadly and debilitating illness?
Imagine the one thing in the world that drives you so insane that you can’t think. Fingernails down a chalk board. The sound of a knife and fork being brought back and forth over a ceramic plate. A loud shrilling siren. Sitting on a nine hour flight with a screaming baby. 
Imagine that sound and then imagine listening to it every minute of every day.
How would you switch off the pain in your ears?
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I Hate My Stupid Head
I hate my stupid head. Probably one of my most favourite says and one of those things a friend of mine hates to hear all the time, but it is true. I do. I hate it with a passion. The crazy stuff it conjures up, the way it makes me feel the times it argues with me and it always wins. Always. I am powerless against it. I fight it with logic and reason and it just comes back at with me with more and more until I am pulling at my hair, taking a knife to my skin and just begging it to please shut the hell up because I can’t take it anymore.
I am so glad at the moment everyone is talking about depression and suicide, although I know that in a month or so when the news of Robin Williams death has begun to be forgotten, so will the cause and soon we will be back to ignoring mental illness. I really hope it isn’t. 
A couple of weeks back I posted a blog on the time limit for mental health, because there is one. The medical professions fob you off with medication that only works for a little while, then your body gets used to it and you need more. Any therapy that is given has a limit. I find it so stupid. Twice this year I have come to the point of making an attempt on my own life. Twice the hospital have sent me home after fixing me up. Last year I had done the same. In my last therapy session my therapist asked me on a scale of one to ten, one being dangerous and ten being no danger, how do I rate my risk for another suicide attempt? I told him that I was a three. Which means it’s there. I want to do it. Sometimes it’s so overwhelming I plan it in my head, visualise what I am going to do, but I have something that stops me – my children and my family. What if one day that is not enough?
My therapist then showed me a chart about people like myself who think bad thoughts, self-harm and then feel bad because they self-harmed and it’s a cycle, which is true of course, he said what I need to do is step out of this cycle and draw on my compassionate self to self sooth. It feels somewhat like being told to think myself happy. I have tried explaining to him that some days I feel so weighed down and sad and alone and so desperate that the thought of feeling this way for another minute has me sitting in a corner and all I can do is cry and self-harm some more because I don’t want to feel this way anymore and no amount of happy thoughts can pull me from it.
I wish I had a physical illness instead. At least then I would get the help. I hope if anything comes out of the heart-breaking death of Robin Williams, it is that people start standing up on both sides of the fence. Those who are sick with this dreadful illness and any other medical condition no longer fear talking about it and those with the power to help, do so.
I hope that if you are reading this and you have these hours, weeks, days or even months of darkness when you can’t climb out of the hole, know that you are not alone.
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Time Limit on Mental Health Recovery
Why does mental health recovery have a time limit? It’s one of the things that bugs me the most. Many people put into therapy get 4-6 weeks of therapy and then they are cast out into the world again. Some people get 12 weeks if they are lucky, but that seems to be the maximum. Why is it that mental illness comes with such a limit?
Would we treat a cancer patient and say well you’ve got so many weeks of chemo, but after that you’re on your own? Or tell someone who is recovering from something like a stroke that they have 12 weeks to rehabilitate and then off they go to do it themselves? I don’t think so. Why is it okay with mental health? It’s just as debilitating as any other illness. The difference is, is that it can’t be seen.
The reason from my rant today comes from my own experience. When I had taken an over dose those few weeks ago and gone to my doctor after the hospital had discharged me and for the first time I said to someone that I think my thoughts are wrong. I need some help, did I get some and felt relieved.
I was assigned a therapist. I have had therapists before and for various reasons either I didn’t stick or my time was up. This time I tried to give everything I had. I tried to be honest about how I was feeling. I even showed him my many self-harm episodes across my skin. 
It was heart-breaking to hear at my last sessions that I only have three left. His manager said I could have 14 sessions. I’ve done 11 so far, because I needed so much, but that’s it for me. I feel let down again. I feel lost again. I keep hearing those words in my head and it makes me upset.
I am not a stupid person, but I am an ill person. I don’t understand how the doctors can say to someone who –
Who is suicidal and has tried many times before.
Who self-harms almost daily (although at the moment it’s been 8 days)
Who has flashbacks, sometimes so bad he has to leave the house.
Who suffers disassociation and often doesn’t know if he is a real person.
Who has BPD and breaks down and wants the world to end at something as simple as a cancelled lunch date.
Who suffers DDNOS and flits between different parts of himself at different ages because he is fragmented.
How can someone with so much to recover from be told they have 14 weeks and then they’re on their own again.
No wonder people don’t tend to get better. You can’t put a time limit on recovery from anything. That includes mental health.
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Silence
It’s been a while since I have posted here. Actually it’s been a while since I have posted anywhere. I find talking so hard to do, even if it is just a message here or there. I feel like I am bothering people mostly. I do love to hear from people, though. I love the messages I get, even when I don’t have the strength to answer, the support is never lost on me. 
I’m back in therapy. If you’ve read my last post here, you’ll see I tried to overdose. Of course I’ve since almost hospitalised myself recently with cutting my arms too. Therapy is like a huge big puddle that I am trying so badly not to drown in. Some days I wake up and wish there was a way I could just make everything stop.
It’s been ten weeks with my therapist. Ten weeks of feeling like he isn’t hearing me properly. The last appointment I had, though. He finally heard me. It felt that way anyway. I told him I felt like I had different personalities and there wasn’t a way to stop them coming out. I already know I am fragmented into parts, and I’ve never been able to get it across to him. This time he listened. It was like watching a light bulb go on above his head and I at least feel hopeful.
I guess there isn’t much to say. If you have read my books, maybe you would like to know that I have been posting the story beyond the books on Wattpad. It’s slow going because I am trying to give myself some time to write fiction. I love that the most and I think inside I just need a little make believe for a while, but I update it where I can. Read it here.
I’ll try not to be so long until I post again. Maybe then I will have found my voice once more.
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Bad Day. I’m Okay.
I took an overdose yesterday (I’m okay. I went to hospital). The day started badly, that weird feeling inside, where everything just feels wrong. I think that should have been my first warning sign. The fact that I sat on the train going to university, and I just wanted to get off right then, I should have realised how bad my own mind was. I wanted to curl up somewhere and just cry. Even the most self-absorbed woman in the circle of university friends noticed that there was something wrong with me; it must have been very evident for her to see it.
I sat outside in the rain and wind, I was so cold. I couldn’t console myself, I couldn’t find an ending to what I was feeling inside. I couldn’t breathe from it. It has been a while since I hurt that much inside, maybe a year since, I did the only thing that I could, I took the painkillers from my bag and stuffed them in my mouth. I got half way through them and suddenly saw the faces of those who I know would be heartbroken. It is one of the worst feelings I have ever had to experience, I wanted to put the last of those pills in my mouth, but I couldn’t, I kept seeing the pain I would leave behind. I wish it wasn’t there.
My father is dying, he won’t see out this year. I’m afraid he’s going to die and never say sorry. I’m afraid he’s never going to tell me why he did the things he did. I think I have just been waiting so long for him to say to me, I’m sorry, I love you, I didn’t mean any of those things. It wasn’t your fault. That’s the part I need. The fault part. I need him to say it. I need him to tell me nothing was because of me. He’s going to die and I will never get that kind of resolution.
My children and granddaughter are moving out soon. They have another baby on the way; they have to leave because there is just no room. They are excited, I am excited, but I am also very sad. My son has been with me for twenty years. He’s always been here, not just as my son, but as my friend. It’ll be strange with him not being around talking about the latest gaming thing. Of course I worry too. He has Asperger’s, I worry how he will cope in a place without me. But I have to let him try. For him, I won’t always be here. I’m just going to miss him and his little family. He asked me the other night if our relationship will change when he leaves, he doesn’t want it to. I hope it doesn’t.
I’m doing well at university, but everything feels out of control. So many essays and exams coming up. With everything going on in my life. I feel like I am trying to ski down a slope filled with obstacles and I am blindfolded and out of control. I need to find a way to stop, to say I am okay and I can do this. I need to get down that slope slowly, and take time to enjoy things on the way.
I need to find peace with myself. My illnesses are so out of control. I self-harm almost daily and my OCD has me tied in so many knots, I wish it would leave me alone. I have a big messy pile in front of me. It is me. Somehow I have to sort through it.
JD Stockholm. 