disconnected

[lonelyheartemma]

I don't know if this is a bpd thing. Everyone who doesn't know me tells me I haven't got bpd anyway. It's only people that know me who think I have and what would they know?

Anyway for years I've wanted to be stronger and tougher so my mum can't hurt me. At the moment I'm achieving that. She can say what she likes. It annoys and disgusts me but it doesn't hurt. It's like her and her words are at a distance. Too far away to hurt me.

But now everything seems at a distance. All people seem so far away. Even the people on this site. It's not your fault or anything you've done but it's like I can't feel the softer emotions anymore. I see that you are suffering. I want to make it so you don't suffer. But it's like I've lost touch with sympathy, at least with real people. I cry over just about every good book I read, every TV programme I watch.

I think I would rather be hurting every day than feel like this but I don't know how to go back.  

 

 

[addy2]

I can relate to this Emma I do the same, i think its because we try so hard to block all the hurt and make ourselves stronger that we block all connections and we push everyone away. It does change again unfortunately and all the hurt tends to come at once again, i can go for weeks and ignore things and then one day something happens and i fall apart. Hugs Emma xx

 

[lonelyheartemma]

Thank you Addy. I'm glad it's a 'normal' thing. I'm actually quite reassured to know I will be hurt again. I don't feel like me at the moment. But I do I feel grateful for your reply. I'm glad I can still feel gratitude a least!

I'm supposed to be going to talk to the council soon about getting more points for the housing list. Maybe it will be good to go when I feel like this. Then if they tell me my mum's doing nothing wrong and I have no reason to move out, it might not destroy me and I'll be able to keep fighting instead of giving up in despair.

I don't like the new tough Emma but I don't really like the soft Emma all that much either.

 

 

[Lapwing]

I haven't personally felt this myself, but that probably makes me the one who's not normal! I'm sorry you're having this going on though - I hope you can find a balance between the two 'Emmas'

[addy2]

I don't think its what I would call normal Emma but its common with bpd where its always the two extremes either feeling too much or not feeling anything. I can't remember the last time I wasn't one or the other xx

[Kara.]

my reply has just gone because of terrible net connection. ggrrrr!!!! 

Emma, maybe there is something to learn from the tough side and that you can use in your life. It seems that that side is protecting the soft Emma but soft Emma also needs to have a voice. Have you tried to have a dialogue with each part? And then maybe have them both speaking with each other... Soft emma is still there. She might just feel overwhelmed with the attacks that come from mother. The tough side may be protecting her from those attacks. It is a nice thing to do. But it shouldn't shut soft Emma. Maybe it can help soft Emma becoming a little stronger?

I am looking fw for you to leave home. Sorry my brutal honesty. You need to be with people that care, protect and respect you. 

Hugs.

[Carthraziel]

Hello Lonelyheartemma.

I can totally relate to what you are saying. I have experienced this phenomenon multiple times and in varying strengths. It is a blessing and a curse; it doesn't actually act as a block as one would wish for. While you are invulnerable every emotion that you should have felt during this time will catch up with you. I know because this has happened to me. On the most serious occasion my feelings were dulled for nearly a year and totally blank/muted for 3 months. I didn't feel anything about anything, I was 100% neautral about everything, I couldn't reach for feelings, I didn't even feel depressed, but I didn't feel joy or excitement or annoyance or anything at all about anything. It wasn't because I didn't care, there was just nothing there. No emotions what so ever to speak of. Then something changed (I don't remember what) and the emotions kind of came back but not in the right order and not at appropriate times. Suddenly I was hysterically angry about watching a train drive away (that I wasn't even late for, or meant to get on... just a random train at the station) Sobbing uncontrollabley at tiny things, feeling over the moon gleeful when my firend told me hie girl friend had died.... Yer....  Then it was all too many emtions of such intensity and all at the same time.

I understand where you are coming from and even though I have experienced this I don't think there is a way to 'trigger' the coming back of emotions, they kind of come back of their own accord. What I would like to say though is that because what you've described stems from trying not to let your mother hurt you, instead of ackowledging the hurt (but without acting on it) it is being pushed away, dismissed and repressed, and because your hurt is so much you have had to repress in equal amounts which is why your emotions are dulled and symparthy is nearly impossible for you.

The only thing I can think to offer you is this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-Borderline-Personality-Disorder-Dialectical/dp/1608825655/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427328958&sr=1-1&keywords=Mindfulness+for+Borderline+Personality+Disorder%3A+Relieve+Your+Suffering+Using+the+Core+Skill+of+Dialectical+Behavior+Therapy

It is a book called Mindfulness for BPD. It is very very helpful and has a section in it about how you accept and acknowledge things without letting them own you. I think this is what you want in order to be stronger.

Also it might help for you to spend some time with each of the two Emma's, lets say one is tough Emma and the other is Soft Emma. Now write a list of positive traits and negative traits that belong to each one. Imagine the two Emma's talking to each other, what would they have to say?
This is a good self therapy method you can use when you detect two or more conflicts within yourself, but the reason there is a conflict is because there is no communication only each one fighting to make their voice heard the loudest, but if you make yourself a mediator, and ask the two parties to talk to each other you can do a lot of self healing this way.

Also here is a big hug for you
*hug*

Keep going, you are strong.

[lonelyheartemma]

Thank you Addy, I meant normal as in a normal part of bpd, I kind of count that as normal. Some things like behaviours are less worrying when I can put them in a category like bpd. I so prefer thinking "I'm doing this because I have bpd" than "I'm doing this because my mum's right and I'm just not a very nice person." Bpd is an illness and it is possible to learn how to live with an illness. It might take all my life but I hope I can learn new things all the time. But how do you live with being a horrible person?

I have heard of having dialogues with parts of myself, Kara and Carthraziel. It feels very strange to me. I don't even talk to myself. But maybe I'll try it. I've read a lot about people talking to their inner child and that always seemed like something I couldn't do as I felt I had an outer child. But it was something I kept thinking about for months, turning over the idea in my mind and trying to imagine how it would be done, then suddenly a few months ago I randomly started talking to my younger self and forgiving her for things she did do wrong and telling her that other things weren't her fault. And it really did help. So maybe the dialogues with parts of myself will work for me as well.

I'm going to order the book- thank you for the recommendation. I've never found a book helpful before but I've never read a book that was recommended by someone with bpd. It was either a random book in the bookshop or something a therapist had recommended- and the therapist who recommended books has only met me twice.

[Kara.]

I was the same in relation to the dialogues. Now I find it very helpful. When you said that you put things into categories, that is similar to identifying internal aspects of you. You mentioned the tough Emma, the sof Emma, and now the critical parent that tells you that you're not good and that you are a horrible person. I have dialogues with that side of me as well. If you want to explore it more let me know and I will recommend a book :-) 

I have the book that Carthraziel recommended and I also like it. 

Good luck.

 

[lonelyheartemma]

Just wanted to say I got the book. I haven't read it all the way through but when I feel bad I look through it and find a bit that's relevant and I read it and it makes me feel better. Unlike most books I've read it doesn't make assumptions about me. Like the book the mh place recommended assumed I had a job, a partner, children, childcare and friends and a lot of the stuff they talked about wasn't relevant because I didn't have it/had never done it and that made me feel more like a freak than ever. This book says things I actually identify with and talks about things I really feel.