Emotions

Emotions are great, aren't they? Feeling happy when happy things happen, feeling sad when sad things happen. Loving people, loving things, enjoyment, anger. Emotions are normal. They are healthy and there is nothing wrong with having them.

I wish someone would have told that to me a long time ago. I was raised with the belief that emotions are things to be kept in, at least the "bad" ones like sadness. Emotions are weaknesses and expressing them is the same as letting your guard down. Once I was to the age where I could understand basic concepts, that was when crying in distress was unacceptable. I was a big girl. I was my brother's big sister and I had to set a good example.

I cried in front of someone in January for the first time in over ten years. I'm not even 20, so that's more than half my life of not crying in front of anyone. Even when I cried on my own I hated myself. I was being weak. It was ridiculous. And then since I hated myself, I cried MORE. Usually the only way I could make myself stop was by self harming or crying myself to sleep. I didn't have any real coping methods because I wasn't supposed to need them.

Now about these emotions: it's not just, I couldn't stop crying because my animal died. That's completely reasonable. It was more like, I couldn't stop crying because someone told me I was wrong about something like what day it was. I'm not just saying I did this as a little kid, either. I still do that to this day. Recently I freaked out completely because I responded to a math problem someone had on Facebook, and a girl made a snide comment (which after I calmed down realized was completely wrong). I completely broke down crying and just fell to the floor and started texting my friends and my therapist. I felt like I was going to die from humiliation or something.

Most of my problems are with extreme sadness like that. But recently (like within the past month), I've started to become extremely angry. I throw things, punch walls, punch myself, punch the air, punch all kinds of things. Then I get mad that it's happening and hate myself even more. I've slammed my head against walls, pounded on my legs until they were sore whether I moved them or not, and have cut at least once somewhere on all of my limbs, and a ton on my stomach. I cut when I'm sad too.

In writing this I realize my reactions are all very similar. Freaking out is freaking out and irrational is irrational. There's no real difference in it because of causes or which emotion it is.

While these emotions explode out of control, nice ones like happiness and enjoyment are completely absent, or don't last more than in the moment. I guess that makes up the depression part of Borderline Personality Disorder. It even sounds pretty Bipolar as well.

I can't explain why this happens. I'm not qualified to and I haven't been told. But in a previous post I wrote things that can help in the moments that these things happen, and I hope that can help.

Problem Solving

Psychotherapy. What the heck is that? I don't even know. I've looked it up and it's complex and has all these big words and terms and phrases and just way too much information to comprehend. I found myself having to look up every term and then looking up the terms to describe that term.

So since I'm not formally trained to be a therapist or anything, I'll skip the bullshit and just talk about what I've been told. Even now I can't remember everything.

I'll go in the order of which things have been introduced to me:

1. Meditation. The first day of therapy I was told to meditate. I thought, what? I don't do that stuff and I don't even really take it seriously. I'm not Buddhist and I don't like sitting still. Even to this day I still can't get a hold of it and my therapist is getting upset with me. It's a habit you have to make for yourself. She told me to start out by just sitting down in a room on my own. Turn off the lights if you have to to help yourself focus. Close your eyes. For the first few times you do it, just count down from 100. Do that a few times and once you can connect a calm feeling to meditation, then go to a higher number, like 150. Eventually, when you are comfortable with meditation, start listening to guided meditations on youtube. There are a TON and they're all different, so you have to spend some time to find that type that's right for you.
2. Taking a Breath. This is the simplest one. As soon as you feel strong feelings coming on, no matter what they are, stop and take a deep breath. Just one could change the situation completely. It gives you a short break in your thinking.
3. Processing. This something you actually do during an appointment with a therapist. Mine gives me buzzy things to hold that sort of ground me and make me focus better on my thoughts. She asks me questions and gives me a minute or so to think (or process) about it. I'll tell her all my thoughts having to do with that, and she'll come up with another question. The questions are all about your personal experiences that have bothered you and affected you deeply. With this, you have to be open to speaking about these things to your therapist.
4. Five Senses. If meditation isn't working well for you (like me), there's something else you can do! Make a list (actually write this down) of the five senses. Taste, touch, smell, sight, sound. Next to each of those things, write your favorite things. Mine is,
1. Taste: Shrimp
2. Touch: My cat
3. Smell: Vanilla lotion
4. Sight: Artwork
5. Sound: Rain

          Now that you have your list, try to compile these things together, or at least as much as you
          can. This is for when your mind is racing for whatever reason, and you want/need to calm
          down. Start at the top of the list, and give it three minutes. If that sense doesn't help you, move
          on to the next. Speeding through them won't help you.

Now, I know how hard it can be to even think rationally when you're having a "crisis", let alone think of these things. I can't even say myself that any of these I use habitually (except for Processing), but it takes time to learn things. And it's even more difficult when you're crying and screaming and in a fit of rage and hitting everything in sight (along with yourself) and hating everything about you and your life.

I'll post new things that are introduced to me as I continue therapy.

Helpful Links, Numbers, and Addresses (Even Books!)

PHONE NUMBERS:

1-800-273-8255 (1-800-273-TALK)  

• Suicide Prevention Hotline (Helped me personally, and they can refer you to more local numbers if you need immediate help that is not so urgent for 911).

1-800-448-3000 

• The Boys Town National Hotline (I have not personally called this number but it has been given to me.)

LINKS:

Suicide - Read This First 

• Reading this always calms me down.

ADDRESSES:

Email Jo 

• The Samaritans are non profit, you can email and they ALWAYS respond within a day. Talk about whatever you want with them.

BOOKS:

Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen 

• I do not suggest watching the movie, Whoopi Goldberg made me feel horrible about myself.