Finding love for myself has been one of the hardest journeys I have ever knowingly taken. I know healing may or may not take the rest of my life. I no longer cling to hope that I will accomplish unconditional self-love. But I try to engage with the healing process in any way that I can. The small moments of joy and calm are worth the effort. The real task is loving myself when I feel I have failed, messed up or am overwhelmed by emotion.
My mind is often a raging sea of negative thoughts. My journey trying to heal, trying to love myself started when a friend pointed out that some of my mental health issues might be due to trauma. At first I didn't even want to entertain the thought. It took me a while to start accepting it, and I don't think I really accepted it until I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and ADHD around the same time. (Sept-Dec 2021)
I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer(BC) (E+,HER"+) (Sept 2021). I completely broke into pieces and had a meltdown in the oncologists office. Life had just started getting good, after years of dealing with my endometriosis(EMS). But the last month before my BC diagnosis I had felt like something was off. I couldn't put my finger on it but I wanted to stop the treatment. And then I found the lump. I felt guilty. I felt like it was my fault for doing such a risky treatment for my EMS. My mind went to a very, very dark place.
My breast cancer nurse softly guided me to the mental health team. I don't really remember what happened that day. The staff knew me but I couldn't place them. The room wouldn't stop spinning. My head fuzzy. I honestly don't remember if it was this same day that I saw the psychiatrist. Or whether they gave me another appointment. But I do remember walking into that appointment with said psychiatrist thinking I was going to a therapy session with a counsellor. The psychiatrist had made up their mind pretty quickly about a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder(BPD). I was crushed. This felt like the worst possible outcome. I didn't even realise I was being assessed.
I didn't want to accept it. I still don't. Accepting this part of me is so very difficult. But necessary to heal. The more I reject it. The more I mess up.
The official DSM-V definition of BPD is: "Borderline personality disorder is a pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity.....
Borderline Personality Disorder
Diagnostic Criteria
A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and
affects, and marked impulsivity, beginning by early adulthood and present in a
variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. (Note: Do not include
suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.)
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by
alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of
self.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g.,
spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). (Note: Do not
include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.)
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior.
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic
dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more
than a few days).
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness.
8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays
of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.
Diagnostic Features
The essential feature of borderline personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of instability." DSM-V, American Psychiatric Association (2022) ( downloaded from DSM-5 TR [English])
I want to argue with this diagnosis. I want it to not be true, but every time I read through those symptoms, I recognise myself. I recognise myself in every one of those diagnostic criteria. As I read them, events and memories flood my mind, bringing with them feelings of shame and guilt. Guilt for having existed and made such a mess of it.
So why choose to stay, to go through cancer and chemo when I had spent most of my twenties not giving two ships whether I lived or died. Engaging in behaviours that I see now were so very harmful to my self respect and confidence. It would have been easier to give up.
Was it survival mode? I have spent so much of my life in survival. I often wonder if this was all that drove me through that awful time. I think many of us who are young and facing a life threatening diagnosis would fight for more life. It seems so unfair, that some get such a short time here in this thing we call life. It felt unfair after everything I had gone through with my endometriosis.
Without my Macmillan nurse I think life may have gone very differently. This is true for many people including my friends who nursed me in my darkest moments, and the nurses who helped me see value in my life. I am eternally grateful to all of the people who helped me to get through cancer. I don't know how I repay you for a life. Other than to live it to the fullest while I am here. I still struggle to want to live sometimes. But every day I get to spend here on this earth is a gift. And I am grateful for each one, even the dark days that fill me with dread. My life might not look like everyone else's. And that's ok. I feel like I'm making progress just by learning to like myself.
In the last few years I have engaged in therapy several times and started accepting myself as I am.
Knowing myself, truly, even the dark corners and dusty ceilings, has been a rollercoaster of a ride. I still don't think I really know anything. But maybe I know more than before.
Love Mx
Books that have helped me to start loving myself-
"Take your own advice" Jeffrey Marsh - Especially the chapter about self forgiveness and allowing yourself to mess up without the spiral of guilt afterwards. We're all human after all. And we all make mistakes.
"Letting Magic in" Maia Toll - This reminded me that there's other ways to heal than the standard medical format. I have always had an interest in alternative healing and have enjoyed reading books on Magick and Zen Buddhism.
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