Wake up

I thought that I only had a month left of DBT but I've worked it out that it's actually more like three... I don't know why it made me so upset, it's all going quite well at the minute, but that's part of the problem in a way. It's so focused on reducing self-harming and other impulsive behaviours and because I haven't SI'ed in over three months, or done any other impulsive stuff even longer, I get a lot of 'praise' and it just makes me feel so uncomfortable. I don't want to be congratuated on it, I don't feel like it's a real acheivement...

I've been there since January '10 and it's just a really, really long time, and at times I've hated it so much, I still think that it made certain things a lot worse at times, and I thought I only had a few weeks left and now I've realised it's more like a few months and I just feel a bit deflated, like I've gout everything out of it I'm going to get, I have itchy feet that just want to walk on somewhere else. I truly believe that I'm well on the way to 'recovery' of BPD; I'm a million miles away from where I've been in the past. I don't self-harm, I don't self-medicate with drugs or drink, I have good impulse control, my moods are relatively stable, hardly any suicidal ideation and even the relationship side of things is improving - I still sometimes think people are going to leave me, or that they hate me, or that I don't deserve friendship, or that I have to be drunk to be around people - but they really are rare occasions these days, and I'm getting better at rationalising them when they do happen.

I guess the probelm is that I just find it hard to relate to people in the group now that I am no longer in the same place. It's hard to relate to people talking about getting arrested or sectioned for jumping in front of a train.

Is there such a thing as a recovered Borderline? I am really, really striving to become one.

I think the main issues I have left are anxiety/panic attacks and the blatant trauma related stuff like nightmares and dissociation and flashbacks, and I'm going to rape counselling and trying really hard to start talking - even though I'm still really struggling to get that going, going there seemed like the first step but it really isn't. If I took those things out of the equation I'd say that life was going quite well, although they are obviously effecting my day to day life, I try hard to not just give in to it though. I have a panic attack on the bus, I get back on the bus the next day, even if I get off again. I can't really do anymore than that.

I'm determinded to get back to university in October and for that to happen I know that I need to keep going to counselling and working through the past, or atleast it's impact on the present, and I'm also seriously consdering some kind of anxiety management group if there is anything like that on offer, I'm not sure how much more therapy I would be offered though, to be honest, I mean DBT has been an intense programme and maybe they think that's all I need. Who knows? I just want to move on and for a long time I assumed that taking time out to go over the past wasn't the way to achieve that, but I've done the opposite and ignored it and that hasn't got me very far.

Then there's the ED;

I don't really know why but for the last couple of months I've been reading through all my old ED related forum threads and journal entries. I feel so ashamed of myself, of the person I was back then, incoherent and Hell bent on my disorder. I didn't care about anything or anyone else and that still makes me feel so guilty. I feel guilty for hurting people, for letting them down, for making them worry...

Things are so different for me now, I feel older, more responsible, more mature, more articulate, less attracted to life in the skinny lane. I'm not sick and yet, I'm still so very far away from being 'normal', I'm very overweight and so I need to lose that extra weight to be healthy, and I'm trying so fucking hard to do that in a healthy way, to not beat myself up about eating something I shouldn't, taking it one day at a time.

A part of me is wondering why I have this attitude towards weight loss, why I'm not just throwing myself into a strict restriction and exercise plan to shift the stones as quickly as possible.

The change in my mindset is actually quite scary at times. The ED thoughts that used to be so 'normal' to be, day in day out, now feel completely alien on the occasions that they're there. All I want is to be healthy, to look healthy, feel healthy, have a body I can dress and style and feel okay about, and I want food to just be something that doesn't hold any power over me, that doesn't seem like a comfort. I want to eat to live.

I'll be 24 in a couple of months which means it will be just over 10 years since I first got sick. I can't go back and live my teenage years in the way they should have been lived, but I'm determinded to make the most of the rest of my twenties.