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You, the target of verbal abuse, have one mission in your efforts to end verbal abuse: keep your emotions in check. Your verbal abuser subscribes to the opposite mission. Your abuser wants you to lose emotional control because when that happens, you've lost control of you. When you lose control of you, your abuser snatches control of the conversation and you.
Fat. Stupid. Ugly. Weak. Not good enough.
Self-hatred is a core feeling in many people suffering from eating disorders. Including me.
I've been having an internal war with myself today.
I'm too fat. I shouldn't eat. You don't deserve to eat. Don't be so weak...
My head hurt. My stomach hurt. Even my brain hurt. Eventually I give in, starving. Then...
You're a fat, disgusting pig.
When people realize they have a mental illness like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, one of the first feelings they have is fear. And there’s a lot to be afraid of. There are the treatment, doctors, symptoms, side effects and then there’s the illness itself. It’s completely reasonable to feel scared in that situation.
And in that moment, or possibly in a moment shortly thereafter, the fear of abandonment becomes a reality. A very reasonable and realistic fear is that people will abandon you because of the mental illness.
I'm easily irritated right now. I'm easily irritated by the noise, the dog drool, and the pissy cat. Yes, I have a mental illness or two, but I'm not irritated because I'm mentally ill. But I am irritated, okay? And again, not because I live with a mental illness!
I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), trauma disorders that are both: 1) responses to overwhelming stress, and 2) sources of continuing high stress. Cortisol is an adrenal hormone our bodies create to help us cope with extreme stress, physical and emotional. I began researching the signs and symptoms of cortisol imbalance when it occurred to me that living with DID and PTSD (or any chronically, very-high-stress condition or situation) would logically mean living with elevated levels of cortisol. And whaddyaknow? The top five symptoms are also the top five most frustrating, debilitating, and chronic issues in my life.
If you’re anything like me, and I hope for your sake and the sake of your children that you are not, you’ve wrestled with your mental illness secure in the certainty that society cared about you only to the extent that it fervently wished you would excuse yourself from the room and be scarce in the way voles are scarce; that is to say, demonstrate your respect for “nice” people by remaining invisible to them.
Frankly, there is something soothing about looking at the ladder which leads up and up to society’s golden promises only to realize that the first few rungs of yours have been sawed in half and you won’t even have a chance to fall off, much less climb. Soothing because, in life, it is comforting to know where one stands, or, as is the case here, doesn’t stand. If you aren’t shocked and surprised by every disrespectful snub and injustice, you cannot be disappointed and consequently, will harbor no resentment. (To put it differently, it is the illusion of a just world that causes heartache, not the sting of an unjust one.)
When deciding on ending a relationship, the first question we ask ourselves is: How do I know when enough is enough? Someone very special and beautiful asked me that question this week.
In our culture, we are faced with all kinds of messages about relationships: see the good in people, relationships take work, rise above, and don't have too many expectations. Then, don't put up with anyone's disrespect, take care of yourself, set limits, leave abuse. These messages convolute all our decisions on how to set boundaries in relationships or know when it is right for us to leave them. We don't know who to blame, us or them. Add to it worry and fear about being alone, or being abandoned, or about other people judging you, and it becomes a maze to wade through.
What is the authentic you? When people say you're not being real, they're telling you that you're inauthentic. Let me give you an example to clarify the concept of the "authentic you."
What's it like inside the depressed mind, you ask?
Sometimes, with depression, we just want to pull the covers up over our heads and wish away the pain. Sometimes we want help but don't know what help to ask for. Sometimes, we don't even know what we need. Sometimes, asking for help is the hardest thing to do.
I had to cope with nightmares last night, nightmares related to a traumatic event I went through. That's one of the downsides of borderline personality disorder--the nightmares can leave you shaken up for the entire day. But there's good news: there are ways to cope with nightmares and night terrors and not let them get to you. Three such ways are thought stopping, rewriting the nightmare, and understanding what the dream means.
Where do we go from here? Most of the family thinks just to let her hit bottom and then if she reaches out to help any we can. Some want to just keep paying her bills and just let her sit in the house with no responsibilities. Never been on medication and impossible to get to her when she refuses to talk to ANYONE.
Help.
On the day we agreed to videochat to make things less awkward IRL she woke up with a migraine so we rescheduled to the day after, I made sure to assure her that it was okay and to take her time. Later that day, in the late evening we had a nice chat but suddenly she stopped replying, even though nothing had happened. The day after I texted her good morning and said I hope she was feeling a little better. she wouldn't open my texts.
A couple days after I sent her a longer text saying that even though I had only known her for a short time I care a lot for her and would like to know how she are doing, telling her I'm there for her, assuring her I'm not going anywhere even though things might not be very easy. She wouldn't open it.
A week later I sent a text saying not to feel bad about not answering and that I will be there when she is able to answer again. It's been two weeks since this and she still hasn't opened my texts. She hasn't been active at all.
I don't know what else I can do. I assumed she might have fallen into a depression. I have tried to just not think about it anymore, and I haven't that much but when I do it sort of kills me inside...