Bpd
I’m tired of all the guilt I feel from lashing out when I’m unwell. I don’t know how to make myself feel okay about it, I hurt the people around me and I lose myself even more. I don’t know at what point I can say I’m just unwell and it’s okay, because it’s not and what I do isn’t okay… but it’s not my fault, is it? I’m violent, impulsive, angry and manipulative. I’ve hurt everyone around me, it’s just a ticking time bomb. What makes me sad is that it’s not even me, I’m the kindest person I know. I stop to help someone cross the road, open a door, make people feel heard and seen and not alone. I look after people, I put strangers before myself. I put people before myself. But then something happens and I feel like I can’t trust someone, like they might betray me, or I just didn’t like the tone of their voice and I suddenly don’t know them anymore. I attack them and become an entire different person, the worst type you can imagine. Then I have to deal with the guilt when I’m back to me again and it feels like I just don’t know how much more I can handle and continue to do this. What happens when I lose someone? When they finally give up on me? I feel confused like I’m trapped inside my mind but my soul is far away, like there’s someone else who controls my mind, thoughts and feelings but they’re not giving me enough attention so I’m disoriented and constantly switching. I feel like I’ve abandoned myself because it feels impossible to just be good for myself. I feel so sad for the person I thought I was 😞
if anyone else feels this way, you’re not alone
@brokenflower1902
Hey, I can really feel the tension there:
- Normal you is kind, generous, and peaceful
- But when things flip and you turn into the other version of you that's distrustful and upset, you become angry, violent, impulsive, and you end up hurting people
When you're back to normal, you have to deal with the aftermath of the stuff that this other version of you did that you feel like you don't have control over. (It was "you" in one sense, but it was like a different person and "not you" in another sense.)
I can get how it's not something that you'd want to feel "okay" with, especially given how strongly the normal version of you seems to value non-harm to others and how guilty they feel. (Hurting people and possibly damaging relationships doesn't feel okay to you, even if you're able to understand what's happening.) So it's not as simple as "just have compassion for the impulsive side of you"; they're doing things that you have a problem with.
***
I wonder if it's possible to somehow balance both sides of that picture:
1) Care for the normal part - research BPD and find some ways of
managing the feelings and reining in the impulsive part's actions
(distress tolerance, emotion regulation, etc.) in order to reduce some
of the negative consequences. Helps the normal part of you by reducing
the causes of guilt and any anxiety around feeling like the impulsive
part is out of control and going to do destructive things that aren't
okay. (Will probably also increase the capacity for compassion/care for
the impulsive part if it doesn't feel like being kind to them amounts to
giving a stamp of approval to all of their actions.)
2) Care for the impulsive part - empathize with and care for the part of you that lashes out and feels really upset and does impulsive things (i.e. from their side, they're really upset and everything is really scary or infuriating--doesn't make their actions "okay" but it's certainly possible to understand why they feel upset).
yeh the "normal" part is no more you than the violent impulsive part - its just an acceptable part of yourself - i.e you accept that side of yourself (or maybe it was accepted/encouraged by your parents) and the other side of you is repressed until it bursts out aggressively
I mean, both sides are you - being the nicest person in the world and then a violent unpredictable person is no good at all - you can't be one or the other - you have to be a new version of yourself which is somewhere in the middle. This comes from self-acceptance. You're not an angel or a devil, just a human
@WhatNameidk
That's been my experience too that trying to push down something that I don't like tends to cause it to push back twice as hard. Things that I refuse to see have a way of forcing me to notice them and respect their existence.