Ramblings (Part 1 of ???)

So, as you can tell, I publish articles in my blog in no particular order.  I started this as therapy for myself and since my brain works on OVERLOAD all of the time, I pretty much publish whatever may be on my mind that day.  I usually have a few posts started at one time and write as the emotions of a topic flood over me.  I apologize if some of it is hard to understand or follow, but that is the way my brain is "wired".  So, some topics I have only touched the surface on and will re-visit later on and others I may not, it just depends on the "emotions" that I am trying to deal with.

I welcome any and all feedback, comments, suggestions for articles, etc.  Any suggestions you may have regarding problems I am having are also welcome.  Just please, don't tell me to GET OVER IT or IT"S ALL IN YOUR HEAD or ask me WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU or call me CRAZY!!!

I was once told by my so-called best friend at the time to just "Get over it" when I told her I had been raped.  She said she had too and to just frickin deal with it and get on with life!!  I had such an urge at that time to tell her to FUCK OFF, but I kept my mouth shut (keeping my mouth shut would NOT happen anymore, lol).  Even though maybe (I say maybe because different stories surfaced later and I believe that she was LYING to me) she had been raped, not one person's experience is EXACTLY the same as anothers.  It's just like with medications, some people may have side effects, some people may not, people may have different side effects and the positive effects of a drug may help one person more than another.  Just like when someone is raped, the rape is different for everyone.  It's more physical for others, it's more mental for some, the abuse is at a different level for everyone, sometimes it's a stranger, sometimes it's a friend....Everyone's story is different just like everyone's recovery time and process is different.  All we are asking is that people have some damn EMPATHY in this day and age of such hate and stigma!!!!

I once had a friend who I tried to talk to about my BPD and he wouldn't listen.  I asked him to read an article about what the Spoon Theory was (I attached a permanent link on the side to The Spoon Theory).  He stated that maybe he would and maybe he wouldn't.  I didn't bring anything up after that because little did he know at the time that he just TOTALLY INVALIDATED me. 

He made me feel like it was unimportant, that I WAS UNIMPORTANT!!!  It also made me want to crawl back into my shell and tell nobody else about what was wrong with me.  I felt used after that, like ME, my personal feelings and struggles were insignificant.  I found out later that he thought he was helping me by just trying to make me happy in the here and now.  That is all fine and dandy, the problem with that is all he was doing was glossing over my past, my problems and my identity  It again made me feel humiliated, embarrassed and stigmatized for my disorders.  Ultimately, it made me feel worthless (again!!).

I still feel that way.  I struggle with it everyday.  It's like a CONSTANT teeter totter of me fighting with myself.  Me telling myself that I am good, that I am smart, that I am beautiful, that I am worth the fight, that I am going to make it, that I am IMPORTANT!!  But all it takes is one wrong word, one wrong look, one wrong statement, or me doing something wrong for it to all crumble into a massive heap and again I feel worthless!!  One second, one word, one look, one gesture is all it takes.  That's Hypersensitivity at it's finest folks!!!!

It's kinda funny that it's March Madness time.  I love getting into brackets, I'm a very competitive person, lol.  Always have been.  I think part of it is me just trying to prove myself.  Bowling is a good example for me.  I started bowling in leagues when I was 11 years old.  Even in junior leagues I was very competitive and would get down on myself when I didn't bowl good or let my team down.  It didn't help that I remember my dad saying something to me once after I came home from an out of state junior tournament and I think I placed like 3rd and he made a comment about Why didn't you win?? 

Or a comment he made to me once about Where did I go wrong with you girls? (me and my sister). Or the last time I was home over the 4th of July weekend, I finally had the guts to stand up to my dad and tell him how I felt and how hard it had always been for me to come to him and talk to him and I couldn't even finish and he looked at me and then said What do you need a father for then?? and walked out.

All my life I tried to "prove" myself to my dad. I never felt like I measured up, whether it be in bowling or work or relationships or just plain life!!  I never felt like I fit in with my family. 

I'm the middle of 7 kids (5 brothers and 1 sister) and always felt like the black sheep of the family (still do).  I never felt like I fit in at school.  I don't remember a ton (I have a lot of short term memory problems, long term memory loss and possible amnesia), but I do remember being picked on, being bullied, always shy, feeling ugly, unpopular, etc.  I started smoking and drinking the summer after I graduated high school.  I started cutting around that same time.  And thus started my unhealthy "coping" techniques.  Little did I know at the time that "coping" is what I was doing or how much it would affect the rest of my life.

I'm going to end this post as I found out that my boyfriend's father passed away this morning and I am having a very hard time dealing with some of the issues surrounding it and I need to distract and disengage myself for awhile.  I hope you are surviving the best you can and always remember that you ARE NOT IN THIS ALONE!!!!