Intense Emotions

[Flying Hippo]

I know it's bizarre, and somewhat pathetic, but I can't cope with my emotions. I start off feeling numb and somewhat disassociated, and it goes on and on and it feels like I'm swimming through porridge, and then KABOOM all these emotions pour out onto my and I can't cope and I feel suicidal just to stop feeling that way.

My Mum got fed up of it, me calling the crisis line and crying my eyes out, and says everyone has difficult emotions but everyone copes. I can't explain why mine are so bad, or what causes them or why I can't cope and I Feel really lost and pathetic.

I'm diagnosed with Borderline PD and I wonder if that might explain some of it? I don't know?

I guess what I'm asking is does anyone else have difficulty coping with emotions? Does anyone else feel there's are terribly intense?

A year ago when I was in hospital I would do semi suicidal things to try and cope with it, and now I don't do stupid dangerous things it gets even worse, I'm trying to stop self harm and suicidal self harm type stuff and they've put me on different meds and still I can't deal with these feelings and I can't explain myself or justify them.

[whatever]

seems to me that it would have a lot to do with it (although i guess you could see it as a sort of circular explanation). from here:
http://www.palace.net/~llama/psych/bpd.html

Jerold Kriesman and Hal Straus refer to BPD as "emotional hemophilia; [a borderline] lacks the clotting mechanism needed to moderate his spurts of feeling. Stimulate a passion, and the borderline emotionally bleeds to death."

and

Linehan theorizes that borderlines are born with an innate biological tendency to react more intensely to lower levels of stress than others and to take longer to recover. They peak "higher" emotionally on less provocation and take longer coming down. In addition, they were raised in environments in which their beliefs about themselves and their environment were continually devalued and invalidated. These factors combine to create adults who are uncertain of the truth of their own feelings and who are confronted by three basic dialectics they have failed to master (and thus rush frantically from pole to pole of):

* vulnerability vs invalidation
* active passivity (tendency to be passive when confronted with a problem and actively seek a rescuer) vs apparent competence (appearing to be capable when in reality internally things are falling apart)
* unremitting crises vs inhibited grief.

it sounds like your Mum is being pretty invalidating of your emotions, at least at the moment.

[Licentia Poetica]

Sounds like your mum doesn't understand that intensity of your illness.

Yes, you are totally not alone in having intense emotions that you don't know how to cope with.

Keep in mind that you don't have to do something to change how you feel - the emotions will pass of their own accord whether your hurt yourself or not. So sit tight and wait them out.

The biggest rule that I've found is to remind yourself that emotions, no matter how bad the intensity, cannot hurt you unless you let them. I know they feel horrible though

Another idea is to distract yourself. Just keep on doing other things - watching dvd's or meditating, or you know just about anything that takes your mind off it. There's a huge list of coping strageties here. If what you need to do is call hotlines and cry, then so be it. If it means you don't hurt yourself, that's a good thing to do. Your mum is wrong.

And if you want to know a bit more about BPD, there was a good post on it just a little while ago here.

[disastercake]

maybe you could find a T or a relative or friend to try to help you talk to your mom, and help her understand

[Flying Hippo]

Thank you so much, your replies have really helped. I will try and reply with something more substantial later, but as it's taking me a while, I just wanted to pop in and say I have read your replies and found them really helpful. Thank you so much.

[LyricalLockup]

Your mom need to realize that this is a part of who you are.

BUT the way I see it , is that you have two choices;

1- You can take a stand in your life and get a therapist to help sort your personal emotions

or 2- You can let yourself drown in your confusion and sorrow of your mom not understanding you and let your emotions control your life to the point of possibly losing it.

Now I know that I dont know you, But I know for a fact that YOU HAVE IT IN YOU TO BE STRONG AND TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!!

Find other outlets that dont make those urges go to a point of suicidal thoughts.

Hope That I was of some Help

Stay Strong [%]

[searching_for_solace]

I'm working on a page online that lists what I like to call the fairy God mother spells for dealing with intense emotions. lol. It's not really magical at all, it just involves a few things as distractions and such.

I'll post it when it's finished.

But it's things like when I am afraid I repeat the word Palabra 15 times, count to thirty, then take a deep breath in and out for 5 seconds and I feel better.

For hate It's a bit more complicated, but when I feel i'm angry, or feeling hate, or hating myself, I mentally count all the enterences and exits to the building i'm currently in, repeat the first word that comes to mind once for every door in the building, imagining all the feelings going out of the building. Find the nearest thign, braid it (like your hair?) then find the largest red thing in the room, and imagine all the feelings going in there.

It helps me.