My deal (first post's a triggering one--beware)

[catspiracy]

Hello, I'm new here. I'm a 38 y.o. housewife/mom/artist. I am bipolar/borderline. I'm an abuse survivor. I used to cut all the time as an adolescent, and burned myself and attempted suicide, too. Now I have improved to the point where pain hurts and I usually avoid it. (Funny, just when I think I'm starting to really truly transcend my past and my compulsions, my 14 y.o. stepdaughter started cutting. what do we fight about? her wearing tank tops that show the scars...) I've completely sworn off suicide, but am seized by ideations complete with these vivid dreamstates where I feel like I'm actually doing it in various ways. Then comes a panic attack, and I use breathing techniques and try to go outside into my pretty garden, my "chapel".

Pain hurts, I say, except when it comes to blemish-picking. For this problem, avoiding razor aisles at the store won't help me because my weapons are attached to my hands. I trim my nails short, but the constant stroking of the bumpy texture is enough to abrade my face. I do this when lost in thought (oftentimes, since I'm an artist and I spend a lot of time dreaming up creations and sketching them); when drinking; and in my sleep. My fingers also find my husband's "back-ne" in my sleep--obviously, waking up to that is a source of marital problems.

I love my life, I have wonderful friends, my in-laws are great, I love my husband and my kids and my house and art career and pets and garden! I am evolving spiritually at this moment in time. It's causing a rift between my husband and I because he is resistant and is also currently suffering from severe depression. Somehow I am suddenly the sane one of the two of us. This is a circumstance that always drives me bonkers: RESPONSIBILITY. I panic. We've been bickering a lot lately and I just don't understand it, I'm usually agreeing with him but he can't hear me. We just returned from a magical time of re-connection at Burning Man, but my husband is already grumpy, snarly, totally glued to the computer/video game, and outraged by the ordinary arguing between mom and 14 y.o. stepdaughter. He pressed my abandonment button yesterday by decreeing that he "hates being in the house with (me)". The next contact we had, he was trying to hug and kiss me and sex me up. I held still like a deer in the headlights, terrified of which reaction I could choose: fake that all was well and drive myself into a new psychotic acting out episode PHONINESS is another of my triggers, calmly tell him I was still upset and receive a shove and a stomp out of the room from him ABANDONMENT, or sit like a deer in the headlights and have him ask "whats wrong" over and over again DISSOCIATE. I chose the last. And last night I couldn't sleep, and S.I. my face again, leaning into the mirror hating myself.

So far, what helps the most is meditation, marijuana, b vitamins and fish oil, going to parties, volunteering at my 9 y.o.'s school, completing an artwork, and exercising outside of the house. Having to appear in public scares me into restraining my picking about 75% of the time. Sometimes I'll pick my scalp so that the hair covers up my evil deeds. But when I slip, at least twice a month, I go into a deep depression and feel much self loathing and it's hard to go outside, forcing a vicious cycle. It's especially frustrating if I went to bed feeling like a conqueror because I refrained from picking that new blemish cropping up, but waking up a failure and ashamed to go in public again.

I am trying to remember that I am a being of white light, and act accordingly. I believe it's true that I have work to do in contributing to Peace, and self-destruction wastes that energy--worse, subverts it into a force of darkness. So I try very hard to meditate on my highest self. I know that I can do this for myself. The stress in my marriage is pushing my ABANDONMENT button really hard which makes me kind of want to just leap into crazy bullshit acting out. The strain of refraining wears me out. I refrain almost all the time nowadays, so I must be doing something right, but I don't feel happy or fulfilled because I fear my marriage is on the rocks and that makes the great black emptiness swallow me up.

My affirmation: Today I am going to clear my chi by emptying and cleaning the trailer we took to Burning Man. Each speck of playa dust I encounter will remind me of the blessed time I spent there and the love that I lived there. Today I will step into peace and make myself the best I can be, whether he mirrors me or not.

Well, that's it for now. I welcome your comments and advice. I hope that us pickers belong here, too.

Sincerely,
catspiracy

[Spidey]

welcome to bus have a welcome - it's tradition!

i don't have any advice, but i did want to welcome you

[catspiracy]

Thanks.


Sooooo, today. Yesterday I was really sick. I woke up sick unto death, with body aches and everything. I tried to get along, made some art, kept getting up and sitting down again. Finally, I had a ray of light: a full moon ceremony with friends. I attended but felt embarrassed the whole time because I felt like a sick person among the healthy. At the end of the ceremony, I felt suffused with positivity. This morning, I felt like the day held limitless possibilities.

However, I didn't rise up to them.

Today, I mostly stayed on the computer. I didn't create much. However, I did reach out to real life friends online. Unfortunately, I called in to my fave radio therapy show and felt shot down.

I view diagnosis as a healing tool. However, many people view it as self-victimization or labeling. I see the list of symptoms as a checklist of "things to improve". It helps me get a grip to have a label wrapped around that amorphous sensation of unwell-ness.

So calling myself borderline personality feels like a tool to me, not like a prison sentence. but my radio hostess cut me off and disconnected me.

I feel rejected. I feel alone because my friends are in denial about my state of mind. They keep telling me "oh, you're not moody", or "you dwell on the past too much." They dont realize that I am so moody I can hardly bear it, and that I really dont think all that much about the past, i just am cognizant of its causal impact.

I feel so alone and mis-understood.

Luckily, there is another friend gathering tonight and I dont have to drive. wish me luck on my evening of escapism.

Love,
Catspiracy