An Unnatural Fear Of Abandonment

Your perspective on life comes from the cage you were held captive in.  ~  Shannon L. Alder

I have a counsellor to help me with my nastier character defects, and recently she explored with me the possibility that I may be suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder which is a serious mental health problem.  The evidence my counsellor quotes is that;

• I have a great fear that the people I care for will abandon me and hurt me.
• I suffer from very intense emotions, and mood swings.
• I am an all or nothing, black and white person.
• I do not have a strong sense of self, (and I have no idea what that means).
• I find it extremely hard to make and keep stable relationships.
• I act impulsively and some of the things I do are dangerous.
• I am the original ‘angry man’.
• I have ‘attempted suicide’ as a cry for help.
• I often refuse medical treatment.
• I sometimes abuse alcohol.

As you would expect, I’ve thought about this very carefully, and decided that my counsellor was talking bull droppings. Accordingly, I found some online self-test questionnaires from sites like; Borderline Personality Disorder Demystified, Counseling-Office.com, Psyche Central, PsyCom, and the UK National Health Service

Every single time I honestly and openly took one of these tests the answer was that I ‘most likely’ have a Borderline Personality Disorder.  (Most of the time my scores were off the red end of the scale…)  I would rather not have my whole life affected by something that happened years and years ago, when I was a child.  Sometimes I act insane, and honestly, I’d rather not.

In order to recover from this ‘illness’ or whatever Borderline Personality Disorder is, I have some serious work to do.

It seems that I should be reporting to my family doctor, for onward referral to psychotherapy, and treatments like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Schema-focused Therapy, and Systems Training for Emotional Predictability and Problem Solving (STEPPS).

There are also a lot of drugs the doctors can prescribe for BPD; antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilisers, sleeping tablets, tranquilisers…  My guess is that none of these drugs will work much to actually treat a Borderline Personality Disorder.

None of that official medical treatment is going to happen any time soon.  This is my problem, in my own mind, and I am determined to solve it myself.  Self-help is a very powerful thing.  Even though I am my own worst enemy ~ the real me will win out in the end.

I’m so good at beginnings, but in the end I always seem to destroy everything, including myself.  ~  Kiera Van Gelder

Self-help may not be the whole answer, but I will keep you posted of my progress.  The Truth Is In My Own Mind.

~

jackcollier7@talktalk.net