A memory to get me through the winter

I’ve heard that depression can change your brain. I wonder if Borderline Personality Disorder does too? I read this article at NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) that says studies have shown that the grey matter functioning in BPD patients is impaired in an emotion regulation circuit (I can vouch for the fact that mine is faulty!). Since I’m a believer that our upbringing  causes this disorder, then I have to assume  that the trauma we under went caused changes. Either that or we were born with this shortcoming which in turn caused our caregivers to be so totally annoyed with us that we ended up with BPD. I have to give that theory some weight because I was surely more intense and high-strung than anyone else in my family. My problems go back farther than my memory does so I have no way of really trying to analyze that. Not that it makes any difference in the fact that this is something we have to live with but maybe it gives me a sense of legitimacy. Maybe I can let go of some of the shame of having such an untreatable, horrible disorder that even the mental health community looked at me with disdain.

While I’m at it I’ll mention another article just to show that untreatable myth is slowly changing. Age is supposedly on my side too. I wouldn’t really know since for the most part I live the life of a recluse. It’s not Borderline problems that cause me to isolate, it’s my complete loss of confidence in myself. I can tell you that is a hard thing to get back. When I was in my twenties and bouncing from one problem to another, I still tried. It took a huge toll, having to project the image that I was okay and had things under control (when I clearly didn’t). I used to be so much gutsier than I am now. I am not flighty like I was when I was young, I am more stable in some ways. As far as emotion regulation? I spent over two years in DBT (Dialectical behavioral therapy) supposedly learning how to regulate my emotions, and I still have no clue how to actually do that. What sends me off the deep end?  Well, the DSM-IV-TR puts it this way “Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.”, I say rejection (or perceived rejection) pure and simple. Some times it’s real, many times I believe it’s only in my head. I don’t frantically try to avoid it, as I did in my youth, I avoid getting close enough to risk feeling that way in the first place. Not a great solution but it does keep me stable and out of the hospital and even non-suicidal.  That makes it worth it to me because I hate it with a passion when I get that traumatized, out of control, awful feeling.

I believe the day will come, if we don’t manage to destroy ourselves first, when they not only will know which areas in the brain cause or contribute to certain mental illnesses, but that they will know how to treat them much like they treated my brain tumor. In fact, I’d volunteer now to have those faulty areas rewired or removed!

My Chipin adventure ended October 1st. How did I do? I have $35 towards my furnace goal of $5000. lol… It seems that 99% of my readership is coming from people with brain tumors. I’d say it’s not surprising they have other things on their mind than my furnace problems. They clearly aren’t the blogging types either because they hardly ever leave comments.

So my informal review of Chipin is that it could be pretty darn cool and generate you some income if you actually have a blog people read. Yeah, I know, that was totally obvious.

For those of you who contributed, I offer a heartfelt thank you! As for the furnace. I could be in trouble here but I will do what the furnace guy did in April when he came for the third time last winter, set fan to always on and set the furnace to emergency heat. Guess that’ll run the electric bill up but I have no choice. If natural gas goes up the 40% I’ve seen predicted, I’m in trouble anyway. I’m already bundled up trying to be warm and I don’t think it’s below 60 degrees. I may try a solution I saw on CNN, although for that to work I think I need to be foreclosed on first which could take months. Then I can save my mortgage payment money and by my calculations I can then afford a furnace in 12 months! Awesome :p

Just so you know your money isn’t being squandered, it’s going to sit there in the furnace fund until I actually get one. That could be a while but I’m not touching it!