@Former-Member @outlander @MDT
Thanks for relating your experiences to me. Just knowing that other people experience the same frustrations makes it somewhat easier.
I understand what you guys are saying about gried and trauma and these things affecting us in ways that we may not even be aware of or more ways than I might think. I have been told this before and on a rational/intellectual level I understand this myself but I still find it hard to accept because the frustration is just .... well, so damn frustrating. For lack of a better word haha. I just don't want it to be affecting so much?? And how do I know what I'm feeling or experiencing is an affect of that or just an emotion in response to something that is happened?? It's so annoyingly confusing.... I am trying to be more patient with myself because I know that my impatience and annoyance toward myself only exacerbates things and makes the negative feelings worse and in turn my view of myself worse but it's really difficult.
As you said @outlander this is one of the reasons I have thought about BPD as a diagnosis. I have read quite a bit on it and I relate to it in a lot of ways in terms of feeling unable to regulate my emotions/having extreme reactions to things and the fear of being left out/forgotten or just abandoned entirely. I can trace these beleifs back to my childhood and I 'understand' why I feel them but I don't know how to change my beliefs and the way I respond to things?? I know a lot of the time it isn't healthy and those beliefs drive a lot of behaviours and feelings in ways I am not even aware of at the time.
For example, something I became aware that I do a lot of recently is lying. Not necessarily big 'bad' lies or lies that will hurt others but just little white lies, often. The reason behind the lies though I have come to notice is so to try and avoid anyone seeing me in any sort of negative light and therefor eliminating any chance of them being mad at me and subsequently having a reason to walk away/leave. I don't know if this makes sense?? I will give a simple example:
A friend may ask to catch up and I don't feel up to it for whatever reason (maybe I am tired/having a bad day whatever) but instead of just saying 'no not today, I'm a bit tired and need some rest' I might say something like 'sorry I have to work, I would if I could'. Now, there is no reason for me to say this but in my head I feel like I need an 'excuse' to say no so that they don't think I've made the choice not to see them so they can't be angry because if they got angry then maybe they might leave me. But then me lying makes me feel guilty for not being honest and then it starts the whole spiral of 'I'm a bad person why do they like me anyway, they're going to figure this out at some point I may as well distance myself from them before they can' etc etc. Why am I giving this example?? Because it is often little things like this that I do without even thinking that can sway my emotions/feelings subconciously. If that makes any sense??
Sorry, I know I've gone on a bit of a tangent and I don't even know if any of this makes sense/relates to each other... I guess what I'm saying is, how do I be more aware of where my feelings are coming from and why I do/think certain things and how do I go about changing them?? It all seems so overwhelming because its so ingrained. I've only recently even started to be aware of certain beleifs and behaviours....
Please tell me if this makes sense, I know if waffled on a bit......
Thanks again guys, for just hearing me.
