Still there, still trying to breastfeed

A month and 10 days has passed. The prospect of returning home is dangled before me. But it's not to be taken as any indication I think, the whole 2 feeds a day has been proved to be no criteria at all. She's still there. The more accurate picture is that she needs to be feeding all feeds by bottle or breast, sleeping and settling after, waking for the next feed, every day, for a long time (unspecified number of days) with weight increasing, and her age needs to reach over 37 weeks, and also they have to be happy about my support network and my mental state. That's actually the criteria. There will surely be ad hoc additions there when we reach those targets as well, true to form.

Starting to think retreat, hide and keep my head down is the way to go.

Ways to but a spanner in the breastfeeding works is all over the place. Iain doesn't help me with night feeds any more, and I haven't pumped overnight in over a week. I fall asleep after a long day, specially with Jaan dragging bedtime along. I don't hear the alarm. He was helping for the first few weeks, but he's retreated now to his own routine, and I guess he has every right to. He keeps telling me he will wake me and like a fool I believe him and don't find a way to wake up without his assistance. Sounds incredibly selfish to hold him responsible to my ability to wake up. I don't mean it that way, let's be clear, I only hold him responsible for trying to wake me when he says he will, whether I get up or not is my responsibility. I am failing in that 100%

Am being told, by lots of people that I'm doing a great job etc. Nice of them.

In a wonderful dreamworld, my life and Theia's needs are met by me and my friends and family because we are all engaged in a small way with her timings and feeds, and keeping company with each other anyway, and the sideways interest is in me and her achieving what's best for her, and me. Steel Magnolias style (cynical smile).

What do I do? The baby next to Theia is going into care on monday. 8 weeks. She has a wonderful mother, who is achieving the impossible in being such an awesome mum. Her past, her childhood, sounds abominable to me. The things she had to put up with, the things done to her - she has made it through, and her daughter is so loved, so cared for, all by her. The past and her mental state is being held up as 'maybe you'll hurt her' and so it's game over, and I don't see how anyone can do this. She didn't do the abuse, she was abused. I have always been assured by the mental health people that no one believes that makes the victim become an abuser any more, but that's the assumption here. They take a history of self harm to indicate she might use the baby as a method of self harm, but that doesn't even make sense, that's not self harm. Besides, she's mastered the self harm. It's been 4 years SH free.

The implications for my own situation are stark, pretty harsh too. Further indications to hide, but not in a visible way, not physical retreat. Fastest way might be to hide behind the feeding bottles. Get shot of the audience.

hate myself. really hate myself. because it can't be Theia's fault this is happening, it's my useless body, my crap life that has put us here. Ask anyone, it won't be anything Saint Iain has done.

Icing on the cake? My parents putting plenty of energy into lecturing me and telling me to get rid of the dog. MY dog. My dad lecturing me on what a shit parent I am because Jaan doesn't get enough sleep.

Yeah, hate myself.

New skills, translating to a new world?

Since I last blogged there have been deep dark BPD dips, which have not been pleasant. However I have been reading about it all less, and putting into practice the skills, tools, what-have-yous that I have been collecting over the past year. Without a guide, a therapist, a group, a focus like that it is hard to decipher what is happening to me when an episode or downcycle begins, but I do seem to know I need to tread with care once the jitters begin. The drill is now:
Jitters begin or I don't feel right, don't feel right ..
I tell Iain, he reminds me to take a panda (Lorazepam) or offers me a panda.
Crucially my new experiment is to expect no more of him past the panda. If he's not around and I remember I get my own panda. this is all quite revolutionary, this stage of the drill.
I wait it out, choose a few activities out of those lined up, a few chores, a few food items to try and eat. I back off from everything else.

I believe that in time this drill will evolve to something more complex. This way I have managed to minimise a lot of damage. The sh has been minimal or absent and outbursts have been drastically curtailed, or largely impotent implosions, best slept off.

This is, of course an improvement.

I'm pretty sure it was not a catalyst, rather a time when I got some practice in, but Nani's death feels like a line drawn under a previous time. Partly some areas of my personality, my heart, my life have shut down and are still shut since her death, and the deaths, it seems, of many people who knew me as a little one. Mostly my feelings and grief are private, even inarticulate sometimes.

The only things I am being procative with really are work and budget-keeping. I've been temping solidly since Nani died. Next booking is a month long, maybe a permanent job at the end if I do it well. I don't get to see my friends much which is sad for me, but money worries and self worth are tough things to deal with and they are big triggers. I'm working hard at making ends meet too, but I don't know if I am managing as well as I think. More time will tell. I've had to abandon WeightWatchers as I wasn't losing weight any more and I was relying on a lot of ready made/processed food and Coke Zero ... my tummy is chaotic still. I need many many bacterias I think ...

So my aims are:

stick with the same skills for a month, and work. Pay bills. The house should exchange soon. Maybe that will help ... Skip the soda, and stay off the lactose - a month is a good long time to not have lactose :) Cook the quinoa breakfast, laksa and onigiri recipes, they sounded good. Iain thought risotto balls and quinoa balls sounded good too.

When it comes to Jaan he's been coping better than expected since I have been at work so much. Jenny the babysitter and Michelle the childminder are lined up. Next month is the trial month for Michelle and us, while I'm working at Bidwells. Planning on each day at school too, each morning. It's a big grown up stage for him. Meanwhile I think we have a kids theatre show - Norwich, then Steiner then Bury every weekend whoooo.

Time with Iain might be in the pipeline too, courtesy of Jenny, but at least I know he's getting cinema time with Cathy on Wednesdays or whenever, and getting a few outings in himself.

Downcycle

Groggy and devoid of hope in this downspin. Escape, the need to hide is a compulsion. Food is a disaster as meat is disgusting to me now and I know how hard it is to make veggies work with the insulin resistance.

nothing is right. extremes seem increasingly definite.

Tracking cycles #BPD

I reckon bad feelings and triggers have been causing implosions for days now. Seems my friends' company makes me feel good, capable, accepted, and I get on with stuff.

Meanwhile the people I loved, but can't right now feel anything positive for just fill me with rage, irritation and pain as they ignore/shun/disregard/disobey me (seems like on purpose, they maliciously want me to fall off the precipice).

The emotional paIn is sharp and goes through deep inside me, horizontal lines - heart, chest, middle.

BPDSurvivor has been keeping it real of late. She fills me with concern as well as admiration. I wonder if my response is a BPD Thing or if my dearest ones see me and my successes plus failures responses the same way

Trying to survive bpd

Tracking a BPD episode: first attempt

Borderline Personality Disorder gets ugly. For me there is the furious outbursts, attacks towards others and spiteful behaviour on the outside, deep soul destroying anguish and pain on the inside, and a desperate helpless sadness for myself, others, the world, all women etc etc take your pick. The flip of the dark deep pain is the over-exuberance, the babbling on and on, the inane chatter. I hate myself most at that phase. It is the least controlled, least attractive face I have. By this I mean I think it s even worse than uncontrollable crying, outrageous personal comments, being mean or cruel because I feel so awful and my more violent outbursts. Babble face makes me sick of myself, really sick and hateful.

So cheery.

I've been managing to achieve a bunch of stuff. I'm working at weekends, I have appointments lined up to see the cv advice and interview advice guy at the job centre, Iain is prepared to help me make sense of our possessions, I've been seeing my mates and will be seeing 2 more at long last again soon. Jaan is doing well at school.

There's normally fall out for me after all this good work and I feel it now. Sadness, deep sadness and a bit of mid level self loathing, a sense of disgust, also a certainty that one thing bad will come soon to trump any good.


I am keen to be sad in private (blog aside) rather than rail and analyse analyse analyse every element to pieces. Am wondering if that change will help. The cycle will take place regardless I suppose. Why have a lousy ride?

At the Borderline Frontline

I don't usually write from the Front. When an episode is underway I am usually kicking up a fuss somewhere, comatose with misery, or lost in some displacement activity - reading or playing a repetitive game.

This current episode has me very jittery, very, very jittery, agitated and certain of the unfairness involved in how I think anyone would see me, if they were to see me. They'd despise me, (unspecified They of course, such is the nature of mental disease). Being despicable hurts.

I say this, but cannot express just how horrid this moment is.

Jitters, that's what it's like

Today I have the jitters. Jittery jittery jitters.

I think it's a reaction for getting really upset and hugely lacking in self esteem yesterday. Like so often I felt like no one cares about me and that Iain and Jaan were blanking me. I'm sure they were actually, but I'll bet it was one of those times that Iain says I think lots of minutes have passed and he thinks seconds have.

That all followed hot on the heels of sending out emails that needed to be sent, not many, just a few.

I can't do anything without it all falling apart around me after.

I hate BPD.

I'm not self fulfilling any prophetic disasters, this is just how it is. I try and do what I should to make things better - make appointments, do laundry etc. Then the fall out inside me. My life crumbles as I see it, Iain and Jaan and anyone else seem (to me) to hate me for my failures.

My failures seem overwhelmingly large when their (perceived by me) disgust adds in. Kaboom.

there's nothing I can do, hurting myself will just hurt in the long run, and I do not know how to die. Also, with people fighting to live all the time, I don't really have a callous leg to stand on here. It's a miserable existence.

cannot bear what i have done, and what i have not done

sleft slept slept
bad dreams
unpleasant dreams
just things that are dreams

greatly dehydrated
in pain pain pain. waking but not being able to wake up, no ones there to latch on to, can't face the world and the internet which is my fallback go-to to latch in need.

hate the frailties of my mind my body my will my work my cognition my neurology my ligaments muscles and fat and body mass and metabolism and insulin receptivity and genes and collagen elasticity.

cannot access anything but these frailties and deficiencies.

knowledge that i was brave enough to try and to go on for 7 miles and that i raised money was processed some time ago and horrifically has no bearing on me now - just the bleakness

the one recurring insistent proud beep is that my mate Becca made it, she did she did she did and I am so glad so proud.

Steady the downcycle

i call it the downcycle, as opposed to up up up flying, the upcycle. I don't have an appropriate vocabulary to talk about BPD, I am improvising

I want to keep it down down

The ups are so mortifying, so painful so desperate. The rush hurts now, the blood gushing about me, and the stuff in my blood - drugs, hormones, pollutants, stimulants .... sugar ... nourishment, they swell and take up so much room and they huuuurt.

There is no release, no good when I rush. Maybe that is the word, not upcycle, but rush. The moment, each instant, each mortifying second is a rush. The whole time I am in its grip is an up up part of the cycle of ups and downs. Not the kind the average joe has, this awful urgh whoosh.

Down low downer down down high-flatline, alive-flatline is less awful. It comes with numbnitude and the pain does not jolt. It is inconspicuous or just sulky or moody to the random observer, not mortifying, horrifyingly humiliating and reputation-destroying. Being depressed, visibly, does not label one 'the crazy lady at number 35'.

what happens when I lose my rag and yell and scream and accuse and scream out my pain in many words? Is that a down bursting out in an upturn, a brief spurt of rush?

Mounts. Me camel. Straws and straws and straws

Mummy i don't want you to die
Sob sob sadface etc i didn't expect this conversation so soon. He's 3.
All because i did a huge death fart and said oh no that's really bad its a death toot.
The death fears have been brewing in jaan i know, but a FART triggered the tears.
Straw
Camel
Iain went out without saying goodbye
Just sayin‘
and i have been cycling up up up fast fast fast I hate it hate it can't stop, and now i had to explain the truth about death and who will be his mommy if i die.
Hate up up. Its worse than numb down.

it's unlikely to ever make sense

when i'm in this place, things my son says can cut really deep
I have to be made of glass then so there is no blood.
He can see I am sad though, not that he can see much with clarity.

How to save him from a sense of inappropriate responsibility ..... i repeat, repeatedly and in a few different ways so that he'll remember I did so when he is older -

"this kind of sad happens to some people sometimes"
"i love you Jaan"
"I'm your Mummy"
"I think I'll feel better soon, oh, you think so too? You get sad sometimes and then better soon too, you're right!"
"Thank you, that hug makes me feel really happy"
"Yes. I do feel sad, no I don't know why, but it's ok, I'm here, I won't always be sad, I'm glad we're playing, what should we do next?"


things like that

it's not true that I feel anything, like love or happiness or togetherness. Nothing forces me to lie, but the truth of a moment, or hour, or day like I really live through when it's down down down downer downer - he is not equipped, probably won't ever be. Iain isn't.

What I try and do is hide it all as much as I can so whatever he senses and asks about I can honestly say I am feeling bad, it's one of the things that is about me being sick like I get tummy sick if I have milk ... like he gets cough sick if he has a bad cold .... I get sad sick sometimes and it can be unspecific in cause like when he has sick bugs - was it dirty hands?

He gets that I hope.

When it's blatantly obvious like this week, all I can do is say I am trying.

when life gives you lemons

so if one's life, say is just a load of jack .... then what.
If a mate's life was in the shtu and we were brainstorming in the bar I'd say you don't like it you change it, just do what you gotto do.

This week I finished toddler taming parenting class. 5 sessions. If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always been getting ....

we re-made our pledges to actively listen to our children, give them secure environments to grow and thrive in, discipline through example and choices and even more safe happy places, the certainty of a limited range of unacceptable things to say or do. Fair and appropriate consequences for bad choices and wilful cruelty.

Actually apart from realising I could put more time into the equation for certain given activities ... I'm on the ball mainly. Lucky old Jaan.

So, hypothetically, what if, a person has spent their life picking them selves up, biting it, swallowing it, trying something someone else believes, willingly attempt to move forward. Always at least considering they are not right (Omg but it so feels like I'm right sometimes).

A large space of time passes. Same old same old.

No new madness descends, it is actually very familiar, The new is an unwillingness to make a fresh analysis to communicate back to the team (LOL team).

I wonder if I can 'needle felt' myself a camouflaged cocoon.

A vow to not cook

I'm vowing tonight, not to cook my heart out any more, and put it out there for Jaan and Iain to smash at their leisure, as the whim takes them. In novels, the hero, his girl, his mother – everyone always hates the idea of any one pitying them. For a while now, I've found that odd. I'd take pity. I've long since downgraded my hopes and desires to a few pity hugs, some pity compliance, perhaps a pity compliment or so, pity could maybe cause my primary carer to make use of the folder.

I cook, it's always been a big part of what I do. It's a creative thing, restful thing, something to get excited about sometimes, a celebratory thing, sometimes a loving or a friendly thing. Something to share. Something I can give someone else who maybe can't do the same for themselves – maybe they don't have the time, money or skills. Or imagination.

I keep forgetting that Iain will not shield me when the bad things come, any more than he did that night, that day. I hardly think about the way Jaan turns away from me then too, when the bleakness is choking me, taking his lead from the rest of the room. The bad things come and I have been a fool again. Each time. Ridiculously going along with some kind of pretense that the three of us stand together. The thing to do is not go to that place in my heart where the holographic visions of trios live. We live in the same house, we share sleeping places in any given combination, and share superficial familal-closeness: walks, tv watching, singing and playing, even the occasional cuddle time. These are things to enjoy, to get pleasure and comfort from, the way Jaan and Iain do. I do too and should let the story end there.

But the bleak feelings are there too, and I am defeated and without resources, all on my own, wanted or needed by no one, with nothing that my family wants to share.

A DVD or commercially prepared sweetie or bottle of milk … that's about all I could get and give Jaan that he would respond to tonight. He doesn't want my company now, not unless it's to get one of those things. Only I know the things I want to do – enjoy the risotto I carefully made this evening, share the neatly balanced flavours with him. Things I'd like to chat to him about when he's old enough for conversation come to my mind all day. I question, now, whether he'll ever talk to me about things, considering how he responds to my cooking. Iain doesn't really talk to me unless I bully him into it either ….

I wish I knew how to take really sharp things and slay my heart out, or all my veins, like de-boning and filleting a medium sized fish. Foolishly I imagine the pain will slip out with the heart and veins. I had hoped I would not be giving my whole life away when I set off on that hard road to having a child. But it all got wrenched out, and everything I build now, or try to, might as well be made of dust. I did what I could for Jaan when he was born, but now it seems pitifully little, specially considering it was my all, and then some.

I'm a ghost, a shadow, some dust ....  I am always just building mounds of more dust, and that just irritates them both, appeals to no one, and amounts to nothing, just dust.

I have to stop trying to interest them in more of this dust, nothing I do is worth any more to them, they just love me as an aside, as a habit, as love for this other person that makes up the trio but they aren't interested in building a life with me that I can be in, they have their own paths and my contributions to family life don't stick. I am completely off-track, whereas they are both clearly navigating about the world successfully. I have no desire to hinder them, but nor can I stand the regular rebuffs. I need to stop all this cooking, there are easy ways to eat that are emotionally removed from my efforts and therefore would be less likely to trigger me, no? Cycle up or cycle down, ready brek and cheese and bread hurt no one and have no emotional connections with any of us. If my creations are not there to be a target, surely no one will hit the bullseye.

I have to accept that Iain has no interest in using the information we have learnt to help with the bleakness over the last 3 years in any meaningful manner. He's not interested in crisis plans, the folder, responding to downturns. If I sink so far, perhaps I should just stay there. Be still wherever I am. Appreciate the kindness Jaan and Iain do give me. Their generosity is certainly far from negligible.

Topiramate and Aripiprazole Cribsheet

First off, for years BPD was seen as a disorder that doesn't improve with meds, per se, you prescribe when there's other stuff going on. For example, I am already on meds for PCOS, low oestrogen levels and Insulin Resistance, and I suffer from depression so I have antidepressants. All of that should, in theory, aid management of my BPD too (less triggers, less susceptible to triggers). Out of all my BPD symptoms, two of them: namely insomnia and anxiety, along with the paranoia, anger and flashbacks etc that comes along with them can be treated and is treated by my Drs with a tiny bit of antipsychotic at night. I can add a bit more into my day of said drug too if I am too jittery for words. 

Downside? Majorly the weight gain the Quetiapine brings with it, to a person who is already fighting a losing battle with weight and bingeing on food because of my insulin issues. So the IR gets worse; gut gets worse; hormones get worse - oh look, more triggers - BPD gets worse and boom! full circle. Extra Quetiapine and so on and so on. 

The best write up I have seen on how most BPDers need to be treated is here on BPD Demistifyed. Initially, in a crisis, emergency medication to keep her alive followed by psychotherapy/DBT and modified meds as things change. Frankly I do not believe I can do very well without both elements. In reality, my PTSD symptoms and depression, anxiety and anger issues have been CBTed (mainly on the down-low .... clever doctors) and the community support from the SureStart centre and Health Visitor plus the main work of the local crazy-team has been to get me up and running, not to deal with the BPD at all.

This is getting to be a problem, particularly as I BPD a lot and there is no DBT. I don't even know how I would feel about DBT - a therapy designed specially for people like me - because I have never had access to it. 

sigh

Makes me think I need more pharmacological help, or more focused perhaps - replace my current antipsychotic with a mood stabiliser perhaps? Try Aripiprazole instead? 

Firstly I checked to see if it is safe-ish for me personally to try these drugs. The latest study for drugs given to BPDs says contrary to earlier beliefs drugs do help, and out of the ones that do Topiramate and Aripiprazole seem to me to be least damaging to my IR and weight gain.

For example, reported in 2009 we have 

A safety and tolerability laboratory study of the combination of aripiprazole and topiramate in volunteers who drink alcohol (Kenna, Leggio, Swift).

This was done at Department of Psychiatry and the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, Brown University, the patients were not alcoholics, and they drank a bit less on the drugs, the drugs together caused no extra addiction issues, did not work badly together. So we have safety sorted. Ok. 

Back in 2006 we had the big one, Aripiprazole in the treatment of BPDs - they noted a a significant reduction of global psychological stress, the findings corroborated previous findings of antidepressant and anxiolytic effects from aripiprazole. The most interesting thing they said was, I think: 

 aripiprazole was more effective in treating the aggression component of borderline psychopathology. Among our patients, aripiprazole appeared to influence the intensity of the subjective state of anger (state anger) as well as their readiness to react with anger (trait anger). Furthermore, the tendency to direct anger outward (anger out) and inward (anger in) decreased significantly. This is important because the socially desirable tendency to control anger was strengthened (anger control).

and 

Aripiprazole appears to be a safe and effective agent for improving not only the symptoms of borderline personality disorder but also the associated health-related quality of life and interpersonal problems.

Bingo

All the Quetiapine can do is numb me a teeny bit more - not enough - and make managing my IR hard.

Moving on, studies have been done or are still ongoing on, basically Metformin and Second Generation Antipsychotics-induced Obesity (Reynolds/Kirk and Baptista/Kin/Beaulieu/du Baptista)

and as they rightly summarise, the problem I am facing is this:

Obesity and metabolic syndrome, with increased risk of eventual cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes, are significant problems for patients receiving antipsychotic drugs and are likely contribute to their decreased life expectancy. Several drug-related mechanisms may contribute to these problems, including effects both influencing food intake and on glucose and lipid metabolism. The metabolic consequences of different antipsychotic drugs vary substantially; these variations reflect differences in receptor pharmacology and provide clues as to the underlying pharmacological mechanisms.

Just a reminder - I'm only 34. I really don't want any of this. I mean, no one does - but I've been on crazymeds all my adult life, it wears one down. 

Reynolds & Kirk saw that 

The minimal weight gain seen with ziprasidone and aripiprazole may reflect their having further pharmacological effects that protect against changes in food intake and related metabolic factors. Understanding the pharmacology of metabolic consequences of current antipsychotic drug treatment is clearly the key to developing improved pharmacotherapies that avoid these problematic and limiting adverse effects.

There was a study using Topiramate too (Ellinger/Ipema/Stachnic), which rather fuzzily led to this:

Data for the use of metformin and topiramate in the treatment and prevention of second-generation antipsychotic-induced weight gain are limited. Both may be effective in helping patients lose weight via mechanisms that have yet to be clearly defined. The use of metformin results in greater weight loss than topiramate, and topiramate is associated with more risks and may compromise the treatment of schizophrenia. Treatment of antipsychotic-induced weight gain with metformin may be an option after lifestyle and dietary changes have failed.

And the study in Taiwan, no results yet - all going along the same basic principle that these two drugs do something interesting to BPDs, specially the angry ones filing the gaping maw with booze, food, starvation or something equally yuk; speciallt the IR/Type 2 diabetic patients and those who are obese anyway or will be with their dopey-meds very soon: 

 Topiramate for Treatment of Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder and Alcohol Dependence, A Study of the Safety and Effectiveness of Topiramate on Insulin Sensitivity in Overweight or Obese Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and would you believe it, in the journal of Obesity, Efficacy and safety of topiramate in combination with metformin in the treatment of obese subjects with type 2 diabetes: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study (Toplak/Hamman/Moore/Masson et al).

I'll be interested to know what my doctors reckon. 

a better day, perhaps some punctuation too

Awake for most of the night, but at least an absence of nightmares. Some research says we with BPD go into the dream state when asleep far more rapidly than Nons. Perhaps that accounts for the horrendous visuals.

Used the hypnotherapy app on my Android to help, I believe it did - many thanks Relax with Andrew Johnson Lite.

So, jitters, obvs, and hyper-alert: could not sleep because of it. But look, I am aware this sentence began with a But, I'm adding in punctuation, so the worst has passed this time, surely.

Considering there is no DBT available here in South Cambs or Huntingdonshire ... it is time to see if a change in meds is appropriate. Aripiprazole and/or Topiramate perhaps? The Quetiapine does not cut it and the weight gain is an issue that is harming me.

numb with the sporadic jitters

its very unpleasant
for weeks now I keep realising that the thing I just did, reacted to, felt etc a few days ago was me BPD-ing. Can no longer trust myself. What about me and what I do is 'real', authentic, normal whatever, there can be no way to describe what someone like me would aim for in her everyday. Hope this makes sense.

I really do have a personality disorder, dont I, regardless of who refuses to acknowledge it.

How about a Holiday Season Strategy of Good Cheer

My much-lauded positive-ity demands this list.

1. Look forward. Ignore/sidestep/block-out or apply mindfulness techniques to past traumas, memories, regrets - even everyday disappointments. As soon as they occur - look ahead. An experiment in extreme looking ahead. Last year was atrocious. This year there are props: my sister's kids, my son, my new puppy, my cat, my MoonWalk training. Eyes forward then. 
2. Use the senses - touch - - pets and kids, Iain, MohDoh, my hair, food, the carpet/Yogamat while I am training. 
3. Smell - burn and burn and burn more aromatherapy oil. Stink everything up to an impressive level. All the good smells can trigger: looking forward. Shun the decay of old. 
4. Taste - Eat. Nourishing food: eat. Hydrate to the max - 'milk', 'teas', coffee, squash, juice, smoothies, water, cider, soup, oranges, ramen: it matters not.
5. Listen to the radio, podcasts and music. Ignore foolish reliance on actual human companionship and meaningful conversation, it cannot be relied upon and can merely serve as icing (or poison) on the hypothetical cake. Again: The puppy/child/radio Trinity can mean reliable, regular salvation. a truly soothing balm for the soul. Why not opt for an outside-the-box everyday?
6. Do the accounts every week, every day, every hour if that is what it takes - and claw my way out of debt. Sleep easy then knowing I am not making it worse. 
7. Look at all the internet window-shopping, pictures and blogs. Look, see, enjoy. Enjoy my Christmas home, I do like Christmas food and tree and our stuff. Play with my pets and kids. Look ahead to plenty of soft warm little bodies clambering on me, don't look back to the hollow of subfertility. 
8. Run, walk, stretch, train, sleep, take long baths, spray on the magnesium, and then walk some more.
9. I've already planned who I am going to see, who I will write to, who I will gift stuff to. Enjoy doing that. Look ahead, not back, nothing else matters - I have training and playing and sleeping to do. Much ramen to slurp. Many chickpeas and potatoes to slather in Mary Berry sauce.

BPD Attacks, the re-encroachment

I don't suppose it is easy to remember the things one must, in order to maintain a healthy relationship with someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder. I base this conclusion on common sense - it is tall order, and in general, people aren't keen on those. Then, as far as my personal experience goes, my nearest and dearest have all been sent access to BPD websites that I rely on, and I'll bet no one's ever clicked and read even once. The eyes and heart glazes over at Borde... I think, getting as far as the whole mouthful of the disorder is, I see, too much. Tooooo much.

To me, the too much is living with it, living as it. Gary Speed, someone I had never heard of until today on Twitter, hanged himself this morning. The thing is, I was on Twitter to distract myself as I was feeling bad and wronged, and neglected, and unloved - standard BPD fare, and my rational mind was tracking connections between myself and the people in my life in an effort to ground myself in a more positive, realistic frame of mind. What I stumbled upon was Jeremy Vine tweeting

Given that Gary Speed had phenomenal strength and self-discipline, hopefully no depressed person will ever again be told to get a grip

a reference to Stan Collymore's (another football person) really amazing post describing his black dog days.

Speed was "42 years old, great player and manager, and was on Fooball Focus only yesterday - why?" (Vine again). Iain was jabbering about how we dunno why, or if he was having treatment or whatever. He was fine the day before say plenty of people who were on tv with him though. 2 kids. Wife.

Sigh. We do know why though don't we, and it's not so much terrifying as so, so devastatingly sad. Takes hope and shows it to be the mockery it really is. The blame, the lacklustre conversations on Skype or email or even on the phone, even face to face ...... why carry on, why why more like. Things are just as likely to never work out, you know.