Wow everyone is going through it. Hold my hand
I love the idea of Freminet starting to participate in his siblings' magic shows. Lyney would say, "and now I shall make my brother disappear!" and at that moment, when the audience looks over to where Fremi was, he would have already vanished (he got stage fright)
Franz Kafka, 1912
“I hope that everyone who's found themselves in a dark place would be able to see something beautiful, and experience a miracle for themselves.”
please do something kind for yourself today. treat yourself as your oldest and dearest friend. speak gently to yourself, treat yourself to your favourite meal or activity. in a world that demands so much of you, at the very least you owe it to yourself to be kind.
Can you give me some advice related to bpd, please?
Okay :). First and foremost, I want to clarify that these are based on my lived experiences with BPD. That doesn't mean they're all right or wrong; what works for me may not work for you. With that being said, here are some little things I tell myself often
Emotions are fleeting - What you're feeling isn't going to last forever, and that's okay. You're not going to always be in agony! However strong and terrible, this feeling has to fade at some point, so keep going. We experience such strong emotions in BPD and I feel that we experience blindness to the end of our feelings, that is to say, we don't realize that this probably isn't the worst thing ever and that our emotions do pass! You have survived every mood swing up to this point, and as time goes on you can learn to cope better and better with whatever is thrown your way.
Forgive yourself - In life, it is inevitable that we are the bad guy at times. This can be really hard to come to terms with when you have BPD, because of our tendency to use black-and-white thinking. Few people are all good or all bad, and that includes you! So, for all those moments where we were wrong, let's forgive ourselves and promise to do better. Let's learn from our mistakes, see what we could have done better, and work towards it. We aren't all bad or all good, we are simply nuanced and complex human beings working on ourselves!
Not everybody leaves, but also loss is not the worst thing in the world - In BPD we often face that terrible fear of abandonment, but it's important to remember that in healthy relationships, people don't just leave out of nowhere. When that fear of abandonment strikes, ask yourself if it's based on facts or if it's your mind trying to spiral! "Do I have evidence that I'm being abandoned? Is this fear based on reality?" But it's also important to remember that loss is a natural part of life, and so we need to learn to cope appropriately. In many ways, people come and go. Whether it be through death, break ups (friends or romantic), moving, or any other ways; we don't stay in the same spot and with the same exact people forever and ever and ever, and that's ok! Friendships can be lifelong but someone has to die eventually like, it's ok that nothing is exactly as concrete as we'd like it to be. Live for the now, enjoy what we do have instead of fearing for the future that will probably end up alright anyway!
Live in the now - Continuing on from my last point, mindfulness and staying in the present are really important. It isn't healthy to spend every waking moment fearing the what-ifs and possible future. Allow yourself to enjoy the moments you have for what they are now, and allow the future to come when it comes. That's not to say throw everything to the wayside and live for today only, moderation is important! A little bit of worry now and again won't kill you, but it's not fair to yourself to be so preoccupied with every little thing that could go wrong instead of focusing on what is happening.
It's okay to let go - Similar to my third point, letting go is okay! Realize and understand you cannot feasibly control everything and everyone around you. That's ok. Things won't always go your way in life, and although it feels nice to be in control, sometimes what we perceive as being "in control" is detrimental. Allow yourself to let go sometimes, and be in control other times. It's about finding a balance in life. It's ok to not have everything you want right now this second, it's ok that mishaps happen, it's ok that the people around you may not think like you or agree with everything you say or do. All of that is part of the complex experience of living, and that's okay! That's all I have for now, but I hope this helps you somehow. Always remember that to get better we must put in the work to heal, it won't come easy but it'll definitely come! We just need to keep at it and keep going, to use our coping skills and be patient and kind to ourselves. Love you.
Update, I slept and I'm feeling normal again lol. Like, it's okay that I'm changing, and every day I'm learning how to live as best as I can. that's sort of what life is about, isn't it?
Maybe it's partly because I'm in my early 20s, but genuinely, there are a lot of times that I'm not able to tell whether I'm being true to myself. Whether I'm just a colder, watered down version of the girl who used to feel so alive. Who enjoyed things vigorously and wrote fanfiction. So gung-ho about life, regardless of all her fears and all her (perceived) failures. But then, who is "myself" anyway? Maybe I've been changed. Maybe I've changed. Life has changed me. I have changed me. An unfortunate dalliance with illness, and the chronic cough that haunts me in its aftermath, has changed me. However minor or major, these things are like bricks stacking on top of one another, forming an ever-changing pyramid. And there are, of course, positive things among the negative things. It's just that sometimes, I feel like a body of text that has gone through a few too many permutations of translation. They are all versions of me, but... how much of the original intent is actually there? Was there an intent to begin with?
At this point in time, I feel more closed off than I ever have, yet just as afraid as I've always been. Perhaps I am more afraid. Where is the naive and innocent "me", the version that smiled more easily? I'd like to see her again. I'd like to tell her to be careful. There are times when I miss her so much.