Things I Can't Say

It's New Year's Eve.  I may as well put all the fear in my head in writing and let it go it's own way in to the ether.

• I'm scared.  So scared.  Not always, but when I think too much, when I've had a bad day, when I'm too tired, there it is.
• Why would you want me?
• I'm so scared this is all a lie.
• I feel like this is all my fault. 
• I'm not pretty.  When you tell me I am, I wonder why you feel like you have to lie to me.
• I'm not a good person.
• I don't know if I'll ever trust anyone again if this goes wrong.
• I should run.  Far, and fast, and away from where I can be hurt.
• I feel like I need someone as a back up, for when you realize you were insane to ever love me, so I can be safe.

Now go away bad things.  I have a life to live.

Sneak away, fly away. Watch me as I get away. Anyway, I can runaway.

It's that time of the relationship again.  You know, the one I always have when I'm getting too happy.  Things are amazing.  Nothing is going wrong.

Run.

Don't wait, don't give them a chance to hurt you.  Because it's going to come down to that.  It always comes down to that.  The one person, in the past history of my dating who didn't hurt me, who told me I was beautiful, and never said anything but wonderful things to me, I cut out of my life and made sure to burn that bridge so hard he'd never want me back.  Why?  Because I couldn't stand the idea of waiting for whatever was going to happen.  Because when he did what everyone else had, it was going to be that much worse, and ending it early was better than letting it happen.

Now I'm in the same spot.  Almost 5 months in, and things aren't going wrong.  Not like they always happen immediately, but...  And now I have a little, and if things go wrong again, he's going to be hurting, and I have no desire to put him through that again.  Losing the ex-asshole was really, really hard on him.  I can handle my own hurt.  I've got plenty of practice at that, and a therapist who will lovingly kick my ass all over the place until I'm better.  But he doesn't have my experience or practice, and I never want him to go through that again.

Part (most) of me wants to pack up and run.  See if I can get a transfer somewhere, and get the hell out of here.  Nothing works better to get out of these moments than running.  I've been here so long, that sometimes the urge to run is overwhelming.  I never loved Georgia in the first place, but there's something about being stuck here (yay divorce!) that makes it even worse.  I know I can't, and it's a bad example to set, but I just want to be so very far away from here.  It's never felt like home.

I think the worst part is, there's nothing he's doing wrong.  It's all in my head.  I know it's all in my head.  (Sadly, my head is a creative and terrible place some times.)  But I constantly watch, and wait.  It's the stupid self-doubt.  Who could love *me*, and why?  I've never found myself attractive (the entirely of my school career was me getting bullied about how ugly and worthless I was, so you know, understandable), I spend so much time around brilliant people that I end up doubting my intellectual worth, but mostly, who on earth could possible want me.  Me with all my insecurities and doubts.  All of my overpowering emotions.  All my fears, and half-assed dreams I'm never going to realize.  I can't possibly imagine *anyone* who would want that.

The Day After

So, got all brave this weekend, and went to a party full of people I didn't know.  Please understand, when I say brave, I mean, this took every ounce of courage I had.  I lied furiously about being excited.  I was terrified (especially given some of the extenuating circumstances going on), but if I never push my limits, I never grow.  As a socially phobic introvert, you've got to understand that I'd generally rather perform my own anesthesia-free appendectomy than do something like that. It's an act of love and extreme trust in my friends when I do.  Excursions where I know people and am going to new places can work, provided I have a momma duck.  I will follow and cling to that person pretty much the whole time.  Literally, some form of physical touch is nearly constantly required.  It's how I stay grounded.  Leave me alone for more than about 10 minutes, and it's a pretty quick downhill slide to badness.  No place to escape to where I feel safe breaking down enough to let the stress go?  Extra bad.

Yes, I "face" it generally really well.  People have no idea how hard it is for me to survive group dynamics.  I haven't put myself in this situation in a Very Long Time, and I was reminded of why this weekend.  I'm still absolutely livid that I let myself get to that point where I had to dig my nails in my arm to keep from some gloriously hysterical weeping.  Could I handle this situation better next time?  Very probably.  It's not all new and overwhelming.  Once I get past the first time or two, I can usually manage.

I did great at the party while I was drunk and hopped up on Xanax, but the second I got too sober, and the Xanax was the only thing left in my system, I crashed.  I even had fun, but for me, the absolute humiliation that comes with that kind of loss of control is...personally unforgivable and overshadows everything else.  Most people there didn't notice, I think.  Honestly, if they did, well, fuck that.  The one person who did notice is the last person I wanted that to happen in front of, and that made it so much worse.

I don't judge other people for being upset/offended/worried or whatever about my attacks.  But I judge me for being weak in front of them.  My attacks aren't me any more.  They're so, so rare.  But I still hate them as much, if not more than I ever did.  They intrude.  They splash their hateful reminders about how shattered I used to be all over me.  High on the list of things I never want to be is that utterly, helplessly crazy.  It's funny, people will tell me that it's not my fault...but since medication never worked, and training my emotions did...  I just want to be normal.  That's really all.

My therapist tells me we do what we have to do to survive.  I know for Borderlines, untreated anyway, it's all survival, all the time.  I sometimes sift back through my memories to try to figure out who the hell started this, and why I ended up so horribly broken, but there's nothing that comes to mind, given how old I was when I started being Borderline.

I'm not sure this really had a point, other than for me to remember this next time I decide to go out.  I need to be much, much more clear about what I need when I do things like this, and have a better backup plan.

Jack's Story

I got pregnant for the second time when Mat was 13 months old  I was terrified, but overjoyed.  After 11 months of trying with Mat, it was like a godsend to get pregnant on one oops.  I remember watching the stick change color, and feeling so excited.  A new baby.

Chris, however, was not excited.  He was upset.  He immediately jumped to getting an abortion.  It was a fight.  I don't get abortions.  We fought for three weeks before I agreed to get one.  He sent me to my therapist, who literally said, "Are you crazy?  Just go check yourself in to Peachford when you're done, and save yourself the ER trip for the attempted suicide."  So I went home and told Chris.  He agreed with her.  For two whole days.  Then the fighting started again.

I couldn't sleep because of Mat nursing, and the stress.  I was slugging back caffeine and anti-nausea homeopathics.  The fighting went on.   He said I couldn't handle it.  I had so much to do.  Money was too tight.  Everything was so rational with him.

I agreed again at 8 weeks to have an abortion.  Every place I called refused to do the pill because I was nursing, even though I had documentation that it was safe.  Planned Parenthood, but the wait was over two weeks.  I didn't want to wait that long.  One place told me not to let anything stop me from what I wanted to do, and I remember wanting to scream at her that killing my baby was the last thing I wanted to do.  Instead, I thanked her.  It was humiliating.  I had to make all the calls, because Chris was too busy.

I finally put my foot down at about 9 weeks, because I wasn't aborting something that looked like a baby.  We decided to keep it.  Midwife appointments ensued.  We couldn't find a heartbeat, but she wasn't worried.  About 11.5 weeks in, I went to Ikea with my friends Mark and Heather.  I had Mat in the Moby so he wouldn't run off.  I was exhausted all the time and queasy.  He wanted to nurse CONSTANTLY.  If he wasn't nursing he was sobbing.

I had to pee, so we trotted off to the bathroom.  I remember wiping, and seeing brown blood.  It was scary, but I knew my stuff.  Red blood bad, brown blood okay.  It didn't stop.  Days of that.  Just a little, though.  I had a 12 week appointment, so I didn't make a faster one.  Besides, I was already feeling a few flutter kicks.  My mom went with me to watch Mat.  We tried a Doppler, because she knew I didn't want ultrasounds.  We couldn't find the heartbeat again, but she wasn't worried.  He was in a weird spot.  I agreed to an ultrasound.

I waited for a while, in this room full of pregnant women.  Big, gorgeous bellies surrounded me.  Soon that would be me again.  I got called back, and mom stayed with Mat again.  They put you in this big room, and coat you in cold jelly.  I got to see my baby, not just on a little screen, but HUGE.  Half a wall.  I was excited.

I saw it right away.  I was 12 weeks pregnant, and that was an 8 week fetus.  I only had an 8 week with Mat, and Jack looked exactly the same.  I didn't even notice there was no heartbeat.  I just knew he was too tiny in my gigantic womb.   I did the math.  He died the day I agreed to the 8 week abortion.  There had been no baby flutters, just my uterus starting contractions to expel my dead baby.

I asked for a picture.  My midwife told me it was really sweet.  I walked back in to the waiting room.  It was still full of bitches.  Hugely pregnant bitches who would be meeting their babies in a few weeks.  Bitches rubbing their tummies.  I could see the kicks through their shirt.  I hated them.  I hated every single goddamn last one of them.  I remember walking to mom and Mat, and I showed Mat the picture, and I remember saying, "This was going to be your baby brother."  Then I lost my fucking shit.  I was screaming and sobbing.  My poor mom looked horrified.

We were going to Thailand in two weeks.  I didn't want to miscarry in a foreign country.  I also hate being sedated and surgery, so I opted for misoprotol.  I took it the next day.  It was a Thursday.  Chris took the day off.  I took the first pill early.  Mom came over.  I ached.  It was early labor.  We went to the library, and it was starting to get very uncomfortable.  I asked him if we could please go, but he kept putting me off, and getting irate that I kept asking.

By the end of 12 hours, I'd made no significant progress, so I took the second pill.  Chris told me he had to go to bed because he needed to work.  Half an hour later, I was nearly screaming in agony.  It was so insanely painful.  Mom stayed with me.  I remember getting up to go to the bathroom, and when I sat down, my water broke.  Did you know you have an amniotic sac at 12 weeks?  I sure as hell didn't.  Then I spent the next four exhausting, excruciating hours pushing out everything I'd grown to nurture my baby.  I passed fist sized clots of tissue.  I bled constantly.  And I was covered in blood.  Covered, because I caught every last thing I passed, to frantically look for my baby.  My mom, bless her, was handed things as I desperately asked her if she thought it was my baby.  She never flinched.  At around 1am, I found Jack.  Tiny, but clearly a baby,  I held him in my hand, and kissed him, and told him I loved him.  Then I gently wrapped him up and put him in the fridge so we could bury him the next day.  By 2:30 or so, it calmed enough so that I could sleep.

Chris went to work like normal.  Mom and I picked out fabric, and made a shroud.  We buried Jack in the back yard when Chris came home.

I was numb.  Patrick and Timmy sent me flowers.  A few days later, I was spiking a fever, and still bleeding and passing clots.  I was worried I had retained placenta.  My parents watched Mat, so we could go to St. Joe's.  I waited for hours, only to be told no one would perform a D&C because I might have had an abortion that went wrong, and they were a Catholic hospital.  After 6 hours, they found a doctor who would.  By that time, they found out I had the flu, and was almost done bleeding out tissue.

But what if I never drank all that Coke Zero.  What if I'd gotten more sleep.   What if we'd wanted the baby.  It took me two years to get over it.  I'm tearing as I write this, but I've taken this out of the box so, so many times that I can do it without sobbing.  I miss Jack.  I was supposed to still be married, and have two wonderful children.  But I don't, and I have to move on from there.  I have a beautiful son, and I have finally stopped blaming myself.

I love you, sweet angel.

Chinese dolls, boxed in boxes...

I've been sitting on this post for a while.  I just have been busy and lazy, and really, had no good excuse.  I was trying to explain to someone the other day (trying seems to be the keyword for 99% of the shit that happens when I try to explain the inner workings of my brain) how I manage to keep from being overwhelmed by things that upset me.

Every painful event I experience gets felt intensely at the moment it happens, and then it's allowed a chance to run its course quickly.  If I still hurt as strongly the first day as the third or so, I pull out an empty mental box, stuff all of the emotion related to it in that box, label it, and tuck it away.  I just don't think about it or process it, or I never let myself heal.  I can sit and beat myself up about every fraction of every possibility of everything that might have been done differently.  If I just...  If I only...  Maybe if...  If I was stronger...  If I was better...  It's amazing how much I can blame myself for.

When I have a strong moment, or forget to watch how much I drink, I can take one off the shelf, open it up, and let the emotions come streaming back out, and feel it all over again like it was the moment it happened.  My goal isn't to deal with it, so much as it is to process it until the pain is manageable.  I've found that after 15-20 rounds of taking things out of their boxes, they become deal-able.  I can start to logic through them instead of just feeling the intense agony of it.

I could probably go to my therapist, and tear through a lot of it a few sessions, but I've become proud of my ability to deal on my own.  I'm pretty sure this is some version of compartmentalizing, but really, I like the boxes idea a little better.  A good visual explanation for a girl who's not really visually oriented in her mind.  Go figure.

And suddenly, this rambling, and pointless post got to the point in my head.  I need to write out Jack's story.  I've mostly forgiven myself, but I want to write it down, so I can have it saved somewhere, and take the last of it out of my head.

Well, that was silly.

Your worry feels like agony to me.

Today at my Listening Circle facilitators' meeting, we did our obligatory check-in.  Everyone went around.  I think I had something planned to say, but what came out was the story about how about three weeks ago, I picked up a razor blade for the first time in six years, and cut myself 45 times before I realized that it wasn't going to make things any better.  When I got done, to punish myself for cutting, I washed the cuts out with salt water.  That was closer to the pain I needed, but still, neither gave me the relief I needed.

Before this happened, I'd spent the two days before uncontrollably sobbing any time I was alone.  My situation was agonizing, and there was no end in sight.  I needed it to stop, and none of my techniques were working.  Maybe I forgot how to do them after so long, or I wasn't doing them with the right intent...I just don't know.  It was horrible.

I had to tell someone in the group who offered support that I just wasn't good at reaching out.  There's two reasons.  One is that I Do Not Trust people to be around me when I'm that vulnerable.  I love my friends, I trust them with a lot of things, but there have been too many people in my past who have proved to me that when I'm vulnerable around them, all I'm doing is giving them something to use against me later.

The more important reason is that the worry that kind of honesty generates is exhausting.  It's bad enough carrying around the worry I feel for myself when that happens.  It's oppressive.  But when I tell someone else, they get this look, their tone changes to something I hear as concern or pity, and then it's like the weight of that worry comes crashing down.  Now not only do I have to worry about me, I have to worry about them worrying about me.  I feel terrible.  I feel like I then have to spend months proving that I'm really okay.  I can't stand the tone and the look.  I worry enough that I'm breaking, but when someone else seems concerned like that, I get this sense that it's worse than I thought.  I'm broken, and they're worrying I'm going to do something else, something worse.  I don't want to have to prove that I'm okay to anyone.  I know I'll make it through this.  I don't need that doubt weighing on me.  I don't need pity.  I'm not weak, but I feel that way when I tell people.

I did reach out to one person, so that I knew I wasn't going to hide away and never deal with it.  He handled it exactly perfectly.  He's the first person I've ever talked to about it, other than my therapist, who didn't just make me feel worse for telling.

I know people mean well.  I'm not heartless...but I also know how it makes me feel, so I don't speak.  I don't speak so I don't have to worry about you, and myself.  I don't speak so I don't have to worry that I'm worse than I imagined.  I don't speak so that I don't have to be angry about feeling burdened with someone else's worry.

I wish there was a way to make this easier for everyone.

Aside:  Yes, I will be fine.  I've reached out to my therapist.  No, my son is in no danger.  I'll voluntarily commit myself if I have to to protect him.  He's my biggest priority, and I put him and his mental health above my own.

Thanks for your input, now shut up.

Everyone has their 2¢ about how it is you should raise your child.  If you have/adopt a child, suddenly a million people will spring out of the woodwork to tell you what you're doing wrong, and most of them don't bother to leave their own box to give you advice.

I have a hard time explaining my son to other people.  He's not fragile, but he's an emotionally delicate kid.  He is easily angered and upset.  Sometimes getting his clothes on will end in a screaming, hysterical melt down.  But he's loving, funny, and really smart.  Seriously, the kid learned the alphabet by 17 months, and has been reading since he was 3.5.  He's got a ridiculously good memory.  And, damn, the kid is just funny.

Given his...unusually volatile temperament, I'm pretty sure I've heard about a million times from friends, family, and random strangers that I'm just too gentle with my son.  I need to let him just scream himself out when things go wrong for him.  I need to spank.   I need to force him to figure things out on his own.  I need to give him time outs.  I need to stop interfering when he melts down.  I need to threaten more.  I do exactly none of those things 99% of the time.  Instead, I assume my son needs help figuring out how to do what's so frustrating to him.  Him having a screaming meltdown does not absolve him of working through the situation.  It doesn't mean he never has to say sorry.  It doesn't mean he gets away with murder.  I talk him through it, we work out a solution, and he learns something.  Sometimes this takes endless repetition, but he's 5 years old.

Yes, I absolutely could let him scream.  I could mock him, or insult him, or call him a whiny baby/brat.  I could tell him that no one likes a whiner.  But as someone who's had adult meltdowns because she couldn't control her feelings, I know how shitty that is.  It took me until I was thirty years old to learn how to deal with things properly.  I couldn't "work myself down" at all.  Letting me have a panic attack about whatever it was going on at the time taught me exactly nothing except how ridiculously powerless I was.  I learned to cope.  Panic attacks could easily be dealt with by a pair of nail scissors, a box cutter, or my nails if I was desperate.  Sometimes it took one cut, sometimes it took a hundred (and I'm not exaggerating about that.)  No one taught me how to handle myself in a thoughtful, reasoned way.  I just knew how to survive the moment.

I want better than that for my son.  I sometimes see him hit and scratch himself when he gets upset.  While this may not be conscious self-mutilating behavior, I know that endorphin high can be habit forming.  When he has a meltdown, we try deep breathing first.  I'm firm about it, because he's out of control, and needs to be guided.  If that doesn't work, I find differently textured things for him to touch, and we discuss that, because it distracts his brain.  Then, once he's calm, we snuggle up and talk.  Yes, I could be stern momma, but I need him to know that although I may not love his behavior one bit, I love him.  Some days, this takes every last ounce of patience I have.  But when I hear him tell me that he knows even if he's bad that I'll love him, I know I've made the right choice.

So please, when you decide to tell me, unsolicited, that my parenting choices are crap, maybe you might want to ask me exactly why it is I do what I do.  Also, nothing personal, but go fuck yourself.  Just a little.

Back to the beginning.

Since I neglected to explain exactly what Borderline was in my first post, I'll go back and explain.

This is the diagnosis from the DSM IV.

BPD is manifested by a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in (5).
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation. This is called "splitting."
3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in (5).
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior. 
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days). 
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness. 
8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights). 
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

I spent probably 15-20 years of my life consistently nailing 7-9 of these symptoms.  From my best guess, I was exhibiting signs of major depression as early as 8, and possibly Borderline as well.  Some people think you can't diagnose personality disorders in kids, but by 8 I'm pretty sure I was getting about five of these consistently.

I know I was self-mutilating by about 10, and maybe earlier.  It was the only way I could keep myself in check emotionally.  It's funny, thinking back, I never knew that I was wrong, or different.

By high school, I'd figured out that there was something wrong with me.  I couldn't survive without peer approval; it was how I managed to feel good about myself.  Not that every single day of my life was a pit of misery, but the bad days significantly outnumbered the good.  I started asking for help around 15, I think.  I was told that "real people don't go to therapists."  Think of the message this sends to your child.  I knew I needed help.  I'd downed a large chunk of a bottle of Tylenol at about 17, but me needing help for that meant that I was a lesser person.

I didn't get any sort of help until I was in college.  I was probably 19 before I had the courage to go to a therapist.  However, because I was an undiagnosed Borderline, I wasn't getting the help I needed.  I made a game out of seeing how I could manipulate my therapists.  Not because I really wanted to, but because I needed to test my boundaries and see how much I could get away with.  Did the therapist really care?  Sure, usually they did, but they never saw through my crap.  

In the same year, I had dropped down to eating about a snack a day, and I was sleeping 12+ hours a night.  It was all I did other than going to class and work.  Not that I never went out, but given the choice, I picked sleeping it off.  I talked to my therapist at the time (we'd had one whopping session) and she informed me that my lack of eating and constant sleeping was because I hadn't found Jesus.  She refused to give me a referral to a psychiatrist.  Luckily, I had one hell of a dermatologist, who I told about everything, and she immediately gave me a referral to a psychiatrist.  I'd spend the next few years being drugged out of my gourd to theoretically keep me functional.  Let me tell you how much I fucking hate Lithium.  Hate.  I was taking 14 pills in the morning, three at lunch, and two at night.  I'd started on sleeping pills by then, because all the drugs were totally destroying my inability to sleep.

I was still a mess.  I dropped out of a prestigious Landscape Architecture program.  I'd been picked 8th out of pool of probably 60 people.  Only 20 were selected at all.  My teacher encouraged me not to quit, but I couldn't handle not doing well at it, and let's be honest...I fucked up everything else I touched, so this failure was coming.

At 22, I made one suicide attempt in March, and in November was remanded to the loving custody of a Texas state mental health facility by court order for downing a bottle of Xanax and apparently being rude to a police officer who wanted to send me home from the ER.  I don't remember any of the second incident.  It happened less than a month after my wedding.

This went on and on.  Finally at 29, I pretty much lost it.  I stopped eating for three days before I checked myself in to a mental health hospital in Georgia.  My psychiatrist at the hospital gave me a number for a therapist.  I called her.  On my initial visit, I remember her asking me if I'd do anything to stop being who I was.  I cried.  That session, I got my actual diagnosis of Borderline Personality disorder.  Ten years of therapy, and this woman nailed it in less than 10 minutes.  She recommended a therapy program for me.  For 6 months, I spent $390 out of pocket per week going to individual and group.  Six months, and I was a whole new person.  I could actually cope with things.  It was amazing.  I felt cold, sometimes, and like I felt nothing, but simple life events no longer caused me unspeakable agony.  I could actually go to social events without having to sneak off to the bathroom and cry and cut myself to handle the people. 

And that was really the problem.  I didn't have any sort of gradation on the emotional pain scale.  Someone hurt my feelings?  Felt like someone I loved had died.  Got embarrassed?  Same level of agony.  Everything hurt.  Marsha Linehan, the founder of the therapy I did, Dialectic Behavioral Therapy, says that being Borderline is like having second degree burns all over your body.  Everything, even the slightest touch causes uncontrollable agony.  To control it, Borderlines do whatever we have to.  We binge eat, we self-starve.  We overspend.  We cut, burn, scratch, and injure ourselves however we can.  We manipulate everyone we meet.  We're quick to judge, and our love can turn to scathing hatred in a second.  We always know people too well, so that when we're afraid we're going to get hurt, we can strike first, with deadly accuracy to totally cripple the person.  But 2 hours later, we love you so much, and never want you to leave us.

I haven't hit more than 1-2 symptoms at a time, and in very short duration since I graduated from Minal and Stephanie's class.  It's been tough sometimes, but I no longer stare at the future and want to die.  Lately, it's the hardest it's been since I graduated, but it's still a million times better than it was.

So there, have some back story.

You can't open the book of my life and jump in the middle.

"Recent research, however, defies the myths that BPD represents willful spoiled brattiness and never improves. Neurobiological and genetic information demonstrates that DNA vulnerability may combine with environmental circumstance to yield distinctive changes in brain function. In such individuals, those parts of the brain associated with impulsivity and emotionality may be overly stimulated."

Taken from "Who's Afraid of Borderline Personality Disorder."

Yes, that's me.  Or was me.  I'm never sure.  Six months of intensive group and individual therapy, and I was deemed fit to be released in to the wild.  Two more months of individual, and my therapist metaphorically slapped me on the forehead and declared me healed.  I guess I consider myself "in remission" or "recovering" or something.  The short version is that I'm perfectly fine regulating my emotions most of the time, and I no longer display any Borderline symptoms consistently enough to be classified as BPD again.

The treatment program I did was different than anything I've ever run across in 10 years of therapy.  I'll spend the rest of my life living with acronyms.  GIVE, PLEASE MASTER, ACCEPT, IMPROVE, DEAR MAN...  If you want to know, you can go look them up.  They're mnemonics to help me remember how to keep my emotions in check.  Because despite the fact that I'm "better" if I don't keep up with my skills, I'll stop being "better."  It's unfair on so many levels.  I can't just take meds when things get messy, because meds alone don't make BPD livable.  I liken it to being in a room with a radio on full volume, playing your least favorite song, that just won't turn off.  For me, medication was like earplugs.  Oh, sure, it was much quieter, but you could still hear that song so very quietly playing in the background...just loud enough to let you know that it was still there waiting for you.

It's getting late, and really, this video does better justice to my attempts to explain than I can right now.