I get hysterical, hysteria

A lot of people are talking about their anxiety or depression these days. I think with the state of the world most people are anxious or depressed or both and it's good to talk about these subjects, get them out in the open. But today I want to tackle a subject near and dear to my heart: Cluster B personality disorders. In particular, borderline personality disorder and histrionic personality disorder, a complementary combination of mental illnesses that I deal with on the regular.

I was taking abnormal psychology when I realized this double doozy was a part of me. We had to have regular therapy sessions while in abnormal psychology because you will swear you have every mental illness listed in the DSM-5. It was in these required therapy sessions that I started to figure it out. I felt bad for my poor therapist, a girl who had just gotten her PhD and probably was horrified when I spilled my guts to her. She should be grateful I graduated before the Great breakdown of 2008. (More on that later.) 

Especially in my teens and twenties, I was emotionally overreactive, needed to be the center of attention, and was overly dramatic. (I majored in theatre, of all things!) I suffered from incredibly low self-esteem, created relationships in my mind that were more intense than they actually were, and had the biggest fear of rejection I've ever heard of. Walking through my twenties was like swimming through quicksand and it took my entire thirties to get on stable-ish footing. I mean, let's face it, The things you put in your head are always going to be there, lingering, waiting. It's what makes being an addict in recovery so difficult.

So, here I am, a hysterical borderline personality. I sometimes feel bad for my husband because that kind of crazy doesn't hide. It parades itself around for the entire town to see. The little thing can set me off. I don't necessarily need to be the center of attention anymore, but it's still fun. My self-esteem is way better now. I wish I had my forty-year-old self-esteem when I had my twenty-year-old body. But it is what it is. My concern with my appearance now is more health issues than actual appearance. I realize now that the depth of the feelings that I had in some my relationships was just me incorrectly processing my sexuality in some cases, in other cases it was mistaking a deep and meaningful friendship for that kind of friendship that turns into love. 

Personality disorders are difficult to own up to because you have to admit you are a shitty person. I mean, you may, in fact, be a good person, but you have shitty instincts. You really have to reflect on the fact that there is something ultimately fucked up about your personality, your soul, your very being. if you're a religious person, you might call it sin. If you're not, you'll just call it being fucked up. Wired wrong. I don't know the research on it, maybe I'll look into that next, but I think childhood traumas have a lot to do with Cluster B disorders. Not to blame it on anything, just curious to see how nature versus nurture wins out there.

9.1% of Americans have a Cluster B disorder. That's a lot of messed-up personalities interacting with other messed-up personalities. Imagine a hysterical borderline personality winds up with a narcissistic bipolar sociopath. But Like I said, we'll talk about the Great Breakdown later, in a different blog. 

You need to be really authentic and introspective with yourself if you have a Cluster B personality disorder. Realize that as much as you want to be a good person, you're really a piece of shit and you have to make a choice every day to not act shitty. Sometimes, when I'm about to have a temper tantrum, I take a beat and figure out why. Most of the time I can solve the issue without having to result to that crappier version of myself. Sometimes it just happens. And just like an addict, because let's face it, Cluster B's are addicts to their own behavior, you have to start over from day one, admit you have a problem, and go from there.

Or you can continue not to realize you have any issues and be a shitty person. 

It's really your choice. After all, it's all in your head.

 

Being Authentic

I feel like I am always grieving a loss. This time someone very special to me, some one I considered a role model and a very dear friend, was snatched suddenly from us in a car wreck. Her life impacted so many people, so many people are grieving her loss, cherishing her memory, thinking of her, right now. Including myself. I keep trying to wrap my head around why someone like her, someone who could light up any room, who has a loving husband and beautiful children, could be taken like that. Selfishly, I think to myself, why am I still here? What is my purpose here on Earth? I have so much less to offer than she did.

I kept thinking this to myself and then there were two things that just made it click for me. One is her final cover photo for her Facebook profile, that she posted just a day after her birthday, “Don’t trade your authenticity for approval”. The second was a girl speaking on some YouTube video my husband was watching shortly after I found out my friend had passed. She said something to the effect of: everyone wants to think they’re a good person, but we all want the biggest piece of cake or the last piece of bacon. It is whether you act on those selfish impulses or pass them along to others and that if we just reflected more on ourselves, we wouldn’t have such a mental health crisis in our country.

I don’t know why this clicked for me except that my friend was one of those exceptional people who told it to you straight and was always very open with me about her mental health struggles. I could tell her anything I struggled with and know that she wouldn’t judge me or laugh at me. She would help me. So, it clicked with me that the best way I could be honoring her life through mine is by being authentic with everyone about my own mental health struggles. To reflect upon myself and see why I struggle with the things I do and to perhaps help someone else struggling with the same mental health issues.

I minored in psychology in college, mostly to deal with my own mental health issues, and I worked for a year as a paraprofessional psychologist in North Carolina. I’m by no means licensed or even very qualified to be giving anyone mental health advice. Everything I say is a reflection upon myself and upon my learning and observing. I am by no means suggesting that anyone follow anything I say or do. I am just wanting to be open, honest, and authentic to honor my friend’s life. If you feel like sharing with me, that’s amazing and I will definitely be open to all stories that are shared.

Just to end this off on a funny note: I definitely have an obsessive part of my personality. Or at the very least, I did into my late twenties. (Teenage psychology is fascinating and different than adult psychology, by the way.) My poor friend moved to our school for her SENIOR year (which I always thought was terrible, but she made the best out of it) and was stuck taking FRESHMAN PE with my class. We had already met over the summer, at band camp, where we were both on the drumline. (Sidenote: It was actually her that convinced me to do band instead of softball, since my mom was making me choose.) So we spent our PE class doing as little as possible to pass (which wasn’t hard since almost every class was either walking around the gym or playing what we dubbed “redneck ball”) and talking endlessly about our common crush. The man she wound up marrying and having children with.

As I said, I was obsessive. I was convinced that this boy was my soul mate. This had started a whole year before I met this girl, when I was in 8^th grade. Our middle school and high school were on the same campus (small town growing up) and this guy was in band and we had crossed paths doing concerts or when he played baseball with my cousin. He was just so nice to me and he had the same name my dad did and my dad had just passed away that year. So, to say I could talk her ear off about him was an understatement. After all, I had written this guy a HUGE letter (it was the 90s after all, it may have even been “18 pages FRONT AND BACK!”) and I was convinced he was THE ONE. I had been jealous of any girl that he paid attention to and his Junior prom date was my sworn enemy. (Though, truth be told we’re friends now and I adore her.) But when my friend talked about him, there was something in the back of my mind that said, “This is right. She’s the one for him.” I saw the way he looked at her, I saw the way she made him smile, the way she cared about him. I saw the way he cared about her. And when they did officially start dating, my friend had the decency to ask me how I felt about that. How did I feel about that? Excited! I wanted both of them to be happy and they made each other happy. And my obsession disappeared overnight because I knew they were right together. Though, he did very sweetly (or very forgetfully, not sure really) keep my HUGE letter tucked into his glovebox for a while. I mean, it was very flattering.

My point being, I could be open with her about my obsession with her future husband and still know that even twenty-six years later she would know that I do love him but I love her just as much. Maybe even more at some points. I will miss her so much. Hearing stupid stories about what dumb thing her husband did or how proud she was of her son’s achievements or how much she loved her daughter, but she definitely was starting to know how her mom felt with her as teenager now. The simple act of tagging her in a picture or meme, liking one of her smart-ass comments, laughing at one of her jokes. Those of us here still, those of us will miss her until we join her, must always remember to be our authentic selves. Because that is who she would want us to be.