Schizotypal??

After three hours of psychological testing and a week of anxiously waiting, the psychiatrist told me I don’t have BPD, I am schizotypal. Of course all I heard was the schizo and cried. 

I am so tired of crying and wanting to be “normal.” My SO acts like mental illness is a farce because there is no medical proof. I reminded him that there was no medical proof for cancer years ago. That gave him pause, but he still doesn’t believe it. He thinks that it’s just another thing for me to blame. “If you give it a name and energy, it’s already won.” No, if I give it a name and energy, I know what I’m battling. As the kids cartoon shows used to say, knowing is half the battle.

Right now I’m just exhausted and I’m not sure I’m up for the other half of the battle. 

The suicidal thoughts have gotten better with the antidepressants, but I still wonder if my family and friends would be better off without me. 

So after I regained my composure and went home, I did some research. Here is what schizotypal PD is:

Schizotypal personality disorder signs and symptoms can include:

• Being a loner and lacking close friends outside of the immediate family
• Incorrect interpretation of events, including feeling that external events have personal meaning
• Peculiar, eccentric or unusual thinking, beliefs or behavior
• Dressing in peculiar ways
• Belief in special powers, such as telepathy
• Perceptual alterations, in some cases bodily illusions, including phantom pains or other distortions in the sense of touch
• Persistent and excessive social anxiety
• Peculiar style of speech, such as loose or vague patterns of speaking or rambling oddly and endlessly during conversations
• Suspicious or paranoid ideas, hypersensitivity, and constant doubts about the loyalty and fidelity of others
• Flat emotions, or limited or inappropriate emotional responses

Signs of schizotypal personality disorder, such as increased interest in solitary activities or a high level of social anxiety, may be seen in the teen years.

While some of the symptoms match my behavior (the ones in italics), BPD is still more similar. Or so I thought until I found this site:

Out of the Fog explains that STPD can have a variety of symptoms beyond what the DSM Criteria for Schizotypal Personality Disorder (STPD) states. These include the majority of my symptoms:

• Always/Never statements
• Anger
• Avoidance
• Blaming
• Catastrophizing
• Circular Conversations
• Depression
• Sense of Entitlement
• Fear of Abandonment – HUGE for me
• Identity Disturbance
• Invalidation
• Lack of object constancy
• Low self-esteem
• Mood Swings
• Shaming
• Splitting

This feels like it came on suddenly, while I know I’ve had it my whole life. The dramatic escalation has been recent. So if it came on so quickly, why can’t I make it stop just as quickly? So sick of fighting it and being exhausted.

My SO is tired of it and emotionally exhausted by it as well. At least he can walk away from it and not have to face it every day when he wakes up. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this. Just so tired.

How do other people see life?

After the last few months of some serious emotional turmoil, I’m seeing that “normal” people don’t think or see things the way I do. At least that’s what it’s starting to look like. So my question to you is, how do normal people see the world?

A. When someone hurts you, they no longer like you/they now hate you.
Or
B. When someone hurts you, they didn’t necessarily want to hurt you, it may have been an accident.

A. When you make a mistake all of your progress is erased, you’re back to square one and it means you’re not a good person.
Or
B. When you make a mistake it’s part of growing, you may have had a slight setback, but you are a good person and can learn from it.

A. Your SO has female friends so he must be cheating on you.
Or
B. Your SO has female friends because he’s a good, like-able man.

Offline and no one noticed

I’ve been offline all weekend, except for this blog. I told one girlfriend about it because I know she would worry.

No one noticed. My closest “friends” who know I’m seriously struggling right now didn’t check in to make sure I’m ok.

Guess I have my answer to who gets the friends in a divorce.

And here I thought the new antidepressant would stop the suicidal thoughts. Realizing my “friends” aren’t there for me has negated any help from the antidepressants.

And now next time I see them I’m supposed to be happy and everything is supposed to be alright. I guess my SO was right, I should be ashamed of telling people about my issues. No one wants to hear it… They would all be better off without my shit.

Black or white? Up or down?

The constant yo-yo of emotions has got to be difficult for those around me, I cannot imaging what they think of me. However, most days I can’t imagine what it would be like to be able to think straight all day and not change my mind about a topic eight times in five minutes.

I can go from knowing something is true in the morning to thinking the complete opposite in the afternoon to not knowing what the hell by evening.  It’s horrifically stressful for me and those around me. There are times I feel like everyone’s actions are about me (when their actions are negative) and then there are times when I think that they must want something from me based on their actions. No one can ever be nice to me because they like me. I’m just not that likable. 

I love him and can’t live without him – I hate him and never want to see his face again.

I’m a terrible person and the world would be a better place without me – I’m ok.

I’m a good person – I made a mistake so I must be worthless.

Welcome to my yo-yo. There’s never any in-between – it’s always black or white. 

 

 

[note: I am using this blog to dump my feelings so that I don’t burn out my friends. My SO thinks I shouldn’t talk about my illness as if it is something I should be ashamed of. I have spent so much of my life blending into what other people think, I’m trying desperately to find my own voice. So sometimes this blog may make sense, and sometimes it’s just a dumping ground to get some of the pain out.]

 

Divorce – who gets the friends?

I’ve never made friends easily. I don’t know if it’s because I’m afraid to let someone in or afraid to be left out. But now I’m pretty sure I’m on the brink of divorce and the few close friends I have are his friends too.

So who gets the friends? The one who is easy to get along with and very social or the one with the mental illness who has severe episodes of depression…

Another med

I stopped taking my antidepressant at my SO’s request. He thought it was giving me the rage issues. I had a PD appt the next week. I told him I felt better off the antidepressant and that my new therapist wasn’t sure what it is, but I’m definitely crazy (yes, that’s how I’m dealing with it).

After 3 appts with her and no firm diagnosis, she said if things didn’t improve in a few months she could recommend a psych eval. I said why wait?!? I’ve been dealing with this for 20 years – even when I didn’t know I was dealing with it. Now that I’ve been working on it for over a year with little progress, I need to know what is wrong with me. Or is my SO right and I’m just lazy…

Went to the psych eval specialist Monday. LOVED her! She was kind and not judgmental when I told her about some of my stupid decisions lately. She had me come back to finish my testing on Tuesday. Originally she said results would take two weeks. At the end of my second appt she said she would take my files home over the weekend and have results by next Wednesday. My talk therapist is on vacation for two weeks— gotta love that— so I would have had to wait until the beginning of next month! The specialist gave me a discounted rate so that I could go to her for the results. And her only open appointment is on Tuesday- She said she’d be ready for me.

I’m kinda terrified to find out the results. I’ve been very depressed on the mood stabilizers for the last two weeks. And I’ve woken up almost every morning thinking about killing myself. It’s never been this bad. When I found out that my family will be out of town for a variety of events one night next week and my first thought was, that would be the perfect time to kill myself, I called my PD and scheduled an appt for first thing this am. Luckily, he could fit me in and prescribed a new anti that works with the leveler. He said to take half a pill each day for the next week so I wouldn’t get nauseous. I said I’d rather be nauseous than suicidal and took a full pill at lunch.

Hopefully, with the new meds, the results of the tests this next week, I can finally get somewhere. My SO is still “done,” but I’m at a point where I cannot care about that. I want to be happy and his attitude/behavior is his issue… Now if I could only believe that for a full day and not ride the roller coaster of doubt…

Group Therapy

The people in Group looked so normal. I don’t know what I expected- I guess being crazy doesn’t mean you look crazy.

(My use of the word crazy is to try and make light of my HUGE fear of this diagnosis. If you’re offended, feel free to stop reading.)

I’m in a DBT group – more learning skills than sharing stories. Which is the type of situation I am comfortable in. Please, give me some homework/tools I can start using right now! I’ve been misdiagnosed for so long, I feel like I have to catch up.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from group. I was terrified. I wanted to run away screaming and crying. But I will not get any better doing that. So I sucked it up and went.

Suck it up- that’s one of the things my SO has been telling me my entire time with him. I wish it was just that easy. After reading about the traits people with bpd and bipolar have, my actions and behaviors start to make sense – I only wish it wasn’t too late for my SO and me.

I’ve already started looking at apartments and trying to figure out a budget for myself away from my family. God does that hurt. But I need to get healthy and stand on my own two feet. My SO has enabled me my entire adult life and I don’t think I can get healthy with him. Please don’t get me wrong! My SO is an amazing man. Now that I am able to remove some of the mental illness lens (or at least see there’s a lens there) I can see how amazing he really is and how absolutely horrific I’ve been to him.

I wish I could turn back the clock and see this illness 20 years ago, but I can’t. So my only hope is to get healthy and focus on being happy the rest of my life. Even if my relationship with my SO is over, I have a lot of life and love to experience yet!

Can I just get a diagnosis please?

I saw a new therapist yesterday who is a specialist in BPD. After one hour she said I don’t have BPD…

Maybe. After an hour of talking with her she didn’t think it was BPD. She thinks it’s possibly bipolar or a mood disorder. Great, fabulous. Can someone just help me figure out what the blankis wrong with me?

I am starting DBT group tonight. No matter what the diagnosis, at least DBT is a place to start.

Is it too late?

 

I see the specialist today. After the last few days, I’m terrified that it may be too late. Not for me. I will go on and get better. But have my behaviors and words destroyed my family? I don’t have the strength to say, Has my disease destroyed my family? I’m tired of blaming things. I’m tired of being out of emotional control. I’m tired of constantly being afraid and not being able to show anyone.

I wish I could convince my SO to read An Open Letter to “Non BPDs” from those of us with Borderline Personality Disorder or even read Stop Walking on Eggshells (just one of the jems that hit home with me in that book: Borderlines tend to see the world in black and white. And they tend to assume everyone else sees things the same way.). But he has too much on his plate right now. Time for me to put on my big girl pants and figure this out.

 

Feel like a Sham

After reading more and more about BPD, I feel like a sham. I don’t cut, I don’t hurt myself. I will never commit suicide.

Don’t get me wrong, out of the 9 criteria for BPD, I can honestly say I’ve experienced all of them, some MUCH more severely than others.

I don’t like pain – emotional or physical. And since I have way more than enough emotional pain right now, the idea of adding physical pain is too overwhelming.

I seriously contemplated suicide in my teens. But now I have other obligations that I value more than my own life or happiness. My daughter made me promise I would never commit suicide after one of her classmates found their mom when she killed herself. I will NEVER hurt my kids that way. It’s just something I cannot do. I would rather live in a box eating from garbage cans.

Part of the reason this diagnosis is so hard to believe is because I’m a fairly successful person. My friends who I have told have been incredibly supportive. I don’t know if they believe me 100%, but they love me and want me to get healthy.

My SO thinks it’s just another thing for me blame in a long history of things to blame so I don’t have to take responsibility for my actions. There are some very good friends who I haven’t told yet because they aren’t going to believe it. I don’t let many people see my crazy.

Since I’m functional, I feel like a sham. But just because I have had a lot of practice hiding my crazy so most people don’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I suppose that I have enough irrational fear of abandonment, emotional stability and rage issues alone to justify the diagnosis.

I see the BPD specialist tomorrow for my “assessment.”

Fingers crossed that they can help!