CAPTAIN'S BLOG
I can remember the person I once was. The lover that I once was.
In my last relationship, I had established a self confidence that I could really rely on. I knew the person I was and the person I wanted to be. I had the inner strength to count on my own self worth - I was who I was, and I liked who I was. I believed in myself, and I believed in my partner. Realizing that I couldn't believe in my partner dealt a severe blow to my ability to trust myself. And in my ability to trust my partner. I've been rebuilding identity and self confidence since. How could I have been so wrong about someone? It's a devastating question.
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I have loved many people with neurological personality orders in my life, and I've been close to many more, including myself. Perhaps there is an as-yet undiagnosed personality disorder rattling around in my head - or maybe my ADHD is as disruptive in my interpersonal life as it is with my work life, making an additional disorder unnecessary.
I know what it is like both to struggle with impulses, thoughts, and feelings that are hard or impossible to control. To be so overwhelmed with emotional intensity as to have no other recourse but to relieve it directly, regardless of the consequences. I've been an angry teenage boy punching holes in the walls, and a heartbroken teenage girl experiencing terrible emotional pain crying for hours for weeks at a time. Trying to make people love me - and trying to hurt people any way I can. Trying to seek help any way I can - and trying to protect myself anyway I can. Sacrificing too much to get too little, while the people without disorders look on in confusion. It can be hard for onlookers to understand the nature and impact of someone's disorder on their behaviour. It can be even harder to figure out what to do about it - oftentimes the person seems locked into behaving a certain way. No matter the input, the output remains the same. Rage, sadness, or anxiety of a level that your average person has never experienced. The way that these emotions twist the behaviours of people in the moment, and over time, is what is often misunderstood, and what is wanted to be understood by people like me and the people I've loved. Read More for my thoughts on what people ought to know about the people in their lives with a personality disorder of one sort or another. How should we treat our friends, family, and loved ones who have the type of disorders that make it hard to love them? How should we feel when we decide someone isn't in the right place for us to stay near them? Millions of people across the world are faced with this very decision - whether that behavioural disorder is among the Cluster B personality disorders, one of the other categories, or comes with the falsely legitimizing label of "Religion". Would You Leave Your Partner If You Found Someone Who Was A Better Match? Or: Monogamy Vs Polyamory7/10/2016 This is one of the bazillions of questions asked by the OKCupid dating site.
I think it was worded somewhat more precisely like this: "If you met someone who was a better match for while in a dedicated relationship, would you pursue that person?" And my answer was Yes. And I would really expect anyone to do this if the same happened to them. This doesn't mean that I don't believe in commitment or working to make things work. In fact, I believe in them very much - I don't automatically think that the ways in which two people don't get along means it's not worth working at. The nature of gradual change works with this, as people tend to change gradually instead of suddenly, cushioning the shock of when people change for the worse, instead of the better. Often, some reflection can reveal a startling delta between the person one first met and the person they are with now. But here's where polyamoury comes into it, and changes everything, from a heartless and irrational endeavour to a loving and rational one. First up, I'll quickly state again that I do not in any way think all people with BPD are bad, or dangerous, or should be emotionally avoided.
Aria was unable to control herself, and she reacted the way she did because there was no other possible way for her to act. She is a victim of circumstance and bad luck, and I pity her for that. I was a victim of her circumstance as well, unfortunately. Below the jump is my response to a commenter, whose post you can find here. My dad sent me this article. Unsurprisingly, I think the article missed the mark. What it calls 'reality', is more like 'various logical fallacies trussed up with transparent political rhetoric'.
Contained below is my response to the article, paying attention to particularly incorrect thinking, reasoning, and conclusion. "socialism has turned oil-rich Venezuela into a place where there are shortages of everything from toilet paper to beer, where electricity keeps shutting down, and where there are long lines of people hoping to get food, people complaining that they cannot feed their families." Venezuela is not the US. Venezuela has a history of political dysfunction (which is a future the US seems to be sprinting towards - political dysfunction which was caused by the US, by the way. And bernie isn't calling for nationalizing anything - so drawing a comparison between a country which has mostly certainly overnationalised its industries to the US and Bernie Sanders who isn't calling for anything of the sort is a clear misrepresentation. There's also no reason to think that Venezuela is an authoritative example of what socialism is like. Venezuela is a mire of corruption, cronyism, and might over right. Sounds like the US - in which case my suggestion would be to get someone who is anti-establishment in office, which Bernie is the only practical candidate. And don't forget that the President is just a president - he can't Socialize the country overnight unilaterally, it has to go through the houses and pass the Supreme Court just like everything else. I'm sure we'll both agree that Hillary is a bad presidential candidate for lots of reasons - in my opinion, her representation of and support for the status quo is something that must be avoided. And Trump is, of course, a know-nothing candidate. He may be antiestablishment - even though a deeper search of his social and political ties proves that be false - but he doesn't value rationalism or the truth, and there is tons of evidence that Bernie does. " whether in Venezuela or in other countries around the world that have turned their economies over to politicians and bureaucrats to run." That's communism - not socialism. Socialism is the embracement of the idea that social and economic freedom are a part of the definition of 'freedom'. You aren't really free if you're one paycheck away from losing your house or one doctor's trip away from bankruptcy or if you have almost no vertical economic mobility. "That should certainly reduce capitalist "exploitation," shouldn't it?" Federal exploitation is not what happens when we control the extent and power of corporations. This is a false dichotomy. Power concentrated in the hands of the few is dangerous, whether it's in the government or a corporation or a cartel of corporations. "But people who attribute income inequality to capitalists exploiting workers, as Karl Marx claimed, never seem to get around to testing that belief against facts -- such as the fact that none of the Marxist regimes around the world has ever had as high a standard of living for working people as there is in many capitalist countries." That's only true if you cherry pick your results - the easiest is example is in the years after The New Deal but before Supply-Side Economics. The wealthyand the middle and lower classes had their wages increasing faster than inflation and faster than the cost of living. This is why all those people were able to afford to go to school and buy houses and travel and buy expensive new things - all without credit. Their dollars were literally worth more. Supply Side economics fucked all that up - the systems that encouraged reinvestment and raises for workers - largely to avoid taxation, like Brian did at Storm Smart - were removed. Low taxes on corporations means that it's more cost efficient to take money out of the market instead of reinvesting in the market and most importantly, in increased wages for workers. When workers have more money they can buy more things which allows more companies to pay more and whaddaya know - everyone's rising with the tide. The reference to Karl Marx here is as much a red herring as it is a strawman - no one is talking about Marxism. The idea is simply to encourage reinvestment instead of stockpiling. Our current market encourages stockpiling, which is resulting in a small number of rich people while everyone else gets very little. "Facts are seldom allowed to contaminate the beautiful vision of the left. What matters to the true believers are the ringing slogans, endlessly repeated." Not at all like the constant references to ideas that no one is seriously suggesting with inflammatory and misleading language about the evidence that is available for the various economic models out there. Supply side economics is clearly the loser here - unless you're that 1% + politicians that benefits from it. Scientifically speaking, supply economics is a bust, bigtime. It results in a great deal of income inequality, and income inequality is bad for the stability of a society. The French Revolutions occurred because there the poor were expected to pay for all government expenses, while the wealthy ended up paying nothing. It's simply not economically sustainable. "When Senator Sanders cries, "The system is rigged!" no one asks, "Just what specifically does that mean?" or "What facts do you have to back that up?"" No, actually, lots of people have been asking those questions, and those questions have been answered quite well. Obviously the political system is rigged - how anyone could dispute that, I can't say. The US political system is obviously at the beck and call of money and the corporations that control that money. Can that realistically be disputed by anyone? I thought the Conservatives hated big government - isn't government colluding with corporations a problem? "The system is rigged" meaning, 1. System: an entity that is constrained by processes and laws, 2. a rigged system, an entity that is constrained by process whose outcome is determined or disproportionately influenced by an interested party. The facts are there because they're not hidden from anyone - it is open knowledge that the US system is based around money, not freedom of speech or ideas. If Bernie Sanders can't become president, it's because he didn't promise himself to the right people, and that's a problem. "In 2015, the 400 richest people in the world had net losses of $19 billion. If they had rigged the system, surely they could have rigged it better than that." That is hilarious 'evidence' - they are still a part of a fluctuating economic system and it does still take risk to make money. Also, that's in the world - a large portion of those people aren't from the US, but are from countries with wealthy oil-baron type families. There's also a few from Mexico, interestingly. And losing 19 billion spread out over all 400 people isn't a lot of money lost, especially since the net worth of these people is 81 billion. So each of them lost a few hundred million dollars if divided evenly between them all. Musta been tough to make ends meet. "But the very idea of subjecting their pet notions to the test of hard facts will probably not even occur to those who are cheering for pure capitalism and for other "bright" ideas of the political right." Fixed that line for him :) "How many of the people who are demanding an increase in the minimum wage have ever bothered to check what actually happens when higher minimum wages are imposed? " Scientifically speaking, when the minimum wage increases more money is available to the local economy which allows more people to spend more money which adds money to the economy. The idea that people get fired when that happens is a myth, except for the exploitative part where it's cheaper to have 4 part-time employees than it is to have 3 full-time employees. Sure, one person loses a job, but since there's more money in the local economy, he is much more likely to be able to get a full time job than he was if the money in the local economy stayed the same. So in the very short term things are tougher, but things rapidly relax and expand after some time. "the unemployment rate for black males that age was never under 30 percent for more than 20 consecutive years, from 1971 through 1994. In many of those years, the unemployment rate for black youngsters that age exceeded 40 percent and, for a couple of years, it exceeded 50 percent." That probably has much more to do with the number of black people the US puts in prison, thus preventing them from getting work. Also, the 70's to 90''s was when Supply Side Economics was at it's height - given that raised unemployment is a hallmark of income inequality and Supply Side Economics, it makes much more sense to associate the unemployment rate with that, rather than the minimum wage, which study after study has shown improves the employment rate, but only when the rest of the economy is healthy and hiring, and since hiring and training is an expense, it tends to be restricted when Supply Side Economics are in force. Also, it's strange to only report black unemployment rates - it's all too easy for good old fashioned racism to skew that result, especially in the 70's and 80's. "Most low-wage jobs are entry-level jobs that young people move up out of, after acquiring work experience and a track record that makes them eligible for better jobs. But you can't move up the ladder if you don't get on the ladder." But that's the problem right there: Most minimum wage jobs aren't being occupied by young people, but by middle-aged and middle-class people. And there isextremely low economic mobility - as I am all too familiar, there simply isn't enough money to give employees raises or to add or promote them from within. It's just like my first job - and almost every job I've had since - in Florida told me: "There are no raises, there are no promotions." There are no better jobs. They are already taken, and because the economy isn't expanding because it's too easy to take money out of the economy, there aren't very many new 'better' jobs being made available. There aren't any companies taking risks and hiring less-experienced people who might turn out to be a bright spark because there just isn't enough money available to do that. "The great promise of socialism is something for nothing." That's what Conservatives certainly think, but in fact it is just a scientific understanding of the way money influences behaviour and decisions. The money comes from somewhere - duh. It should come from the people who can most easily afford it, as the French were brave enough to recognize, becoming the inspiration for the establishment of the US. "It is one of the signs of today's dumbed-down education that so many college students seem to think that the cost of their education should -- and will -- be paid by raising taxes on "the rich."" Gah, people getting educated and thinking they know better than people who haven't gone to college! Obviously their knowledge is inferior to mine, because everyone knows that facts and the real world has a liberal bias! Don't trust people who go to school for a long time to learn intimately how things work and how the pieces that make up those things works. "Here again, just a little check of the facts would reveal that higher tax rates on upper-income earners do not automatically translate into more tax revenue coming in to the government. Often high tax rates have led to less revenue than lower tax rates." As usual, those are not only not all the facts, but a misrepresentation of the actual facts. It's not automatic, but it is almost always the case. When it is isn't, that is an indication of a corrupt tax system with too many exploitable loopholes, and the wealthy's ability to invest their money in things like tax havens and other things that the poor can't afford and in some cases don't even know about. The poor and middle class can't pay all the taxes simply because we don't make enough money to pay for everything, especially when our income has remained flat for the last 40 years. "In a globalized economy, high tax rates may just lead investors to invest in other countries with lower tax rates. That means that jobs created by those investments will be overseas." Sure, but that's only a tiny part of the equation - most people don't want to leave the country they live in, and it is expensive, financially and socially, to leave the US for another country with lower taxes. So in other words, higher tax rates does not automatically result in lower taxes - it depends on the interoperating systems and the rules that govern them - with the irrational economic actor doing a lot of work, influenced by the system they live within they are. "None of this is rocket science." Rocket Science is a good deal easier than economics, because people don't behave perfectly within a narrow range of behaviours. There is no law of human interaction or of economics - our economics will have to grow, change, and adapt while we do. At the moment, financial inequality is a problem in many places in the world. Bernie Sanders seems like the most likely candidate to fix such things - and comparing him or his ideas to Marxism in any serious way is to utterly misrepresent reality. But, without doing that, Conservatives haven't a single evidencial leg to stand on, and that really seems to generate a lot of heat while they lie to themselves and the public about the reality of the world and of how the people within it behave. "I think there are times when it is appropriate to convey anger to someone. I think it's appropriate to be motivated by a feeling of outrage when something that has been done is truly outrageous, is truly a sign of a kind of callousness that is causing harm in this world."
-From Sam Harris on the James Atlucher Show One of the most uncomfortable things about the way I feel, and one of the reasons that it has taken me so long to get a handle on things - with progress continuing to be uneven - is how much anger and even hate I feel. I'm not an angry or hateful person - I could get carried away by my passions all too easily, but my intention was never to hurt anyone. Of course my Facebook arguments are as legendary as they are infamous, but they were driven not by anger, but really by a simple passion for the truth and for understanding. Frustration enters the fray once understanding cannot be found, as others are all too vulnerable to the feeling of fear and dread that is associated with being wrong, especially in a public forum. I think this is a public and social weakness - being wrong is in fact a great thing. When you predict(ed) some result, and get another, that means one of your assumptions is incorrect and needs to be analysed and updated or replaced. This is the maxim by which I've lived my life - being wrong or experiencing something unexpected is an opportunity to learn. So indeed, I often reflect on the things I ought to learn from the utter failure of Aria's and I's relationship - which is an unexpected result. It is certainly the best result - but that is based mostly on the person Aria has revealed herself to be, rather than my own desires. But Aria shows that person only to a select few, and good news: I am one of the lucky ones. Only the 'blacklisted' people get to see the real her - the her that shows up when the chips are down and the pressure is on and it's make-or-break time. She ruthlessly protects herself and is only looking out for herself. I don't work like that - I can without a doubt be selfish, but I'm not cruel. I may take an extra toke or drink a bit more vodka than is equal, but I never take everything. It's just a gross thing to do. I've never felt less like my true self than over the last couple of months. Yesterday, at last, I got a taste of something closer to the real me - the joy of helping Marion move with the help of the Pulsar was incredibly infectious and healthy. I should spend more time with people - the many small interactions I had throughout the day, making people laugh and smile, maybe some flirting here and there, and looking into Marion's beautiful eyes while we're stuffed in the elevator with all of our things - it reminded me of the person I used to be. Passionate, not angry. Loving, not suspicious. Trusting, not paranoid. 'Jessiethelover' is a username I chose rather seriously. The net and my mother tell me to keep the damage Aria has done to me to myself. Fake it till you make it. I just can't do that - I'm not ashamed of admitting that the things Aria has done has driven me to do things and feel things and imagine things and hope for things I never could have imagined before. I did those things - I'm responsible for my actions, and I regret them. I know I did my best in the moment and did my best to give myself time to normalize my emotions, and did my best to use the rationale and advice of others' to replace my own emotionally charged ones. I'm happy to apologize for the things I've done. I'm not ashamed of that because I know that those feelings aren't me and that I don't want to feel them. I do my best to think about positive things to break out of the loops of negative thinking. As neuroplasticity suggests, this is a time-consuming process, and the brain can work against itself here - Acute Stress Reaction disorder and C-PTSD essentially force the brain to relive those moments, thus reinforcing the stress reaction. It's a time consuming and difficult process to interrupt, hence the high suicide rates in people who experience PTSD; transpeople it seems, included. Mindfulness has been as critical a tool as it always has been, but against the tidal wave of emotions - increased by exposure to Aria's emotional extremes (BPD Fleas, a phenomenon confirmed by my therapist) - it has been a palm tree straining in the hurricane fruitlessly in the intensity of my emotions. But progress, however slow, especially to the outside world, is being made. I look forward to becoming the person I am supposed to be - and not the person Aria was trying to make me into. --- Some cool quotes from Sam Harris while I listen to his talk: "I think Godwin's law is socially harmful - there are some comparisons which can be made towards the Nazi's. There are some Nazi-like things in this world today. It's a shorthand way of thinking that I think is dangerous in this world." - Sam Harris An interesting statement. "If you were going to make one change in your life that would make your life and everyone's life around you better, it would be being radically honest across the board." Oh Sam. Marry me? Today was a wonderful day.
It started out like any other day: coffees and a joint in bed while watching the episode of Kitchen Nightmares we fell asleep watching the night before. Marion insisted as first that we put the TV in the living room, but once it actually came down to it, we ended up putting it in our room anyways. We gathered some things, and got ready to leave. While Marion was having a smoke, RE let me know that she would be moving out in a month. That sucks. It's hard not to wonder if it's because of me. I'm sure it must be hard to be around me these days. When I'm out and about and socialising, it's much easier to forget about things and just talk, but sometimes I'm in the middle of, well maybe I should start calling them episodes (all the cool cats have episodes), a sad or suspicious time. Every time I can't find something it's automatic to figure that Aria has taken it. And while it is most certainly not the case every time, it is sometimes the case. It sucks when I find something I've accused Aria of stealing - it definitely makes me look bad, too. Like a paranoid crazy person. And you know what: Sometimes I am a crazy person. I don't know why some people don't seem to understand my situation, other than a strange bias towards Aria that she mostly certainly doesn't deserve, but maybe a Wiki entry will help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_stress_reaction And indeed, my therapist has indicated that I perfectly fit the bill for ASR and now that my symptoms have persisted for over a month, C-PTSD. Yaaaay psychology. It's been interesting talking to the therapist about all of this. Unfortunately an hour is not enough time to explain that has happened - the last 6 months alone are an unbelievably dense adventure. If only the pre-Aria Jessica could have known what was in her future. And in our talks, that has been one of the key reasons that it has taken me so long to get over what Aria did and said. The extreme unexpectedness of everything has a strong impact on the way people react. I was expecting a poly-breakup: we're not really breaking up, but things need to change dramatically because I am not happy. Ever since that New Years party, maybe it was the LSD or maybe it was just me, but I saw Aria for who she was and doing the 300ug dose just reinforced that observation. Anyways. I need not defend myself anymore, despite my readiness to do so. It's a hard impulse to resist - I still feel unheard by many and gravely misunderstood by most. I don't know why her friends are harassing me even still - I'm having enough trouble as it is. What I've said has happened happened. Psychologically speaking, my reaction here is, somewhat amusingly, astoundingly normal. Being intentionally hurt by someone you loved and trusted suddenly and without warning and without expectation is traumatising for the brain. Now that I've established that fact, let's move on with the real interesting stuff: My day today. So it was pretty upsetting getting the letter from RE today, but Marion helped me deal with the irrational(?) fears and insecurities such an event digs up in me during my time of weakness. We gathered some bags, and headed down to the Pulsar. We drop some bags in the Pulsar, I grab the insurance papers, and we walk to the insurance place. Today was such a gorgeous day - truly the gods shined on us this day. It'd been raining for days and suddenly today happens, right when it's time to move! Meeting someone like Marion, the Pulsar totally killing it all day today, and such perfect weather so perfectly timed can make a girl wonder sometimes. We will see what the future brings though. I've definitely learned to be cynical, if nothing else. But hey - at this point, I'm ready for pretty much anything. Please, no one take that as a challenge though. I've never thought so often about suicide in my life. Nor have I ever felt less like myself and more like someone else - but sometimes, especially today with Marion, I've never felt more like myself in my entire life. I socialised like a motherfucker today - I'm making Marion look like the charismatic equivalent of a bunch of wet rocks. And wet rocks look cool as fuck- so you know I'm rollin' deep in the charisma. We get back to the car and suddenly I realize: I locked the keys in the car. There's no spare. Locksmiths are expensive, and take a long time. The car is, surprisingly, non-trivial to break into. It's like... fully locked. Windows up. T-tops on. Hatch on. Fucking. Hell. Given our lack of funds and time, it comes down to breaking into the car. We head upstairs, grab a few wire hangars, and head back down. Interesting shapes are bent, blind fumbling is had, and then like some goddamn movie, teamwork - me guiding Marion's ever-so-talented hands by looking through the window on the opposite side. After about 15 minutes of fiddling, I'm feeling like I'm getting close, but it looks like Marion's design is better, so I guide her towards the lock, and pulls, and... BAM! DOOR UNLOCKED! What a goddamn glorious moment that was. Fortunately, getting going after that went off without a hitch. Except that we couldn't get the hatch off. First the screws were too tight - again, Marion somehow managed to remove a stripped screw from a thin piece of metal. Then, the nuts were too tight. A blowjob seemed to help, but we still couldn't get the hatch off without a ratchet set. We borrowed Aaron's - I need a 14, his only went to 13. We had flat tires and just a bit of old gas - so we limped down to the gas station, the ass swerving a bit on the very low tires. Oops. :/ Hit the gas station, gas it up for the first time in over a year, rejoice that Aria isn't around to experience any of this, blow a kiss to Marion, and over to the air pump. Fortunately I check the tires before paying, and notice that one of the hubcaps is pinning the stem. Shit. Prying and pulling results in cuts at worst and failure at best. With few other options, the sunglasses come off and I ask for one of the guys in the gas station to help get the hubcap off. A few anemic tries later, he suggests he gets some gloves. He does, and tries anemically a few more times. Marion gives it a valiant effort, but alas, this hubcap can only be removed by one person: Me. So I throw the gloves on my (slightly) bloodied hands and give it to good tugs. It's firm in it's attachment - that sounds familiar - so I give it my all with one lat big tug and with a sound of relaxing metal it vibrates as I fall back onto the pavement. Profuse thanks are had, pressured air is added to four vessels, one of which was completely empty, and hands are washed. We jump in the car an sure enough, the car repair places are closed. So I try to figure out who does car stuff on a sunday.... and eventually I remember Lordco. Thank fuck for Lordco, everybody. They have saved my ass more than once. So we hammer down to the nearest Lordco, I bust inside and ask if I can borrow a size 14 wrench. The nice lady says sure, and I remove the remaining four bolts and two gas stays. The hatch can now be... detached. We drive it home, leave it in our neighbours' parking spot (with his permission) with the T-Tops and make our first trip to Marion's. My pills are kicking in - tune in for more TAELES OF INTRIGUE tomorrow. In Response To: "Aria's the real victim, you're a narcissist, emotionally manipulative, and evil."5/27/2016 In particular, this comment. 'Markus' said a bunch of mean things in his comment. The following is my response, plus some additional thoughts. Hey Gabriel! Strange to hear from you like this. What brought this on, exactly? Did she say something, or did you just randomly decide to read my blog one day? First, I'm concerned about your statements. You don't appear to know what happened. I'm not sure how one could construe Aria to be the victim in this situation. Sure things didn't go the way she wanted - but she forced things to go the way they did, every step of the way. Remember that time I calmly and politely emailed Aria about my collar and cuffs and the cat? Just so we're clear, she most assuredly gave them to me, and they simply /are/ my property. Still not sure why she took the lights, other than what she said: she felt entitled to them. As soon as she received that email, Aria turned and as far as I can tell, she hasn't turned back. Especially given your post. And besides, how can Aria be the victim if she's not upset about what happened? I heard she had already moved on, which makes sense given the 'white/black' dichotomy that people with BPD are commonly associated with. I'm simply a 'bad person' to her, which is true, because I value truth, kindness, and honesty - things which I learned recently are the antithesis of Aria. The very fact that you are here saying these things - exactly the same things Aria has said to me in her emails - tells me that she no interest in the truth whatsoever. Thank fuck I found out before we actually got married or had kids. The stories of people with BPD and marriages with children are fucking terrifying. Read one - I dare you. I do have some personality issues to work through, no doubt. Not as much as Aria - especially if she continues to deny to herself what she did to me and Riley - but I'm just a good-old-fashioned codependent person. I define myself via my partner, and I literally live for my partner. Aria was my /everything/. It turns out that's a pretty bad strategy if your partner is a shitty person - so establishing a true self-identity is what we're working on with my therapist now. It'd be all too easy to blame that lack of self on Aria - as that is a common trait of people with BPD - but I've lacked a clear self for a long time. Being a young suppressed transperson was hard. Fortunately, Marion is also a very independent person, which gives me lots of space to explore, and she's easy to learn from. Whereas Aria feared any changes in my personality, Marion welcomes them, which to be honest is a weird feeling, but I have been told it's a good thing, so I'm going with it :) I also have to undo the damage that Aria has done. This is proving to be a challenge, but it's something everyone has to go through if they've been close to someone with BPD for a long time - this goes for children, too, in case Ahki is reading. You have to relearn that people don't deal in extremes - most people have fairly average emotions and feelings, and it can be tough to relearn that. Complex PTSD also commonly presents itself after relationships with people with BPD. Being close to someone who can be triggered to extremes at any moment is very unhealthy for the brain, and especially after January, I was constantly on guard against setting her off. Anything relating to Riley would send her off on an angry rant at least for hours, and that lasted, well, right up until she moved out, and could then be angry at me instead. My therapist has reviewed much of my writing and she has stated that the science is very sound. I also put it up to your standard: instead of just spewing whatever Aria has managed to make you think, try thinking rationally and honestly about my claims - both scientific, and moral. I think you will find them well-constructed. Aria's behaviour is /textbook/ BPD. I honestly hope that you are right, and that karma is keeping track of the evil things that people do to other people. Ironically if I could fully believe that, I would find a great deal of peace - I could rely on the fact that Aria will get her comeuppance. But that is not so - manipulative people get away with lots all the time. In fact, one of them is running for president in the US, speaking of narcissists. Instead, she gets away with my things, and somehow manages to convince people like you - who are satisfied with knowing only half the story - to post nasty things on my blog, which you might notice, is mine, so I'll post whatever I want. And right now I'm going through some shit, and writing is how I deal. It helps me process. And I am making progress - I was barely able to be rational for any longer than a few minutes after I received that first email from her for a month and a half - it's been a major challenge to regain my neurological composure, but I'm making serious inroads as I continue to try to understand Aria's behaviours. I don't even really care about what she took any more. I've got a new collar, and we're plenty creative to not need cuffs. It's still stolen property, though. You know what's funny? I don't even know what Aria /actually/ feels happened - all I'm getting is "oh, she's the real victim here" from random people on the internet. I mean, it's true - Germany was the real victim of WWII, right? I mean: if so, she put herself there. I was more than willing to break up amicably. In fact, I don't know any other way to do it - until I had to defend myself from Aria. Each email from her eroded that willingness - and I think is pretty good proof of her, as you say, evil, manipulative bitchiness. Honest, truthful people don't say things like "I was going to give you your collar back but I decided not to because you asked for it and I now I want to withhold it from you". Sorry pal - you picked the wrong side :/ Feel free to Read More if you're curious. I've been deeply hurt by someone with a personality disorder.
I dunno if you've heard. So these days, I find myself hard pressed to not be overly suspicious of those with with personality disorders. Arguably, I've got one too - ADHD most certainly has an impact on my personality, on how I deal with other people, and as I learned recently, with how I process trauma. Depression and anxiety play a role as well. And my family doesn't have a history of fantastic emotional control - concerningly, I'm the only make any progress there. And progress, as you can see, is uneven. No amount of mindfulness can escape the tidal wave of emotions that I feel on, lately, a less-intense but still-regular basis. The loop is rare and the contents predictable - how could you hurt me like this, the last thing I ever wanted was to hate you, I can't believe she stole my things, I don't even know what my collar and cuffs are up to, I can't believe Strider and Tim don't really seem to care or understand what was happened, I wish I could be surprised about Aubrey's reaction and role, and god I just want to be over this so I can talk and think about things that are actually important to me. And so my psoriasis will go away. I still resist the urge to reach out sometimes. I had an opportunity to put a note in the VCR she left here and requested back, but although I desperately wanted to say something, I knew that whatever I said would be used to make me look crazy ("I haven't said anything about her in weeks and she's still going on about it? Geez, get over it already!") or it would just make her angrier, by reminding her of 'us', and possibly retaliate, or she would just pretend like she never saw it because damn, she is good at compartmentalizing. Right, so, self-therapy out of the way, I am inclined to suggest that Aria is a "Dangerous Person". Or perhaps it is more politically correct to say that she is has a 'Dangerous Personality'. Now I know she's made this accusation of me, but mistelling a story that is literally all over the internet is a bad idea in this modern age. It's not a label I apply lightly, nor is it one that I am unwilling to remove, given the right evidence. Of which I have received none, of course. In my opinion this is where I think 'aggressive neutrality' breaks down, as it is a friends' responsibility to help their friends through these times with information that might help the situation evolve more healthily. If one person told me that Aria felt guilty, or ashamed, or really anything regarding what happened, that would shape my thinking on this particular situation greatly. I'm defending myself here because I know that this is a controversial statement - no doubt: I am, after all, a jilted, angry, sour ex. Whoever the label is applied to is irrelevant though. My point is that some people exhibit behaviour which can hurt others. Those people need to know that what they are doing is hurting others. Indeed, like many, many people with behavioural disorders of all kinds, from Borderline Personality Disorder to Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Bipolar and ADHD and all the rest know. Through some combination of genetics and environment, these people are able to see when their disorder is controlling their behaviour in a way that negatively affects others. As a person with a very strong but much less obvious behavioural disorder - Oppositional Defiance Disorder (No one who knows me will be surprised to learn that I eschew authority) - I can attest to the unbelievable power with which one experiences an inability to resist the urges that a body and brain fully intent on running its chemical course. Even something as small as agreeing to set an alarm set a consistent time for when I go to sleep brought me to tears with resisting and the iciest shoulder Marion has yet seen. And I'm in a tiny corner of my head saying "Yeah, that's pretty reasonable, I mean we even usually go to sleep around then anyways, and the doctor will stop bugging me about it, so yeah, that's a good idea. Let's do it.". But the power of these urges is such that one cannot resist them. Speaking of dangerous people, we already have a category for people who are compelled to do physical harm to another - criminals. Read more for my even more long-winded conclusion - and at last, some real advice. |
AuthorChristina Hitchens is a trans female writer living in BC, Canada. She loves computers, animals, and a good argument. Archives
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