Radical Acceptance

I thought this article would resonate with quite a few of you:

No one knows how many people with severe mental illness live what appear to be normal, successful lives, because such people are not in the habit of announcing themselves. They are too busy juggling responsibilities, paying the bills, studying, raising families — all while weathering gusts of dark emotions or delusions that would quickly overwhelm almost anyone else.

It's hard for me to admit this, because I am one of 'those people' who try SO DAMN HARD to function, but I am, at the core, emotionally identical to those who are borderline. On good days, I dissociate the bad feelings, I distract myself from the chronic emptiness, and I fill myself with the desires and emotions of other people instead of facing my own. Because my own feelings are so painful, I'd do anything to get rid of them. Thank god for dissociation. Thank god for splitting myself into parts. Because if it weren't for the controlling part, that obsessive OCD part who is trying to fix everything about me, I would have easily succumbed to self-harming and suicide a long time ago.

I'm sorry to be so unsympathetic here, but I sometimes find it hard to read how other people are feeling (aka poorly) and managing their own moods (aka also poorly). Another blogger recently wrote about being depressed for the third time in her life. I'm thankful for the days I'm not fighting depression. People get diagnosed with Bipolar and given medicine for far lower (and less often) levels of despair and mania and suicidal thoughts... is it really all down to self-harm and unsafe behaviours? Because if it were down to feelings alone, they should have locked me up a long time ago. But instead, I escape attention by being convincingly okay.

I read a blog post recently about someone discovering their friend was so clinically depressed she couldn't stop crying. They took her to the hospital, because she was suffering. One day of dark thoughts! One day!

I didn't have friends. I didn't have parents. All I had was sleep. School, suffering and then sleep.

I think what stuns me is realising (thanks to therapy) how severely emotionally neglected I was growing up. I can't fathom seeking help when I feel so much despair. I just cry and cry for hours. I detach. I shamefully desire death.

I see people write about these experiences on the boards or blogs, and people urge them to get help. I can't relate. I don't share those experiences, not even with my therapist. Because it's my responsibility? Because I am deluded into thinking I have weathered it alone since I was 10, that no one else can change anything now?

People with depression ask me for help because they think I am sensible. They've read my story. They see how much I function. They think I understand, that I could tell them the secret to feeling good again. I treat them with compassion. I urge them to connect to others.

Why can't I take my own advice?

I don't even want to post this, because I know I will just react defensively to your comments, especially the helpful ones. The more helpful you are, the more I will push you away. And I am fighting against this. Fighting against myself, while simultaneously trying to accept myself. It's a nightmare. But every time I learn how to cope on my own, I find another reason to stay alone.

I wish someone smarter than me would see how much I'm suffering and force me to accept help, rather than hiding it. But I'm just too good at hiding it, I guess.

Thanks to my dissociative disorder, I hide it from myself.