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03 April, 2006 - 8:52 p.m.
update #2

sorry... i've been hoarding them

For a long time, I was afraid I had borderline personality disorder. Intense emotional reactions, nearly psychotic reactions to stressful events, self-destructive and self-defeating behavior, feelings of emptiness, changing feelings about self and others, tendency to idealize/denigrate others (no in-betweens), confusion between intimacy/sexuality, frequent crises, fear of change.

And over time, I am relieved to note that many of these symptoms have gone away with a lot of work on anxiety and self-worth. At times, I still freak out about stress and changes and I still occasionally battle self-esteem. And I think we're all a little self-destructive at times.

But it occasionally sticks in the back of my mind that I could be borderline. It's like a fear. Like having symptoms of a major disease and having no health insurance� it will stay in your mind. A really good example of someone with borderline in a movie is marissa tormei in what women want. And there's always girl, interrupted.

I think I just fear loss of control over my emotions. But there we go again.

My last major set of therapy sessions (a year ago?) occurred during my last semester of actual classes. I was over-anxious� a bit of that GAD coming back and I lost control over my ability to cope with worries. I wasn't in a really nurturing situation. It sometimes felt like L was using anxiety to control my behavior and my friends had boyfriends and lives and I felt like I couldn't really vent my stress anywhere. And so I was crying and shaking all the time, sometimes in class. And a professor gently recommended counseling. So I went. And the discussions that ensued wound up revolving around grief/loss and my intense, paralyzing fear of failure. We agreed that my grief over my grandmother's death would progress normally, and it had been only a few months, so we decided to work on the anxiety.

It came out that I was afraid of getting stuck in the same cycle as my mother�a series of awful relationships, having kids too young, being poor all my life, and having no options. We agreed that my life was different from my mother's. I'd had some pretty bad relationships, and some good ones, and I'd been smart enough so far not to get married, so my past response to this problem was pretty applicable to my future. And I'd already passed the age in my life by which my mother already had three kids. And I wasn't pregnant and I was on the pill, so it was pretty safe to assume I would continue not breeding until I felt ready. And, sure I was poor at that time, but I was on my way out of grad school... and had much better chances of getting a job with my education than my mother did with her GED. And I wasn't tied down. I had options. And once those things were said out loud, I felt better. And therapy was over.

I look back now and I see that those fears were somewhat related to L and the immense weight of our relationship bearing down on me. There I was, practically nursing him from my teat, paying for everything due to his inability to stay employed, and we were both broke and he was splurging on dvds and video games and junk food when I could barely eat lunch on a regular basis. And basically, I feared that I would be unable to escape him.

And it brings to mind how much that idea of not being in control has affected me. And it probably will continue to affect me, but at least I know that now.

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