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[hangrybird]

The Borderline mind, Mentalisation, and remission.

what is mentalising. Imagine what your world would be like if you were aware of physical things but were blind to the existence of mental things. I mean of course blind to things like thoughts, beliefs, knowledge, desires and intentions, which for most of us self-evidently underlie behaviour. Baron-Cohen s (1995) Mindblindness I think it is vitally important that all patents with the diagnosis of Borderline personlaity disorder, not only get information, on what BPD is but on the success of remission after treatment using MBT (Mentalisation based therapy). The psycho-education of the patient is usually incorporated Into group MBT sessions, and although group members often don’t concentrate or get caught up in tangents about other things, hand outs and the opportunity to ask questions are given. There seems to be still within mental health a lack of informed consent with regards to acute admissions, and complex cases, and I do feel that this is wrong. Educating a person to what BPD is will only help them understand their intense feelings, thoughts and actions. I know this to be true, as I am in remission my self and learning about the disorder through being a Hub Day therapy user, and attending the Scottish Personality Disorder Network conference’s has been invaluable to me. Now off the soap box and down to some proper information conveyance. If you’re reading this and are in, or considering MBT as a BPD treatment but feel anxious, and worried about crisis triggers etc.. It’s ok, we ALL Feel that way even the Therapists are sensitive to crisis triggers. They are there to help you understand in a mindful way what they are, how to challenge them and how to get you, mentalising. Mentalising is thinking about thinking, building self awareness, and awareness of what others may be thinking. The lack of mentalising thinking in Borderline patents is what characterises the personality traits that go with it. Taking words at their literal meaning, not getting where someone is coming from, feeling victimised by family, friends, paranoid thoughts about what people think of you, feeling unwanted, rejected, ignored, suicidal thoughts, and a sense of emptiness. All non mentalising mind sets. And all changeable in the therapeutic setting. Some people take a long time to respond to MBT but when they do the response is dramatic, it is important for me to say that this may have some pit falls, for me it’s pseudo mentalising and misuse of mentalising I tend to take words at their literal meaning, when I person may mean it glibly or metaphorically, I also self sabotage and justify it with false logic using mentalising as a guide. I am also not mentalising in those moments, but if I take a step back, and look at it from the outside I see where I’ve gone off track. Now you may be thinking well thats all very well and good for you, you’re in remission, well I have been an acute addmisson, I have attempted suicides and self mutilated, I’ve substance misused and had eating disorder symptoms, I was a complex case. My recovery was my choice, I was ready to change, and that moment comes at different times for different people. I certainly don’t think im better than anyone or worse, just different. Now while we are on the subject of remission. Here are some stats pinched from an Anthony Bateman lecture. RECURRENCE AND REMISSION After six years 75% of patients diagnosed with BPD severe enough to require hospitalisation, achieve remission by standardised diagnostic criteria. About 50% remission rate has occurred by four years but the remission is steady (10-15% per year). Recurrences are rare, perhaps no more than 10% over 6 years. Treatment has no (or only negative) relationship to outcome Anthony W Bateman (Glasgow 2006) From this we see that significant improvement in the symptoms of BPD and in the quality of life of the person, increases over the Years after therapy. YEY THERE’S HOPE PEOPLE! I also feel I should say through my own experience, some follow up may and probably will be required, there is no magic cure for BPD but if your work hard in therapy and stick with it, remissions happen. I am proof of that. Further reading and info. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2051-5545.2010.tb00255.x/full http://www.scottishpersonalitydisorder.org http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/188/1/1.full

[hangrybird]

[hangrybird]

Say my name bitch.

Most of us, put up with things in life, annoying little things that burn us deep down, yet say nothing, little things that happen daily, things like, people listening to their music loudly at the back of the bus, pedestrians who stop for no reason, right in your line of walking, dogs that bark all night, the gas engineer not turning up, after you've spent a whole day waiting in for their arrival, being called darling by the bus driver, NO WAIT! That we do not simply have to put up with, that, people is condescending, ignorant and plainly sexist. I find that I feel the burning deep inside has become an inferno when a man or woman calls me by unsolicited terms of endearment, it isn't only patronising, but it demeans a person, and is like a wee poke in the chest saying you're a girl know your place, well screw you... No. No. No. You can say, oh but I was just being nice, or its just what we say where I grew up, or I call my wife and daughter darling, I didn't mean anything by it. First of all who the fuck are you kidding? Second, im not your wife or daughter, and I my self told my dad firmly in a somerfield in 2001 never to ever refer to me as lassy ever again, as I wasn't a dog and I had a name. For some people the use of terms of endearment is habitual, well break that habbit right now. Some it comes with a service job, well it is humiliating enough that public sector workers get called dear, love, darling, pet, and even babe, without them, themselves perpetuating this. Don't, just stop, we live in a time of equality, civil rights, women even have a vote now you know, and just because you're 10 years older than the guy who serves you in the co-op, doesn't give you the right to call him son, laddy, or darling. It works both ways, read his name badge, you realise that's his name. Fucking use it. This is an annoying little thing that represents a bigger problem, look in any news agent's, pick up any magazine, all of the content of it is repugnant, you're just so used to seeing the female and male form used to promote, anything. you have been brainwashed by a media culture where it is ok to treat each other like commodities, like objects, like pets. If you make one small change, make it not to call the woman or man who serves you, in any capacity a pet name, read their name badge, or hey bloody ask them, why not if you see them everyday. And if someone calls you darling, you have every right to ask them not too, and don't let anyone make you feel guilty for expressing that right.

[hangrybird]

The meaning of social networking life

I begin this blog with my musings and observations, on some of the very odd, and I feel psychicly dangerous idiosyncratic patterns of behavior, used on social networking sites. I first wish to acknowledge the fact that I understand, many users are isolated, or not healthily socialised, have mental health or emotional problems, I know this to be true of many of my Twitter followers diagnosed or undiagnosed, or maybe over diagnosed, I'm not here to split hairs, about mental health, or emotional well being, I have my own cross to bare on that subject. I just want to make it clear regardless of all of the abovementioned issues pertaining to followers or former facebook friends (I deactivated that garbage in January) I feel everyone's actions and words are accountable to them regardless of problems or issues. It seems, in order to be a success in the online social scene one must first and foremost be a contrarian, and by that I mean, in the nicest possible way, a bit of an anti nice, anti fun, anti anyone's opinion but you're own, make everyone feel they're offensive, and crashingly over the top in comparison to you, type of cunt. Everyone must censor their opinions or be berated by a swamping of your ill thought out, manipulative, guilt seeking missiles of tweets, passively aggressively deployed not directly but obtusely at the civilians of, for arguments sake, Twitter. It's one rule for them and another for us, and I find my self thinking, aww but they have x to deal with or y to contend with. Well we all have X and Y we all feel like shit sometimes, we all get lonely, we all get offended, we all get pissed off, so my advice is do what we all do, shut the fuck up and get on with it, failing that get a therapist, failing that talk to family, failing that, well you're reading it. I'm at the risk of sounding unsympathetic, well my reasoning is sound, I have spent my fair share of weeks and months on acute psychiatric wards, in intensive psychotherapy, and so on. And the only person who got me well, was me, A) because I wanted to be better, and B) because I decided to stop being a selfish, cunt. I quoted a great line from the Claire Allan novel Poppy Shakespeare today on Twitter, and I will do so again here, "everyone has problems, but we don't all make a career out of them" I am yet to see any words that describe the culture of perpetrators of mental ill health, for me my diagnosis was Borderline personality disorder to which I am no longer clinically significant , a fact I am proud of and by fucking god I worked hard to get out of that culture, I saw today also a great quote, it read something like "I.didn't choose to have the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, but I did choose the path to recovery". To use an illness or problem for attention online is an old issue, but to use it to make you impervious to normal social protocol, for example, demand others refrain from their right too free speaking, on issues like atheism, or feminism, or any old thing, but to also demand your rights to the same privilege of free speech online, and use say your diagnosis as an unstated yet obvious(maybe not you) leverage for us to over look you, cos we dont want to cause you to feel bad, or have a crisis, all the while we all feel suffocated by your tyranny. Well NO. And no im not simply going to unfollow you, that is also an excuse for you to play the martyr. Grow up, find a purpose, socialise, volunteer. Just fuck off with your self righteous, self entitlement. And let us enjoy social networking again.