Today I wish to reflect further on the poem I posted on Sunday “The Essential”.
We have all “worn a mask” – we wear a mask with our work colleagues; eg: for fear that we would not be accepted for who we are, we wear a mask in front of our children to protect them from seeing what is going on inside us, we wear a mask in Society for fear we will be rejected; we are not “the norm”. Whatever the “norm” is, if none of us wore a mask we would probably actually “see” that we are more “normal” than we first thought.
I wore a mask constantly and continually from about the age of 10 – nobody knew who I was. I was bullied at school probably because I was skinny and wouldn’t talk. I don’t actually think it’s possible to hide yourself from other children. They still have the ability to use all their senses, they have not yet been conditioned by Society so the innate capacity to sense “difference” remains intact. This is probably why the “sensitive child” is bullied at school – there is actually nowhere to hide.
I hid myself to such a degree, I too, did not know who I was; I had an “identity crisis”. I tried to fit in with others, but, when wearing a mask, this is not possible. I hid myself from boyfriends because I knew they would not like the real me inside and would inevitably reject me. Actually they DID reject me and this was probably as a result of me hiding myself. I hid myself from friends, even close friends that I have known for years. I would always divert the conversation to them; I did not want them to “see” me, the real me inside the shell.
The way that I see the “old me” is; that I was a wick running through one of those very big, thick candles. This wick was thin but strong and was surrounded by a thick layer of wax. In order for me to get to the real me inside I had to burn through the wide layer of wax surrounding me; and there was an awful lot of it.
I did not know me AND I was scared to get to the real me. I, too, feared that I would not like the real me inside, that I would reject myself. There were many times along the therapeutic process that I DID reject myself. When I rejected myself that is when I started feeling suicidal – I wanted to leave myself.
But, no matter how hard you try, no matter what you throw yourself into in order to get away from yourself, you follow yourself, you take “your self” with you. You are still there, it is not possible to get away from you; all you are doing in the process of distraction is hiding from yourself.
I threw myself into work, I loved working. It was only in 1997 when I was asked to leave my last permanent full-time position that I actually went in “search of myself”. Everything had broken down around me, I had or felt I had, no control over what was happening. I could no longer work. All my defences and distractions had broken down and I simply could not continue to “wear the mask”.
What had served as my protection actually became my downfall.
I think this is where my anger with the medical model (NHS) system stems from. I wanted therapy but was not offered any. I was eventually offered a psychologist who experienced me as too “unstable” to work with and was then referred to a Day Hospital (which I shall write about later) – this day hospital only provided structure to my day, nothing else, no therapy.
MYTHS ABOUT BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER
One of the myths of people with my “label” is that we will become dependent on services. Actually “No”, I don’t think there is any evidence to prove this. If we are provided with what we need at the time we need it, there is no proof that we will become dependent. If the person we see thinks they are “professional” and labels themselves as such and does not treat us as an individual, then “yes” I can see that an element of dependency COULD arise. This is due to the fact that we are seeing this “professional” as someone with all the answers. But they are not an expert. They have no expertise over us. They are “not a professional” on me, “Panda”. So the idea of effective therapy is actually to “be with” someone rather than “do to” someone. If you are not “doing to”, are not “administering a treatment” but simply allowing the person to discover themselves then I cannot see how dependency can arise. Nobody actually WANTS to be dependent. By the time we ever get to the stage that I was in in 1997 I was an adult and actually wanted to BE an adult; I did not “want” to revert to a child that NEEDED anyone else.
So that is Myth number 1 – “dependency” – NO.
In therapy what has proved to be the clincher is the relationship between “client” and “therapist”. If our therapist can show us unconditional love and grow to “see” us, then we can “learn” to “see” ourselves.
I have NEVER seen this happen in medical model services. The “therapist” is not prepared to “love” us, is too barriered, “love” is beyond their “ethical code of practice”, they appear boundaried and fearful, and relationship cannot be achieved in a 6 week, one-size fits all, package.
Myth number 2 – “will not commit to therapy”
Whether this is because the “experts” think we have taken on the “sick role” (which is something “they” imposed on us in the first place – I don’t know). But in my experience; I could not commit to therapy from a person that could not commit to me; someone who I knew would only be there in the short term. And time-limited therapy would never work with someone who was too scared to actually talk.
Everything I was offered from the National Health Service (NHS) 1997 – 2006 (9 years) WAS NOT THERAPY. My trust diminished further. I feared ending up on wards and the abusive treatment imposed on me and I would not reveal any of the innermost me to anyone who had the power to put we back on a psych ward. That was a permanent fear deep within me, how could I possibly open up to someone I did not TRUST and had NO RESPECT for.
So “will not commit to therapy” – Correction will not commit to a therapist who does not provide therapy. Needs to develop a relationship with someone. Needs to develop trust (especially if we have already been damaged by childhood experiences – this will obviously take longer). So will not commit to an NHS “therapist”; but I have been in therapy for nearly 8 years. If that is not “commitment” I don’t know what is.
Myth number 3 – “manipulative”
Another myth about the label I was given includes the term “manipulative”. Yes I have seen manipulation, mainly on psych wards. Well, for any medical model practitioners reading this, I think I can tell you precisely why. When on a psych ward not ONE nurse, doctor etc will talk to you, the “patient”. So if anyone becomes manipulative it is in order to get noticed, to get their needs met. This may be by means other than what is actually NEEDED or WANTED at the time but things “build up”. If you are a “baby” crying for attention, crying and the “mother” does not come to you; then you will find alternative means to get that attention.
I don’t think I was manipulative but I do remember asking to speak to someone on a ward and being told “no” over and over again. I actually found it exceedingly hard to ASK (I was not used to doing it). After a while of asking – this could go on for a number of days – I would become frustrated, there were things inside me that needed to be spoken out and I was not given the opportunity; then I would get totally frustrated, angry and fed up with myself and take an overdose to get away from me and the situation I was in. Not being able to let my voice be heard – this MAY be seen as manipulative; it wasn’t really. I still never got what I actually needed as in somebody to talk to and hear me as a person, without judgement, NOT as someone with a label of “Personality Disorder” (PD).
So PD “patients” are manipulative. No that is the view of the “medical model practitioners”. If the person gets the attention / “need met” that they are asking for at the time of asking (and directly at first) there is no cause for “manipulative behaviour”. If we do not get our needs met that is when any manipulative behaviour CAN occur. And by the way guys it was “you” that labelled us with “personality disorder” in the first place.
If you do not treat someone as an individual, if you label them, group them all together, and treat the whole group in exactly the same way, then that is what you are going to see. It is down to the way we are treated; by “you”. If you all treat us as someone with PD then is it not inevitable we will act this way and is it not “your eyes” that are seeing this “behaviour”?
In the 10 years since I left the Medical Model System – I KNOW things have not changed – “lessons have not been learnt”.
I went back to the NHS in 2012 due to a (temporary) break down in my therapy. I NEEDED to speak to someone for a few weeks. My therapist had reflected things back to me that I simply had not “seen” and I was in a state of shock. I was passed from a social worker, to a doctor, to a psychologist and then given a course on Compassionate Mind Training (tools for coping). I became “agoraphobic”, fearful, I felt fear constantly and would spend days fixed in one spot unable to move. I was assigned a CPN who would visit, chat and then go off on sick leave (again with no-one informing me that she was off sick) and I could see all the old patterns of my past “treatments” arising.
When I could actually get out of the house I went back to my therapist, who by then I had turned into my enemy. In order to get further help from the NHS I had to stop seeing my therapist and then, this year, 2 years later I was offered an appointment with a psychologist and guess what she was going to offer me – a six week 1-1 session of coping skills called “therapy”. And again it was another tick box situation if you tick the right boxes you qualify for this therapy. Again no individual aspect. No talking therapy. If I had not gone back to my therapist who knows where I would be now?
I know one thing I would NOT be in a process of Emergence / Awakening if I had stayed in the NHS service as it is now.
Dear NHS will you reimburse me for my 8 years of private therapy? – I will then donate it to this service who are actually providing a “good service”, a service that treats people as individuals, without labels, without focussing on behaviours and “coping skills” and can get to the real core me. The person underneath the mask; the “wick inside the candle”.
awakeningpanda 