The Kiss of Death? Nope, not anymore.

BEST DAY OF THE YEAR!!!

No, I'm not talking about Valentine's Day. Grow up. This isn't Barbie's Magic Dream House.

I'm talking about today.

Today is my most celebrated holiday out of the entire year. Today is the day I look forward to the most. Today is the day I regret being poor, because I can usually only justify throwing about $20 at it.

Today is 50% off Boxed Chocolates Day.

I'm a total sucker for boxed chocolates.  

They're my favorite thing.

I digress...

Have any of you been noticing that I've been a lot more uppity and speaking my mind lately? Like somehow I'm just not holding shit back anymore? Like I'm less worried about offending people with my opinions?

I’m not sure, but I think it started when I finally stood up to JerkDad and called him an egotistical ass.  

It's like that suddenly broke some chains or something.

I'm not complaining!

I'm just wondering if anyone else has picked up on it.

Mental Health / Self-Care:

- Therapy – Here we're actually going to get to the main point of today's entry. This came up on Tuesday during my session with Valkyrie, but I had other stuff on my mind yesterday and I wanted to save this for today.

Pathfinder made this observation about me.

I told Valkyrie what he'd said and she just nodded in total agreement.

Now, I hope you're not expecting any false modesty here, because the truth is that I fucking rock when it comes to managing my mental illnesses. That's not to say I don't still have bad days. Because trust me, I still have bad days where I can get stressed out and really reactive. But, for the most part I'm pretty damn awesome at avoiding my triggers and staying pretty damn sane.

This also makes me a hermit, but whatever.

Anyway...

Pathfinder described me as riding in a chariot, and my mental illnesses had been harnessed as my horses. The way he saw me, I had turned them around and started to use them to work in my favor instead of against me. I'd learned ways to be proud of them and find their advantages.

Valkyrie agrees.

I'll admit it, it's all true.

Especially with the Borderline Personality Disorder.

That diagnosis is the kiss of death for most mental health sufferers. It literally means a lifetime of bad relationships and grief. For many who deal with it, it's a never ending sinkhole of rage, pain, and despair.  

*shrug*

I just figured out one day that it didn't have to be.

You see, the primary overarching experience of BPD is our emotional intensity. We feel every emotion 100% ALL THE TIME!! And it's fucking exhausting!! Especially since we have a propensity for the darker emotions.

Okay, so you think that sounds bad? Well I got hit with a double whammy.

I've got emotional memory too.

There are different types of memory. I forget what they all are. But some people are more analytical or more factual, etc. They can still remember the pin number on their bank card from 10 years ago, or they never need to look up their interest rates because it's all in their heads.

Nope, not me. Nothing at all useful like that here. I can't remember a pin or a password unless it spells something I'm emotionally connected to.  

^^^^See? There's that word again. ^^^ 'emotional'.

I can still remember my favorite line from a show I used to watch 30 years ago because it made me laugh my tits off. It struck such a strong /emotional/ cord in me that it's forever burned into my brain:

"Ya half-witted toady to a third-rate god! Come and get me!"

(psst, it was Zena, Warrior Princess)

Okay, back to the point!

One day I was taking the bus home from a rather dismal therapy appointment. This was soooo many moons ago and long before I found Valkyrie. I was depressed. It didn't feel like we'd done the work. This was also before I figured out that I'm way outside of most therapists pay grade.  

I was moping about the fact that my Borderline in combination with my Emotional Memory was making it hard for me to live, because all I had to do was think about a traumatic event for a single second and WHAM! I'd be reliving all that pain in real time, like it was happening to me all over again.

It was bad.

I'm not gonna lie.

It fucking sucked.

And then I had a little 'ah ha' moment.

"Wait a minute? If just thinking about a bad event can make me relive all those negative emotions... what would happen if I thought about something GOOD that happened to me?"

OMG...

I started locking on to my first date with Bran.

I'd spend HOURS just blissing out on that one. We took a bath together... it was SO lush!

Suddenly my double whammy curse was one hell of a fucking gift and I wasn't giving that up for anything!

And that's all it took.

One little 'ah ha' moment... and I realized that every curse hides a blessing.  

All I had to do was dig and find it.

Now when it comes to my Borderline Personality Disorder? That kiss of death? Nope, not anymore.  I love it... I'd never give it up. All that emotional intensity!! I can feel LOVE, JOY, PASSION... and SO MUCH MORE... And I feel that shit a thousand times more than other people.

I actually feel sorry for normal people because they can't feel what I feel.

It's like I can see or hear beyond the normal human spectrum and I'm aware of so much more beauty in the world because of my disorder.

LOL,

Disorder?

Am I still even calling it that?

- Writing – Nothing new to report.

- Reading - Nothing new to report.

- Yarn Therapy – Still super slow on Spiritual Ripples... and this has been a bad week to try to get back to Misha. It has to be an appointment free day where I've had enough sleep. And no... I think my next day to try that is Monday the 19th. Even though I still have it on my calendar to try it this weekend, the Unicorn will be here and so I'm not sure what kind of a head space I'll be in.

- Sleep / Fitbit – 6 hours 7 minutes, 4x awake, 14x restless, 51 minutes awake/restless - OKAY! This PLUS the scheduled afternoon #NapAttacks – working fucking wonders!

- Fur-babies – Had a Dreamy visit last night. Such a puddin' belly.

Physical Health / Unfuck Yourself:

 

- Exercise/Yoga - / - Weight Management – Yeah, so... Aquatic Therapy today... wish me luck.

Relationships / Family:

- Bran – We're leaving in half an hour to go retrieve CHOCOLATE!!!

Update: $25 – good haul – 4 boxes! One REALLY big one!!

Then he bought me breakfast too.  

[insert many hearts here]

- The Unicorn - Nothing new to report.

Relationships / Sweeties:

- Updates on Favorites -  

- Blue Falcon - Nothing new to report.

- Sweeties -

One of my 'almost' Sweeties checked in last night... I can't remember if I have a Code Name for him or not... either way I should probably try to come up with one if he's going to be in contact again.

This isn't the kind of relationship that's ever going to happen in the physical sense because he's in India (long story), but he was there for me a lot during the horror of 2016, so I'm still loyal to him.

He's going through a metric fuck-ton of his own shit right now and I'm literally the only person who understands him. You know how it is with me and my Sweeties... with every one of them there's this very unique, deep, and special bond.

It's so hard to explain... but, I love him and he needs me. So, I'm here for him.

Update: I just thought about this.

[[BTW, I Update during my proof read, which is coming about 45 minutes later than my original composition today because of the boxed chocolate run.]]

There's this one song that I've always associated with this particular 'almost Sweetie' (which, I'm pretty sure makes him an AmbiguSweetie) - Never Enough by Asthetic Perfection... So, I think I'm going to Code Name him Never Enough.

This song speaks highly of Never Enough's relentless ambition to succeed in life. So, there it is. We might have a new subsection in AmbiguSweeties soon.

We'll see how this plays out first, though. Not sure how much contact we'll be in.

 - AmbiguSweeties -

 - Pathfinder - Nothing new to report.

Relationships / Just Friends:

Nothing new to report.

End Notes:  

UGH...  

Bran's awake and doing that thing where he's pretending to be a cat so he can justify being cute and distracting me... so... I guess this entry is done without much of a closing note.

*sigh*

Update: I got bitchy for a second when he said he was taking me to grab breakfast... It's all about the shit I need to get done before my appointment today.  

I get bitchy when there's too much on my plate.

This has been explained to Bran, but should really be the topic of another entry.