October 15, 2021 (Reflection)

I am thankful for my partner.

I am thankful for having someone who has supported me in treatment.

I am thankful they show me compassion and acceptance.

I am thankful I fell asleep and woke up next to my best friend.

I am thankful I can feel the fall air.

I am thankful I can feel the warmth of my partner's skin.

I am thankful I can remember what it feels like to be young.

I am thankful I feel embarrassed.

I am thankful I feel ashamed.

I am thankful for regret.

I am thankful for my Rabbi and the conversations we have.

I am thankful for oxygen.

I am thankful for driving through the country.

I am thankful for mountains surrounded by fields of nothing.

I am thankful for the bookstore where we go on dates.

I am thankful for the love I am shown.

I am thankful I can return that love.

I am thankful for the things I have.

I am thankful for the things I have lost.

I am thankful for the journey I am on.

I am thankful for my life.

I am thankful for early morning trips for donuts.

I am thankful for late night trips for pizza.

I am thankful for the education I am able to receive.

I am thankful for the treatment I am in.

I am thankful for the talents I have been blessed with.

I am thankful people listen.

I am thankful for my medication.

I am thankful for my imagination.

I am thankful for the stories people share with me.

I am thankful for the way my life has turned out.

I am thankful that things are going to be okay.

I am thankful that I was born.

I am thankful I feel empathy.

I am thankful I feel anger and understand it.

I am thankful I feel sad.

I am thankful that I am still here.

I am thankful that there is still time for me to do good.

I am thankful for the next chapter in my life.

I am thankful to grow alongside my failures and be more than I was.

I am thankful for my health.

I am thankful for my lungs.

I am thankful for my voice.

I am thankful for my thoughts. The good ones, and the bad ones.

I am thankful I talk to myself and write poems.

I am thankful I can use my words to express myself.

I am thankful for reflection.

I am thankful for healing.

I am thankful for kindness.

I am thankful for my future.

I am thankful I can use my voice.

I am thankful I can understand my mental illness.

I am thankful for the way candles sound.

I am thankful for the way the fireplace smells.

I am thankful for walks in the rain.

I am thankful for holding hands.

I want to be a good person.

I want to have a family.

I want to be a functioning member of society.

I want to help people.

I want to be worth something.

I want to follow my dreams.

I want to make people feel understood. I want for people to understand me.

I am scared I will never be normal.

I am scared of being hated.

I don't want to be a failure.

I will continue to think deeply.

I will continue to think before I speak.

I will continue to better myself.

I will continue to cry when I see people in pain.

I will continue to mourn when I see people die.

I will continue to be empathetic when I see people who need help.

I will tell my partner I love them.

I will celebrate their achievements.

I will model their love.

I will hold them close like they do me and tell them I am there.

I will tell them they are wanted and are needed.

I will whisper that everything is going to be okay.

I will be strong.

I am thankful for growth.

Nick

October 12, 2021 (Rehabilitation: BPD)

I did a Google search, I have BPD and want to be a good partner, and almost every search result is an article about loving someone with BPD. Not having BPD and being a good partner. I'm curious why that is. Is it because people with BPD lack the inner reflection of opening up publicly about the ugliness it presents behind closed doors? Are they afraid? I thought it would be good to go through one of these articles and talk about being a person with BPD and give my experiences. I think it’s important for people with mental illness to talk about what it is like to be in relationships.

(Article Link: https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-romantic-bpd-relationships-425217)

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the resource mental health professionals refer to when making a diagnosis, symptoms of BPD include intense, unstable, and conflicted personal relationships.

In essence, people with BPD are often terrified that others will leave them. However, they can also shift suddenly to feeling smothered and fearful of intimacy, which leads them to withdraw from relationships. The result is a constant back-and-forth between demands for love or attention and sudden withdrawal or isolation.

This is true. Throughout my life, before I started treatment, I had a crippling fear of being left in relationships. To the point where I was unhappy with them but that abusive feeling of control was incredibly prevalent. I couldn’t let people go, because I couldn't be alone. I remember having conversations in my past of telling a partner off and using hurtful language and then immediately calling them back and trying to apologize and tell them I love them. I would do this literally hundreds of times. I would require an ever changing respect of boundaries for myself and not respect theirs at all. These behaviors are dangerous. I had the toxic attribute of fighting with someone, spending days winning them over, and immediately isolating them and myself.

Another BPD symptom that particularly impacts relationships is called abandonment sensitivity.1 This can lead those with BPD to be constantly watching for signs that someone may leave them and to interpret even a minor event as a sign that abandonment is imminent. The emotions may result in frantic efforts to avoid abandonment, such as pleading, public scenes, and even physically preventing the other person from leaving. Another common complaint of loved ones in borderline relationships is lying. While lying and deception are not part of the formal diagnostic criteria for BPD, many loved ones say lying is one of their biggest concerns; this can be because BPD causes people to see things very differently than others.

This is also very true in my experience with BPD. I have abandonment sensitivity, and would try to control my partners from leaving. I remember when I was younger, there would be instances of fights in which I would threaten to break up with my partner because I wanted them to say they didn’t want to, and would push it until that person wanted to break up, and then would become manic in trying to save the relationship because I didn’t want to be alone. I would try to use manipulative language and behaviors to get them back, not because I truly loved them, but because as soon as they would say they were going to leave, I couldn’t handle the feelings of abandonment. It is a disgusting shameful behavior, but one that is exhibited by BPD, and requires treatment for. Lying was another thing that was incredibly accurate for me. Trying to control situations with lies and creating false realities, and even lying about my own intentions. These are behaviors that need therapeutic treatment. They aren’t fixed just by making a choice overnight, because they are learned and in my case a daily routine.

Impulsive sexuality is another classic symptom of BPD, and many people with BPD struggle with issues of sexuality. Also, a large percentage of people with BPD experienced childhood sexual abuse,2 which can make sex very complicated. Finally, other symptoms of BPD, including impulsivity, self-harm,1 and dissociative symptoms, which can have an indirect impact on borderline relationships.

This is very accurate to myself. I have written most of my art about my struggles with my sexuality and attraction to men. I was raised in a home where I learned that sex and women were evil, so those feelings projected themselves onto my relationships. In my previous blog, I discuss the behaviors and language learned from that abuse and the struggles they created. You can find that here:

(https://www.mccaffertyband.com/post/august-31-2021-rehabilitation-mental-health-bipolar-bpd)

It is interesting to me that this article states,

In terms of sex, research has shown that women with BPD have more negative attitudes about sex, are more likely to feel pressured into having sex with their partner, and are more ambivalent about sex than women without BPD.5 Unfortunately, little research has been done on sexuality in men with BPD.

*Trigger warning: This is an embarrassing subject and probably why there isn’t much on it, but I want to be honest about how my BPD affected my view on sex before treatment. GRAPHIC LANGUAGE IS USED HERE*

For me, BPD makes sex incredibly complicated. Feelings of jealousy are what I struggled with most as I started having sexual relationships. I would have graphic imagery of my partner having sex with their exes, and imagining they were bigger than me and made them cum harder than I could. Just really insecure thoughts that were destructive to my relationships because I couldn’t even have sex without thinking about those things, and that jealousy would make it so I couldn’t connect emotionally with my partner. It also made me cruel and hurtful during fights. I would say things along the lines of, “Well if you are so unhappy why don't you just go back and fuck (insert name)” I think this type of insecurity destroys many relationships because men are too egotistical to admit these kind of thoughts and get help for them. Sex is a complicated thing, and being abused around sex makes it even more difficult to adjust to in a normal way. It took me a long time and treatment to change those core beliefs, and see sex as a positive normal thing. It is something I am proud I have conquered, but it was something I struggled with. I struggled with my sexual identity too. I remember the first time I looked up gay porn was on an iPod touch I had gotten, and I remember after how I locked the iPod away in my drawer and got on my hands and knees and prayed about it. I was raised in a home that shamed sexuality and I struggled with all aspects of it. I also would get jealous of my partners exes because I am attracted to men and would think about how they were more attractive than me. Having struggles around sexuality are very intense with BPD, but with the right therapy and understanding, it is possible to become educated and change those core beliefs. It also helped me become more content with myself and my own body.

The key to maintaining a relationship with someone with BPD is to find ways to cope with these cycles and to encourage your BPD partner to get professional help to reduce these cycles. Sometimes partners in BPD relationships are helped by couples therapy.

The language used here bothers me. “Encourage your BPD partner to get professional help.” We as the individual with BPD need to be the one encouraging ourselves ro get help. BPD is too much for the partner without it to be trying to get the person with it into therapy. If we as the people with BPD aren’t trying to get help, then the journey has not even started yet. Treatment for BPD is an ongoing thing, allday, everyday. It has become my entire life. I failed my partners and past relationships because I wasn’t in treatment. I didn’t even know what BPD was, and I don’t think my past self would have cared, so I can see the sadness and fear in that statement.

If you have mental health struggles, how do you navigate your relationships? Is it possible to have safe, fulfilling relationships with BPD? For you and your partner? I think it is, and it is something I have been able to do with my partner. I am so thankful for them and their love. They have changed my life. There is no timeline for how long it takes a person to conquer and grow with their mental illness, but it is up to us to take the first step.

Nick

October 11, 2021 (Positivity)

To the person reading this, are you following your dreams right now? Are you happy with your life? Your friends? Your partner? When you close your eyes, is what you want right in front of you? Or somewhere completely different? If it is somewhere completely different, pick up your things and move. Go to where those things are. If you see yourself building beautiful worlds from words that cloud your thinking, use those words for a living. If you hear things in music, see what flows from your arm to the instrument and what you create. And keep creating. If you see things for film, follow that passion. If your dream is to be sober, and live a healthy life, do it. Don’t settle for what is easy, or what you may think life has planned for you.

You are in control of your own destiny, and someday your heart will stop. You will die, just like I will die, and you will never have dreams again. You’ll never be able to see the way you see again, or think the way you think, the hours you work at a job you hate will mean nothing, just like it would mean nothing if you “failed” trying to follow your dreams. But following a dream is never a failure, it is living. Spending time around a partner who makes you miserable isn’t living, settling on a subject you are studying just because you feel societal pressure to go to college isn’t living. Following your dreams the one time you are here is living. And a dream can absolutely be academic based, as long as it is something you actually care about.

Throughout my life, I felt like I never had the courage to follow my dreams. I went to school for something that felt fine and like a placeholder for my life, but not something I wanted to do. I was in relationships I felt nothing for and stayed because it seemed to be my “life path.” In doing so I felt more and more depressed, and I wished I was far off writing scripts and songs for a career. There were a million reasons for me to stay where I was, but none of them made me happy.

In reality, I was scared to be on my own and made excuses for not trying. I would always justify it with, some people are born to work in those fields, and you aren’t. So I stayed my course, convincing myself it was for the best.

That is a deadly thought, to think some people were born to achieve great things but not yourself. It’s something I struggle with daily, and something that I wholeheartedly believe at times. I think that I am destined to be a failure, and it feels hypocritical talking about following dreams, because I have caused significant damage to mine. It makes it hard at times to feel like it's possible to achieve them. But I am at a point in my life where I am ready to follow them.

But my dreams are different from your dreams. What do yours look like? A dream is never too small, and also never too large. What is your ideal life? And how are you going to make that happen? The thing that sucks about following a dream is that you are the only one who can make it happen. Only you can have the determination, vision, and follow through to make those leaps of faith. Maybe you want to move to far off cities for opportunities but you are scared to be alone so you haven’t. Maybe you are in a relationship that is toxic but you are scared to leave because you have built a life together and you don’t know how to rebuild, maybe you have done things in your past that you regret and are scared they will haunt you forever.

Whatever it is, the excuse isn’t good enough. If you died today, would you be happy with your life? What would you feel like you have accomplished, and did you follow your dream? There are so many humans on this planet, it can feel hard to have a sense of individuality and realize your contribution to this world is unique only to you. The things that are special to you, and what you are good at, are unique to only you. There is only one of your brain that thinks the way yours does, there is only one of your heart that beats the way yours does, there are only two of your hands that hold the warmth yours do, and two of your eyes that see what others can't. And only two of your feet that can take you anywhere. Go be where you are happy, go do what makes you happy. Follow your dreams, no matter what they look like. Be who you truly are. Because someday you will die, just as I will die too

Nick

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In regards to merchandise, we have gotten the test prints in for the 50 limited shirts and I have a meeting with my team tomorrow about them, so I hope to have more information about that this week as well. I will also be replying to the messages my team has sent me starting tomorrow. Thank you to anyone who has written in, I value the time you take to reach out.