The Chosen One

The most dangerous and fear-inducing features of Borderline Personality Disorder are the self-harm behaviors and potential for suicide.  An estimated 10 percent  kill themselves.  Deliberate self harming (cutting, burning, hitting, head banging, hair pulling) is a common feature of BPD.  Individuals who self harm report that causing themselves physical pain generates a sense of release and relief which temporarily alleviates excruciating emotional feelings.  Self-injurious acts can bring relief by stimulating production of endorphins, which are naturally occurring opiates produced by the brain in response to pain.  Some individuals with BPD also exhibit self-destructive acts such as promiscuity, binging, purging and blackouts from substance abuse.   It is important for the client, family, and clinician to be able to draw a distinction between the intent behind suicide attempts and self-injurious behaviors (SIB).  Patients and researchers frequently describe self-injurious behavior as a means of reducing intense feelings of emotional pain.  The release of the endogenous opiates provides a reward to the behavior.  Some data suggest that self-injurious behavior in BPD patients doubles the risk of suicide attempts. This dichotomy of intent between these two behaviors requires careful evaluation and relevant therapy to meet the needs of the patient.*


SO TIRED.  I did not sleep well last night and I have not gotten a moment to relax since I got up (minus the hour I spent waiting at the movie theater for Harry Potter and the two and a half hours I spent watching it).  I'm just plain exhausted.  I went with my sister to the storage unit to rearrange in preparation of the arrival of her POD (portable on-demand storage unit) which we will be unloading and arranging to fit in the storage unit my parents have rented along with my things, their things, and my little sister's things.  It is going to be a disaster, mostly because my dad will want to be in control and will be fighting with my older sister for control the whole time.  We're anticipating my dad to have an aneurysm over our rearrangement job, and spend most of the three hours huffing and puffing and bitching about how poorly we did stabilizing all the boxes and oddly shaped items.  My sister's storage unit has the entire contents of a four-bedroom house in it, including an entire bedroom set, which is huge, a large flat-screen TV and an enormous living room set which we will be forced to find room for in this unit the size of a one-car garage that is already half-full.  

Then after spending the whole morning doing that, I GET TO SEE THE KIDS!!!!  For the first time since August, I get to see them and play with them and squish them and love on them and kiss them and tickle them and hold them and feed them and scold them and just generally enjoy all the hilarious words that come out of their mouths.  My little sister and I are the only ones who have not gotten to spend any time with the kids since the whole incident in August, and we both are beyond excited.  I love those kids as though they are my own.  I was there in the room when one of the boys was born.  The last time I saw my niece, she was just about sitting up on her own and now she is pretty much walking.  She turns one exactly one month from today.  Those kids really are the light of my life and I enjoy the shit out of every moment I get to spend with them.

And so I will be retiring shortly.  I need all the energy I can muster tomorrow, but thankfully, I've been building up my exhaustion tolerance and can now spend all day awake and mobile, which I love.

*"NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness | Mental Illnesses." NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness - Mental Health Support, Education and Advocacy. Web. 19 Nov. 2010. <http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Illness&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=54&ContentID=44780>.