use somebody

“Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm”

i realize that there are some things i really don't understand. and there are some things i probably never will. without a doubt in my former life, this would have driven me crazy- this not understanding. but that was before. now i am okay with not knowing. i can't say i like it, but i can live with it. at least i can try to live with it.

i have an acquaintance that has told me they have a bi-polar diagnosis. not so unusual, right? however, the more time i have spent with this person, the more i question if that is actually the diagnosis. i am in no way a diagnostician, but i have come to wonder if this person has a more intricate issue- perhaps even a disorder.

is is sometimes called bpd- borderline personality disorder. from what i understand it is not treatable. or if it is treatable, it is extremely difficult and certainly not curable. the nature of the disorder itself is one that fools its inhabitant into not seeing beyond itself. it causes the affected person to be completely unable to see their own responsibility. they become too busy manipulating any situation to lend their own position into a favorable one. they lose the sense of genuine-ness.

being unsure if my suspicion here is authentic or imagined, i can only go on my gut. knowing i cannot change something makes it no easier to deal with. and living in frustration because of a situation is foolish. so i can't change it and i don't like it, so what do i do? my first inclination was to leave the situation, but that isn't surrender, that is retreat. surrender is acceptance without giving in. understanding is needed and leadership is still required. i am not sure if it's in me, or that i am the right one.

here is a brief description of some traits assigned to bpd from the palace. please know that many of these could easily be assigned to me, especially before i got clean and started taking meds regularly. and i believe they say that often bi-polars in manic periods will present as bpd. (kinda hard to keep up then, eh?) to top it all off, i think i get triggered by this person's behavior, as i recognize it in myself. and i'm pretty sure they know it bothers me, and they enjoy it.

The Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines, Revised
Gunderson and his colleague, Jonathan Kolb, tried to make the diagnosis of BPD by constructing a clinical interview to assess borderline characteristics in patients. The DIB was revised in 1989 to sharpen its ability to differentiate between BPD and other personality disorders. It considers symptoms that fall under four main headings:

Affect
chronic/major depression
helplessness
hopelessness
worthlessness
guilt
anger (including frequent expressions of anger)
anxiety
loneliness
boredom
emptiness

Cognition
odd thinking
unusual perceptions
nondelusional paranoia
quasipsychosis

Impulse action patterns
substance abuse/dependence
sexual deviance
manipulative suicide gestures
other impulsive behaviors

Interpersonal relationships
intolerance of aloneness
abandonment, engulfment, annihilation fears
counterdependency
stormy relationships
manipulativeness
dependency
devaluation
masochism/sadism
demandingness
entitlement

today's sound choice is one from one of my absolute favorite current bands. here is kings of leon with "use somebody"